I often talk to people about the benefits of time management.
This morning, I talked about why time management is important. Because every moment is fleeting. Every moment wasted is gone forever. You can’t get them back.
Every weeknight through February 14, we have Regulators Baseball Club winter workouts. We are on the field from 6:00 PM to 8:15 PM. We have 9-year-olds, 12-year-olds, 13-year-olds, and 14-year-olds. In total, there are 60 kids.
We’ve divided them into ages and positions. Each position either has speed and agility training, glove work, throwing, or hitting. Depending on the time and day. On Monday and Wednesday, all 60 kids are there at some point.
The goal of these workouts is to maximize baseball skill development.
To do that, we have to optimize the time spent teaching and the time spent doing reps. We have to get through all of the planned drills for it to be optimal. But also making sure each rep is done in the correct manner. That coaching time is ‘squishy’ time. There’s no real way to know how much time we need for that until you’re standing there.
On the other side of the coin, you don’t want to get through the reps too quickly. Because then we end up with dead time. The time where, because of the ballet that has to happen on the field between ages and positions, is spent standing around. Getting cold. Getting bored. And getting distracted.
So, I write out a script every night for how the workout will flow. To start, I identify the required drills and how long they will take. These are the must-haves. I add 10 minutes of ‘squishy’ time to that set of drills. At that point, I outline who is where, who the coaches are for that group, and for how long each set of drills should last.
And finally, I add another estimated 15 minutes of drills to do in case everything goes faster than anticipated. These are the nice-to-have reps.
At the end of the process, we’re almost guaranteed to have 100% productive time as coaches.
At the same time, we are always reinforcing to the kids that they shouldn’t take half reps. Give 100% focus and effort on each swing, each throw, each ground ball. That allows the coaching to be more effective.
Across the board, because we keep them moving and keep the time productive (and fun), we get about 85% productive reps. And if you’ve ever dealt with 9-year-olds, pre-teens, and teenagers, that’s a pretty good ratio of productive reps across 60 kids.
That smooth, productive workout is one of the benefits of time management. When done correctly, you factor in what happens if everything goes well. And you anticipate what you need to do if everything goes bad.
Like you, my schedule is often busy and overwhelming. But I’ve done some simple things that help me win the day.
First, I also have a script for my day. If you don’t have a plan for how your day will go, you’ll lose control over it. You have to script out every day.
And, yes, it is created with built-in squishy time. To realize the full benefits of time management, you first need to understand your own limitations.
For example, as I mentioned, I’m not a morning person. So I have snooze time planned in my day. I have to. Now, I hope that this year I can find a way to improve that. At the same time, I know that isn’t going to change tomorrow.
The morning drive has as much productive time as I can fit in into it. I have several investments going, so Bloomberg Radio keeps me abreast of the economic situation. I also use that time to talk to the kids about what I am hearing and what some of that means. It helps them start to at least absorb some of that as they are progressing through middle and high school.
I talked to you this morning about how I killed the dead time in the middle school parking lot.
The more Bloomberg Radio on the way home.
Once home though, I focus on the most important thing of the day. Usually, that is content creation. It may be this post or something else. But it is going to be the most important thing of the day. I will get that early victory, no matter what.
I do all of that – the wake-up, the drive, and the first victory of the day – all before checking email or Skype or Slack.
That time belongs to me. And as I said before, I’m only allotted so much time, so I will decide how I use it.
Then, no matter how much the rest of my day goes off script, I’ve already won. No one can take that victory away from me.
I learned this a long time ago from good friend Craig Ballantyne. But I’ve only applied it recently. That’s my fault, not his.
Craig mentioned to me something that he called the Paradox of Time. He said, “The more structure you have in your day, the more freedom you will have in your life.”
That, for me, is one of the main benefits of time management.
When you have the structure and time to focus on the things that are important, you get more done faster. Right now, I’m writing nearly 2500 words per day in content. I’m reading 10+ pages per day of the two books I’ve selected.
And when my kids come home from school, I’m not behind in my work. I’m not fighting fires and feeling the stress of not having accomplished what I set out to that morning when I woke up.
So, when do I script my day, and how do I decide what to work on?
Every night, right after I write my evening post, I create my task list for the next day. There are three categories (we’ll go into detail on this method in a later post). They are:
- Must do.
- The more I can do of this, the better.
- Nice if I can get this done.
I then set deadlines and work times for each of those things (with some estimated squishy time).
And then I load all of that into something called Motion. Motion is cool because it takes my meeting calendar and overlays it with my task list and actually prioritizes my tasks for me. It basically generates my daily script.
It’s a great tool, and one that saves me even more time.
Off to create tomorrow’s script.
See you in the morning!
