Ever felt like you could be better at managing your time?

Transcription

Hi there this is Christina and today I want to talk about time management.

Yes that sounds so boring, so do you think you need to go get your pillow and have a glass of warm milk before we talk?  No you don’t because I’m going to make it interesting and exciting, I mean I find it exciting so here we go.

I have my own particular methodology for time management, I have a formula that I use and I call it the CRAVE formula.

So let’s go through the formula, let me talk it through and we’ll see what you think.

Let’s say that you got a whole lot of stuff that you want to get done, you’re not sure what to do , you’re not sure where start, you’re just floundering a little bit and it’s like okay got to take a deep breath and get myself in the zone ready to get this sorted out.  That’s where my formula comes in CRAVE.

The C stands for categorize– what categorize means is basically, how does a particular thing that you have to do fit into your life in terms of goals?  Is it a short term goal, a long term goal?  Is it a health goal, a fitness goal? Is it a business related goal, is it a career goal, etc.?

So what I would do is with all this stuff that you’ve got to get done, pick up a note pad and pen because sometimes getting it out of your head, takes a load of your shoulders and makes it so much easier than carrying it all around in your head.  So jot everything down that you want to get done, that you have to get done and go through and categorize it.

You can even categorize it based on time if you want – okay this is a 5 minute task and this is a 1 hour task, plus the other examples I mentioned earlier classify it by fitness or by health or business etc.  So that’s the first step, that’s the C.

R is remove, reassign or reschedule.

Remove- what is it on this list that I don’t need to do, it’s just stupid and I thought I had to do it but I don’t need to. Or I’ve been invited to such and such a party and I don’t want to go; decline the invitation, remove it, just remove the obstacle from the list.  There is something on the list that’s not urgent, it’s not important, it was just a thing -delete it, do you have to do it? No, remove.

Reassign – the house is messy I’ve got to get everything done but I’m in meetings all day today and then I’ve got to do stuff tomorrow etc. Delegate it out.  So in my life I delegate my cleaning, I’m using this as an example, and I love cleaning I do – I love it, but I have this beautiful cleaner that comes in for 3 hours every fortnight.   I get home from work  on those days that she has been, in my house is pristine and I haven’t had to do anything, my sheets are changed, the kitchen is polished, everything is spotless, my dressing table’s had everything removed, everything dusted everything put back.  The bathroom is clean, the toilet’s clean, everything is vacuumed all that type of stuff.  So if you don’t have to do it yourself if it’s not something you love or something you have time for or something you’re not good at, reassign it to someone else.  So that’s the second R, remember we had remove, reassign and last up reschedule.  If there is something that’s in your calendar for this week and you just don’t think you’re going to have time to get to it, see what can be moved.  Look at how important everything is, look at how urgent everything is and something is going to have to give, something might have to move.  That’s what reschedule is about.

Okay so we are at C R A.  A for allocate – what we’re doing now is everything that’s left after you’ve categorized and you’ve removed, reassigned, rescheduled – everything that’s left allocate it a space in your diary.

So get out your diary I don’t care if it’s paper or if it’s a Google calendar or it’s an iCal or whatever but put this stuff in because once it’s in there it doesn’t get lost, also it’s out of your head but it’s in your calendar; something that’s in your calendar means you have to get it done right.  So that’s the way I do it, that’s what allocating is all about.

V now this seems odd but it’s not.  V is for vessels, it’s little umbrellas under which I can put everything.  So let’s say my list has a whole bunch of cooking tasks on it for example, I look at them and I go well, what things can I prepare in advance and let’s say there’s a whole lot of things I need to buy at the grocery store, well what list can I write down so that it’s easy to get them when you get there. Let’s say you’ve got 5 or 6 things you need to do in your business, well get out your business to do list however you track that and out those 5 or 6 things in there, so you’re starting to put things in their ‘home’.

Lastly E = Evaluate because you’ve gone through this whole process of having this massive list where you’ve categorized, removed, reassigned, rescheduled, you’ve allocated things in your diary, you’ve put things into their little umbrellas their little vessels and now you evaluate.  You go okay, what worked, what didn’t worked, what lesson do I learn out of this that I can take into account next time I’ve got to go through this process?

So what we have here is we’ve gone from having this big jumble of stuff that has to get done to basically having an organized schedule, a defined list and a process to follow.  So remember the formula:

C – Categorize
R – Remove, reassign, reschedule
A – Allocate: allocate a time in your schedule
V – Vessels put into their little umbrellas their little sections
E – Evaluate everything. What worked what didn’t work, what would I like to do next time, what won’t I do next time?

So hopefully that helps you with some of your time management struggles.  Drop me a note below; let me know how you go, let me know what you think and I’ll talk to you soon.

Bye.