The question people ask me most often is, “How do you manage your time?”.
Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. Time management is about feeling we’ve achieved more with that time. There are 3 parts to this:
- Accepting limits. I’m grateful I’m not bored, learn from the struggle, and calm myself with acceptance.
- Creating capacity. I’ve tried with sleep, exercise, meditation, focus time, and family support. I plan to try eating well and delegation
- Executing effectively. I’ve tried idea-lists, mood management, calendaring, commitments, intentionality, journaling. I plan to try prioritization metrics.
Accepting limits
Be grateful. Until I was 12, I was bored to death with nothing to do. Someday, I’ll spend retirement fighting boredom (like my father). But right now, I have more to do, that I want to do than I can handle. I’m grateful.
Learn. I once struggled with 3 meetings a day. Today, I struggle with 10. Next decade, I’ll wonder, “What’s so hard about 10 a day?” Struggling to manage time proves we’re stretching our limits. It’s an opportunity to learn.
Accept. If we’re imaginative, there will always be more to do than what we can. Accepting it sometimes calms me and gets me into action.
Creating capacity
Sleep well. When at school, I slept 8+ hours a day. It didn’t hurt my performance. I was the student leader, best all-rounder, and school topper. At college, I lost that habit. I was an average student. During post-graduation, I slept from 10 PM to 6 AM every day — perhaps the only one who did this. I was the best all-rounder and college topper again. It helped that I could stay attentive and motivated in class, reducing my revision time considerably. I use an alarm to sleep. It turns my screen to black-and-white, decreasing digital distractions.
Exercise. Since 2017, I walk ~10,000 steps (7.5 km) over 90 minutes a day. Earlier, I’d be tired by 6 PM and couldn’t work. After I started walking, I was fresh till 9 PM. In the first month, it was hard to see the benefit. But when I stopped for a few days, I could see how lethargic I felt.
Eat well. Hunger and thirst are a distraction. So I keep water and healthy snacks around me (or eat larger meals — but over-eating makes me sleepy). Maybe being a vegetarian and teetotaler. I need to experiment more with food.
Meditate. Since 2020, I meditate for 30 min in the morning. It reduced my irritability. Even at 9 PM, if my daughter asks me to play, I’d readily agree. Bad moods distract us and reduce capacity. Mediation controls them well. When I paused in December 2021 and could feel my increase in bad moods.
Family support. I have a supportive family that’s physically, financially, and emotionally stable. I take this for granted. But it’s a huge source of time for me. I don’t have to worry about many things. When tensions grow, it’s a major drain on time.
Delegation. I dislike delegating things I like doing (e.g. researching the cheapest tickets or correcting grammatical mistakes). Also, I believe I can do it better, and need perfect clarity before delegating. I plan to practice delegation intentionally.
Focus. Distractions break my chain of thought. That reduces capacity. I wake up early, so I block mornings for myself. My phone is on silent. My notifications are off. I use a new virtual desktop. All interruptions are batched into the afternoon.
Overall, I spend 14 hours a day creating capacity and spend 4 hours of focus time, leaving me 6 hours for other things.
Executing Effectively
Idea-lists. I used to switch between periods of extreme boredom and busyness. When I had time, I didn’t know what to do. Since 1994, I’ve maintained an ideas list (or a TODO list). Now, I’m never bored. I just pick something from my long list.
Calendaring. If something must get done, I put them on my calendar. It forces me to plan when to do it and how long it will take. If I can’t find time on my calendar, it’s easy to say “I can’t make it on time.” I’ve practiced sticking to my calendar quite diligently.
Mood management. I take up tasks that I’m in the mood for. I accomplish more naturally. When I’m in the mood, things happen in a few minutes rather than days. This is powerful. So I leverage moods and impulses as a source of energy.
Commitments. I don’t always stick to my calendar for personal commitments. Laziness comes in the way. If it’s important, I commit to clients that “I’ll mail it to you by 7:00 pm.” Or I schedule a joint session with a friend who forces me to work (or we work together).
Intentionality. I spend 30 min every morning writing down what I want to accomplish in each of my calendar entries. That way, I enter meetings prepared. I come out knowing that I was successful. I mail the next steps and schedule follow-up calls. That gives closure and I’m fresh & clear for my next meeting.
Journaling. I pick 1 “must-do” task a day. As I go through the day, I write a log on whether I’m working on it or not, and why. (e.g. “10:30am. Skipped. Distracted by LinkedIn post.” The very act of writing why I’m not working on it gets me thinking. Often, I get back to the task.
Prioritization metrics. My idea-list is ordered by time (latest on top). I plan to order them by priority (most important on top) and work on them in order. But I don’t know how to measure priority. I tried the number of people I impact as a measure. It’s not perfect. I plan to evaluate better metrics.
Pomodoro. I try to set a 25-minute timer to focus and take a 5-minute break. The focus usually works, but I tend to miss the break.
Using these
I don’t always follow all of these all the time. But all of these are habits that I can switch back to at any time, and I do often use them.
This is not advice, though. Different things work for different people. The opposite of these work too. Hopefully, these give you ideas to experiment with.