Time is valuable. How you spend it is up to you.

If I don’t decide in advance, how I am going to spend my time, it usually decides for me. This usually means, I don’t get anything done that I should be doing. Here are 5 tips that I use to help me control my time.

Write it down.
Put it on your calendar, in your planner, on your phone…wherever you keep your schedule. Just write it down. My schedule is on Google Calendar and I can access it from my phone as well.

Set Reminders
Google Calendar allows me to set reminders telling me when my next event is coming up soon. This keeps me from getting drawn into my current project so much that I would miss my next event. I also use a reminders app on my phone to remind me to do things each day.

Use Timers
Did you ever have a meeting that was scheduled for 30 minutes but it turned into an hour? Set a timer and make those who you are meeting with aware of the timer so that you accomplish the meeting on time. You should be respectful of other people’s time as you are your own.

Plan your breaks
I often get so busy working that I forget to take breaks. Constantly working without a break wears me down and makes me useless for the end of the day. I have learned to put them on my calendar and set a reminder so that I remember to take a break in the middle of my day.

Allow for Margin
It isn’t possible to schedule every second of your day. Things come up and plans do have to change on the fly sometimes. If you add margin to your schedule, that will help when you have to adjust your schedule. Don’t plan your meetings back to back all day either. Give yourself time in between to process the meeting you just finished. Margin can be 5 minutes or even an hour. This will allow you to make adjustments and still make all of your planned events for the day.

Do you have any hacks or tips that help you to manage your time?

Friend: How have you been?

Me: I am good. Been busy.

Why do we like to tell people we are busy? I think we say that because we have been brainwashed to think that busy means productive and successful. Today at work, someone is going to ask me how my weekend was and I need to have a good answer for them so I don’t look lame. But I have found that being busy all of the time is not very healthy.

Faith is on a ladies only vacation this week and has been gone for 4 days. I only have to survive 2 more days of being a single dad. Knowing in advance that I was going to be on my own for the week, I made plans to keep my kids entertained. This weekend, we made a list on my daughter’s whiteboard of all the things that she wanted to do with me this weekend. We went to the Zoo, we played Just Dance 3, we had stuffed crust pizza for lunch, and the list goes on. It was a more busy than normal weekend for us that was intended to be a distraction from the fact that Mom is not here all week.

My plan worked, but by Sunday night we were all worn out. When we all start feeling tired the little annoyances that might normally slide by without issue become super irritating. That is pretty typical for my crew. When we are tired, we all get a little cranky. But if we take time to rest and don’t try to cram so much fun into one weekend, it is fun and relaxing. Then I can go back to work on Monday refreshed.

Being busy can wear us down. It is physically draining and in extremes it can be bad for your health.

I have been way too busy lately and need to plan some time to not be busy. Do you remember having free time? I can’t remember the last time I thought I was bored or had a tough time deciding what to do.

Take some time this week and try to do nothing. It will be harder than you think.

My worst enemy is perfectionism. I want everything that I do to be perfect. I want this blog post to be perfect. I start writing blog posts all of the time and never publish them because they aren’t perfect. This blog post won’t be perfect either.

I used to tell myself that I was a procrastinator. It goes deeper than that though. My perfectionism feeds my procrastination. I let myself off of the hook because I believe whatever it is that I am doing is not perfect. That kind of thinking leads me into an endless loop of not accomplishing anything of value.

Now that I have become aware of how my perfectionism paralyzes things I want to accomplish, I have found that there is one very simple, yet difficult solution to my problem.

Just Do It – Ship Something – Hit Publish – Go For It

That is all there is to it, but it is not always an easy thing to do for a perfectionist.

The truth is, it can’t always be perfect. Your job, your kids, your spouse, you blog, your vacation, your church, your whatever.

If you are waiting for that perfect pitch, you might never see it. If you keep watching without swinging, I guarantee that 100% of the time, you will not hit a home run. And most of the time you will strikeout. What fun is that? I was never a very good hitter, but when I made good contact and put the ball in play, it sure felt good. It made me look forward to my next opportunity.

Take a a chance today and swing the bat.

Ever have a bad day at work? Yeah that is like asking the Hulk if he likes to smash.

Today was a rough day for me. I was behind from the beginning. Got crushed with requests throughout the day. I finally came up for air about 15 minutes ago.

For a while I could feel myself wanting to smash something. I wasn’t turning green yet.

Then I reached a point where I was caught up. I took a moment and I packaged up the Hulk and put him away.

I took a deep breath and focused on how I have control of my attitude. Now it is all good. It is almost time to go home and I have better things to look forward to than my day job.

How do you deal with a bad day and the Hulk Smash attitude that may creep into your mind?

[Photo Credit - Alan Cleaver on Flickr]

I have been trying to make some positive changes in my life for a while now. I need to lose weight, I want to be a better Jesus follower, and I want to be more productive with my time. Often my time gets sucked into the urgent but not important things in life. I turn on the computer and social media becomes a big time drain for me. I also have been sleeping later because I don’t start work until 12 PM now. So I decided that I needed to put some structure into how I spend my time each day.

The biggest challenge for me is establishing my sleep routine. I have always been a night person. I can stay up to all hours, but I want to sleep all day. Once I am asleep, I just don’t want to get out of bed. I am the king of hitting the snooze. But if I can establish a good routine and stick with it, I can add several hours to my day that aren’t wasted watching television or reading the latest on the Internet.

Here is how I am making changes:

1. Write it down.
I wrote my routine down, or actually typed, and I was very specific about what I wanted to accomplish and when. First I blocked out my evening time and wrote down a routine for getting ready for bed. I did the same thing for my morning routine. I detailed all of the things I wanted to accomplish in those blocks of time. If I get done early, that is bonus time for me. I also blocked out free time for me to use as I wish.

2. Start following the routine.
This one is obvious. You have to start following the routine. If you can’t trust yourself to follow it, find someone to hold you accountable.

3. Don’t give up when you fail.
When you do fail, and you will, you cannot blow it off. I lost free time the first day because I took too long to accomplish my morning routine. But on the second day, I did much better. Just roll with the failures and use them as a learning experience to get better the next day.

4. Make adjustments.
Your routine is not completely set in stone. If something isn’t working, then make a change. You are in control of your routine, so make it work for you instead of the other way around.

5. Stick with it for 21 days.
It is supposed to take 21 days of repeated action to form a habit. So you must stick with your routine even if you are fine tuning it for 21 days at least. If you give up too soon, it may not stick. Eventually it should become natural for you to do these things without really thinking about it.

This is how I am trying to start some positive routines in my life to help me make better use of my time. I will let you know how it goes.

Disclaimer: This post contains some PG-13 language in it. I think it is funny and makes a good point.

Never half ass two things. Whole ass one thing.

-Ron Swanson

Ron Swanson is a character on the NBC show ‘Parks and Recreation.’ I took this quote from this past week’s episode when Ron is trying to convince Leslie to take some time off from the Parks Department to work on her City Council campaign.

I admit that I half ass a lot of things. I don’t do it because I want to, but it seems that is the only way I will get everything done. But I really want to just do one great thing. I wish I could just focus on one thing  and go “whole ass” on it. It seems I can do this in spurts on little things, but I am still dreaming big.

What are you half assing that needs to be whole ass?

Picture courtesy of Kai Hendry on Flickr

Today I officially started this blog. Unofficially it has been up for a year, but I didn’t do much with it. It happens to be a Monday. I plan on writing more blog posts today to really get things rolling. What are you going to do with your Monday? Will you take advantage of it, or will you let it take advantage of you?