Time management is a ongoing challenge we all struggle with. The folowing scenario is common.

It’s already noon! All I’ve accomplished so far is a rather short list: answering emails, tweets and phone calls.

Communication and social media networking are both important priorities, but, so often, important priorities become the urgent ones screaming for my attention. At the back of my mind, I tell myself there is a whole list of other priorities, priorities that will not scream at me but are crucial for accomplishing my final goal. There is no smart phone chime announcing a Tweet or a laptop bell notifying me a new email is in my box. As my fingers compulsively open a piece of new email or look up a new contact on Twitter, the clock continues to tick. At noon, I turn into a pumpkin, crushed to pieces.

As a life coach, writer, and speaker, I don’t have corporate structures to hold me accountable or team members to bug me about deadlines. Many of you who work independently can relate to this. It is easy to indulge (sometimes intentionally and sometimes not) in urgent priorities or pet projects. The result is that important priorities fall by the wayside and we are not able to get closer to our destination.
Last week, when I woke up to the fact that I still had not attended to some of my other essential activities, I acted to take control of the situation. I created a time budget (a technique I used when homeschooling our children) to monitor the mix of activities I spend time on. The process involves several simple steps and will yield a compass for navigating or a steering wheel for course correction.

1. Create a master list of activities. Be as exhaustive as possible. Sometimes an insignificant activity can take up a great deal of your time. For example, one of my clients, also a solopreneur, gets phone calls from her father and friends every day. Her phone calls often turn into lunch appointments. Before she knows it, half of her day is gone. If this kind of activities is important to you, they need to be a budget line item.

2. Lump and clump the activities into broad categories. Try to create no more than five to ten categories because batching becomes difficult when you have too many categories. In my case, I have categories such as “creative,” “administrative,” “social media networking,” “offline networking,” “research,” and “continuing learning.” I also include a non-negotiable category called “self-care,” a time to rest, reflect, and reconnect with God.

3. Make a Master List of activities, applying the categories created in Step 2. Using my situation as an example, I list reading, learning about technology and others under “continuing learning.” When you have completed this Master List, you will have a directory of activities under broad headings.

4. Prepare a blank schedule. I use the Table feature in Microsoft Word to create a schedule that includes seven days of the week, broken down into 30-minute time slots. Your day begins at the time you usually get up and the time you go to bed. (Don’t forget to budget time for eating and sleeping!)

5. Begin putting the categories into your schedule. Once the broad categories are on the schedule, plot the specific activities into the schedule as well.

6. Step back and ask the question: is this mix of activities going to get me to my destination?

7. Review and revise the schedule each week if the need arises.

What are the major categories of activities you spend time on? If you were to change one thing to improve your monitoring of your time use, what might that be?

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