The Relationship Between Time and Integrity
Time management = hot topic. What is your relationship with time? Is it healthy? Do you feel like it is controlling you?
Time management = self-management. Managing our thoughts and behaviors. The choices we make. How we use our time. We can't really manage time - you get what you get and not a minute more.
So, how do we make those decisions? Get clear on our purpose, our vision of our ideal self and our definition of a meaningful life.
Follow me here. Living your purpoase = living with personal integrity. "Personal Integrity" is the quality of being truthful and honest with yourself and others, of intentionally aligning personal behaviors and actions to be congruently aligned with your own personal values, morals and ethics.
In practice that means spending our time on people and activities that align with our purpose. It's not always easy and it takes a practice (and, no, I do not mean every part of the day will be filled with deep meaning and enjoyment).
Time Management Audit
To start, track your time for a week maybe two, even a few days will help. I am sure there are plenty of apps out there that will help you track your hours and activities (side note, hacks and tech not the same thing as time management).
Maybe this seems silly to you. You think, I have a calendar that I use pretty consistently I know where my time goes...ok, but as someone who has had to bill client time in 6-minute increments, you don't really have an objective sense until you track it.
Where are you spending your time and on what? How much time are certain activities taking? Is that more or less than what you thought it would take?
Where are you getting stuck? What are you doing at that moment? What are you feeling? Is it overwhelm or dread? What activities increase your energy? Which ones deplete you?
What time of day do you have the most energy? Are you a morning person? (I am! I do my best work before 10am).
All behavioral changes and mindset shifts start with being aware.
I Promise To...Make a Better Choice
Having clarity around your purpose helps you bread down your vision into a limited number of goals. The more clarity the more specific you can be. Long-term goals are great guideposts, but you need short-term, realistic (I struggle with this one!) and measureable goals to keep you moving forward. I need to feel that sense of accomplishment. Check the box.
Those goals can be broken down into yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily tasks. This is your roadmap. That is all fine and dandy but sometimes I still go astray. Why? Well let's see, my acts are my thoughts, my thoughts can be driven by emotion, emotion could be about something deeper - let's leave that for another day.
So, I make myself a promise that supports my journey? We make them to other people all the time, so why not to ourselves? What happens if I don't keep that promise? This is where personal integrity needs a nudge.
For example, I need to do more social media marketing. If I think about FB, Instagram, and LinkedIn all at once I go right to overwhelm, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Stops me in my tracks. What about this instead? I promise that I will do one post a week on Mondays between 10am-12pm. It's clear and it's specific.
Now, what if I don't do it? If there isn't some consequence what's the point, just feel crappy or guilty, get all judgey towards myself? What if I just assign a specific, proportional consequence? If I don't post, then I will lose my second cup of coffee 2 days that week (that is drastic for me!) or 30 mins of binge watching the latest Ozark season.
Time Management Done Right
You will always be faced with competing demands on your time, there is only so much of it in a day. If you approach these trade-offs from a place of purposefulness, you will make choices that align with your goals. When you can look at an activity and tie it to an action next week or next month and so on, you will make choices that keep you on your path to living your best life.
On the other hand, if you are disconnected from your purpose and your values or they are hazy, you will still have competing demands on your time, but now you will be driven by what other people want from you not what you want. Integrity is being unified and whole.
And no whining (ok a little bit), "everyone needs my time, I can't get to [it]". I have no idea where my Sunday went. Ahh you could get to it if you make a different choice and you do know where your Sunday went. Don't let yourself off the hook so easily.
It's a practice. You should take quiet moments during the day or when you get into bed to ask yourself "What do I really care about? Did I spend my time today doing things to support that?"
Want a sign you are not living your purpose? You dread what you have to do and don't get what you need done to be successful (exactly where I was before I took the leap from big law to entrepreneurship). The flip side, if you are living your purpose you are likely more motivated. You may struggle less to get the work done (I still struggle with certain tasks that take me forever to figure out and I do not love them but...it supports and drives what I care about, so I do it.). It's not so much doing what you don't want to do as choosing to do something that moves you closer to the ideal.
Today, time management skills are being tested. For many, it means reshuffling schedules and re-prioritizing. Maybe this time at home has given some a new perspective on what's most important, what they really want to do, or how they want to contribute at work. You decide how you spend your time.
