This book on time management was helpful because it teaches us to manage our time wisely. Our days are filled with modern alerts and distractions like social media notifications, emails, texts and more “dings.”
Ding!
Some dings are helpful and others are distractions. I loved the practical steps I found within these pages on time management. The author interviewed highly productive individuals (olympic athletes, entrepreneurs, leaders, etc.) and found they have common time management habits.
Since finishing the book, I refuse to knee-jerk react to text messages and emails throughout the day. Rather, I specify times I return texts and emails (unless my response is needed urgently). This requires self-discipline, but it saves time.
I have also vastly cut down on social media time in my quest for better time management. If I do go on Facebook or Instagram, it’s never before my MIT. What’s a MIT?
It’s the most important task in the first two hours of the day.
When it comes to time management, so many of us suffer from “hurry sickness”.
This is what happens when we scurry through the day worrying about time. Better time management helps with hurry sickness.
Others of us suffer from wasting time, letting others determine what happens with our time, and/or procrastinating. It’s a dread to hurry through the day, and wasting time is not ideal. How do you find the balance?
The concept of the MIT is awesome. Do the most important tasks first, even if they are the most dreaded. Then, do other tasks.
After reading this book, I have done away with my to-do list and have embraced the calendar instead. I write my tasks in the calendar and do them when that time comes. To-do lists can deceive us as we tend to do and cross out the easiest tasks first. This makes us feel productive! Doesn’t it feel great to cross out tasks on your to-do list? Yeah, I know the feeling. We can convince ourselves that we are accomplished.
Nevertheless, this leaves the priority tasks – the MIT’s – undone! A time management nightmare!
An idea I came up with (independent of this book) is writing projects on index cards. I write my non-urgent projects on index cards and put them in a bag. These are projects that don’t need to be put on the calendar, but that end up weighing on me if left undone for too long (like, organizing the garage or filing papers). These projects generally take about one hour to complete. If I have a spare hour in my day or week, I will pull a card out and do the one-hour project.
This eliminates the foreboding dread leading up to the project (if it’s not a fun one). It also keeps the week exciting. Not to mention, it helps to have the projects out of the brain and onto an index card!
Last but not least, since reading this book, I have learned to say “No” more often. If we don’t manage our time, others will. Time management also has to do with loving people better. If we can better structure our days to finish necessary tasks that must be done, we will have more time to give. Some invitations need a “Yes” more than others.
Ding! Time to check out this book. I loved it!
