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It’s a brand new year, and you know what that means: Getting the date wrong for at least a month whenever you have to sign anything, and New Year’s resolutions. Now we all joke that we only make resolutions to break them, but there’s something to be said for writing down a few things we’d like to accomplish or work on throughout the next year; we’re much more likely to actually start a healthier routine, confront an old problem, jump into a long-dreamed-of project, or sort through a bunch of clutter if we’ve written it down and made it real. Let Laura Vanderkam help! On her productivity podcasts Before Breakfast and The New Corner Office she shares practical time management strategies in short, sweet, five-minute daily episodes we can enjoy during our morning shower or coffee. Getting more organized means we have more time to enjoy with our friends, family, and interests, instead of letting work, chores, and errands eat up our lives. Here are just a few of her actionable strategies to try – let this be the year we all make the most of our time!
Let’s be honest: One of life’s biggest priorities should be life, not work. But it’s very easy to let responsibilities crowd our days until there’s very little time to devote to our other interests, our relationships, and any adventures we might want to experience, whether that’s a concert or an international trip. Laura’s advice? Schedule it, of course! If we resolve to have fun, we’ll take the time to think about what we’d like to be doing more of and how to get that accomplished. Plus, our fun will be more focused on really enjoyable things instead of scrolling away our tiny snatches of free time on social media.
We all probably have more stuff than we really want, but it’s tough to make time to go through clutter – and even tougher to get severe on our old stuff, especially if it’s been stored away snugly. It’s not hurting anyone in the basement/garage/attic, so we can put it out of our minds. But Laura suggests getting ahead of the problem by taking a few minutes a week to look at our stuff and ask: “Would I pay to move this item?” It’s true that when we’re moving from one house to another, we’re suddenly very selective about what we keep; if we can keep that energy going for our clutter even when we’re home to stay, we should be able to clear out some shelves easily.
At the end of each workday, Laura suggests we set aside 15-30 minutes for a shutdown routine. We can take stock of what was accomplished, what still needs to be done, and what unavoidable work must be completed tomorrow (scheduled meetings, final deadlines, etc) and plan our work for the next day. When will we prepare for that meeting? What needs to be finished that wasn’t completed today? What new tasks came up that need attention? This way, we don’t have to lose time in the morning tackling emails or figuring out the day’s priorities – we can just jump in and get it done.
Mindset isn’t everything, but it can significantly affect how we experience the world. In this episode, Laura talks about the importance of not drawing broad conclusions from negative experiences. It’s human nature to search for a “reason” when something bad or frustrating happens, because that means we can fix it or prevent it from happening again. But it would be healthier to realize that sometimes, no matter how prepared or careful we are, bad things happen. That way, we won’t miss out on future good experiences because we taught ourselves the wrong lesson. Sometimes, there isn’t a lesson at all – it’s just life.
“Where does the time go?” That’s a perennial question for a reason: Most of us don’t really know how we spend our time. So Laura issues a time-tracking challenge: Take three minutes per day to log our activities every day for a week. That way, we can see clearly where our time is going and how we can better spend it. After that one week, we never have to do it again if we don’t want to – but we’ll have a better idea of what we need to do differently so we can spend more of our time on the people and things that we love. If that doesn’t equal a better life, we don’t know what does.
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