Time Management Exercise

What would a time management exercise and stock commodities have in common?

Ask any financial adviser (or any person off the street) what the most valuable commodity in this economy is. Maybe they’ll tell you, “Gold”… or corn, copper, or whatever commodity is up in the market that week.

But, all the gold in the world can’t buy a dying man the most valuable commodity on earth: time.

We often forget how valuable the commodity of time really is. Sometimes we’re downright hostile towards time: “I’m just going to kill some time today!”

Of course, we have some inkling that time isn’t worthless because we spend it. We spend our time working, cooking, doing errands, running the kids to soccer practice, cleaning, mowing, serving, and on and on. And we’re more than happy to spend time on our on vacation, having fun on the weekends, or with our friends and family.

If we had a pocket full of gold, we’d probably spend it very wisely. If we understood that time was just as valuable, effective time management would be easy. We’d be really careful with what we spend our time on.

We all have responsibilities: we need to eat and have a place to live. For almost everyone, the trade for this is spending time at work.  Sometimes we get into the rut of thinking that we have to spend all of our time working, running around, and doing more and more things in order to maintain our existence.

It has occurred to me that you can see what a person values most by looking at their calendar. Whether we admit it or not, our hearts are in the things we spend our time with. If your calendar is full of dates with your spouse, you value your spouse. If it’s full of yard work, you value your yard. It’s a simple concept.

Now your physical calendar might not be scrawled with all the things you spend your time on. When I speak of a calendar, I’m referring to all those things you devote yourself to, whether or not you decide to write them down. If you don’t log everything in a calendar, it may be helpful for you to write down your week’s itinerary for the purposes of this time management exercise.

Here’s where it gets scary. What if the things you say you value aren’t on your calendar? What if your calendar is full of errands and time-killing activities that don’t truly matter to you?

How do you turn things around so you spend your most valued commodity on the things you want to spend it on?

Someone once blessed me with a time management exercise that changed the way I look at time. Perhaps it will do the same for you.

Time Management Exercise

1. Make a list of things that you really value. Keep your list short. The reality is that time is a hot commodity.  Perhaps you’ll have 3 to 5 items on the list. Everyone’s list will be different. For example, my list read:
• My Family
• Success in Work
• Creating a Serene Home Environment
• Learning to Speak a Foreign Language
2. Step 2 gets a little more challenging. Eliminate the items from your calendar that don’t support the things on this list.
3. Be discriminating when adding to-do items to your calendar. This means you may have to say “no” to requests for your time if those requests don’t support these things you’ve said you love.

Let me give you a personal example from my own experience with this time management exercise.

There are far more things I think I love to do than I can place on a list of 3 to 5 items. Here’s what I wanted to add:

I love learning challenging piano repertoire, teaching others to play, household sewing and decorating projects, gardening, cooking everything from scratch, cleaning (don’t laugh), running and exercise, ironing all my laundry including the sheets, working, writing, reading, etc.

And on my list was learning to speak a foreign language. I dream of traveling. I even purchased an expensive language program.

I love a lot of things! Each of the things I love takes a time commitment. Some, like practicing piano, could take up to two hours everyday … if I allowed myself.

If we were simply having a casual chat and you asked me what I love the very most, I’d say my family. Do I have my husband on my calendar? No. Somehow, time with my cherished hubby didn’t make the calendar! He just gets the left-over time.

It was after doing the time management exercise, I realized I needed to reallocate my greatest commodity. I even determined that my to-do list needed reevaluation. Though I want to learn a foreign language, some things are more valuable to me; it’s off the list.

My calendar was not filled with things that supported my new list of just three things: my family, my career and a serene home environment. I discovered all sorts of things that I could cut in order to buy back valuable time:

• I don’t need to iron everything. It turns out nobody cares if the sheets are ironed! I now take my husband’s shirts to the cleaners. This saves me 10 valuable hours per week. The cleaners costs about $20. Am I willing to earn $2 per hour for the pleasure? No. That’s an exchange I’m more than happy to make.
• Teaching others to play the piano was on my calendar but it didn’t make the short list. The fact is that I enjoy it, but I love other things more.
• Cooking everything from scratch didn’t make the list. Yet it takes up time on my calendar. I now only cook everything from scratch 2 to 3 times a week. I make a double or triple batch for lots of leftovers.
• Gardening. Through this exercise, I discovered that I don’t love gardening. What I do love is having flowers and fresh veggies. I’ve reduced my garden to an extremely manageable level. I purchase cut flowers if I must have them.
• Household sewing and decorating projects were dramatically cut. My home doesn’t need to be perfectly decorated. It needs to be peaceful, clean, and full of love. Everything else is a bonus.

I thought I might miss these things. But, I don’t. In fact I feel freer than I ever have.  And the activities and people I value the most (that includes myself) are seeing the benefits.

Perhaps someday a few of the cut items will reappear on my calendar as other items, like working, will take a back seat.

For now, I have time to enjoy a cup of coffee while doing an activity that I enjoy and supports my success at work: writing. Time is sweet!

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