The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.

Michael Altshuler

Between my husband and I, we own three companies and have staff.  We are also landlords and caregivers.  Besides these responsibilities, I am also a wife, a friend, a daughter, etc.  Bottom line, I wear a lot of hats.  I’m sure you can relate.  

What this means is that I have a lot of demands on my time.  Sales calls, team meetings, client meetings, social media, errands, social time, etc.  The demands on my time are endless.

I know you totally get me.

I do a fairly good job at managing it all.  I think I have a system that works and keeps me on top of most of it. 

Yet there are days…

Days when I’m ready to pull my hair out.  Days when I just put my head on the desk and cry.  When this happens, I know one of two things has happened.  I’ve either said yes to too much or I’ve forgotten to follow my guide. 

My guide is my calendar.  I time block.  I determine how much time the different areas of my life get and then plan my ideal week.  How I want to block my time for those important activities.  I re-evaluate this calendar/ideal week with my planning cycle.  So every 90 days.  When I re-evaluate, I take into what has been working, what hasn’t, and what I have planned for the quarter.  Then I reallocate an ideal time for each area of my life and then plan out my ideal week. 

Life is never ideal. 

Never. 

The plan is a framework.  It can and will change.  The plan gives me a starting point and allows me to hold on to my nonnegotiables.  Every Sunday, I sit down to finalize the week, by starting with the ideal plan. 

One of the benefits of starting with my ideal week is that I can see what I have time for and how much time I have for it.  It helps me say no. 

Or, helps me say yes to the right thing. 

The goal of your ideal week is to bring awareness of how you want time spent and allow you to adjust it for when you work best. 

For example, I prefer personal development at the end of the day. 

I do I like to avoid meetings on Mondays (a solid get stuff done day – On Monday’s I’m usually focused and on fire and can get a ton done)

On Fridays, I like to opportunity to play hooky in the afternoon because I have a hard time focusing.  I do my best creative work first thing in the morning. 

I like coffee dates and sales calls in the afternoon.  

You get the idea.  By planning my ideal week, I can take advantage of when I work my best on different tasks.  

The nonnegotiables are marked busy.  The rest are placeholders.  Placeholders to remind me what that time is for. 

The thing about the placeholders is that they can move around.  The important thing is that I make the decision to make the change.  I control the calendar, the calendar doesn’t control me. 

The calendar is my guide.  I have to protect it.  Because when I don’t, when I let too much sneak in, when I say yes too much, that is when I find myself sitting with my head on the desk feeling defeated. 

When I find myself overwhelmed, I just have to look at my calendar and I’ll see it.  I’ll see that I didn’t respect the boundaries of my non-negotiables and see that things are double booked.  Or I’ll see that I’ve said yes to too much and my calendar is bursting. 

My calendar is my guide. 

It is my guide to managing my time effectively.  It is my guide to keeping my sanity. 

How do you manage your time?  How do you stay out of overwhelm?