Adapting to the rapidly changing structure of work caused many of us to get stuck in crisis management mode. Whether it’s responding to emails or requests, there has been a constant sense of urgency for many leaders. Unfortunately, this consistent pressure to always react quickly within every element of our work life is exhausting.
You need to go beyond simply jotting down random action items. Let’s explore different to-do list options as well as four secrets from productivity experts on making the most effective to-do list possible.
Instead of living day-to-day, why not take back control and employ a powerful time management strategy? You can enjoy more control over your own life by using the Tomorrow + 2 calendar scheduling strategy.
As a thought leader, what level of importance would you put on making time for strategic thinking during the day? It’s very easy to put our deep thinking time on the back burner because of meetings and busy work. That’s never been more true than today with endless pings, rings, and distractions. However, productivity experts have been assessing this problem for decades.
Whether the COVID-19 pandemic threw a wrench in your well-oiled exercise routine or you lacked a routine to begin with, one thing is certain: with gyms closed and more work and family demands on your plate than ever before, fitting exercise into your daily schedule has become yet another impossible chore. You know it’s important but even when you have the time, the idea of continuing to stare into your laptop screen for a 30-minute exercise class after a long day of working from home is… less than appealing. The good news is: home work-out videos and online exercise classes aren’t your only options for staying fit.
So you finally made it to bed. You’ve done your bedtime routine and you’ve turned off all the lights. You’re exhausted, fully prepared for sleep, but your mind just won’t stop racing — overwhelmed with thoughts, feelings, and to-dos. The longer it takes you to fall asleep, the more anxious and stressed out you become which, in turn, makes it even harder for you to drift off to sleep. Once your head hits the pillow, how do you actually relax into a peaceful slumber so that you receive the full benefit of a restful night? Here are a few ways to clear your head and surrender yourself to the pleasures of sleep…
Typically speaking, parents put a lot of pressure on themselves to make time for their children. Now, it seems we spend a lot of time strategizing how to get away from them! Early-quarantine offered us a seemingly once-in-a-lifetime chance to spend quality time with our kids. Four months in, the quantity of time has turned the quality of time to mush. We still yearn to have meaningful interactions with our kids, but how do we restore the quality of our connections when we are feeling so burnt out?
Sleep is a fundamental component of our lives. It allows us to reset, recharge, and refuel, so that we can make the most of our days. Unfortunately, with so much weighing on our minds, the last few months have thrown many of us off our sleep game. Because sleep is such a critical aspect of our mental and physical health, now is just as good a time as any to get serious about the quantity and quality of our restful hours. And the best place to start is by renovating your bedtime routine.
Most parents “get” the need to spend time playing with their kids, but more often than not, we’re left standing on the sidelines (or collapsed on the couch), watching our kids laugh and play, while we struggle to find an in. While, of course, kids need to play with other kids as well as on their own (i.e. we don’t need to be involved all the time); playing with parents is a great way for your child to bond with you, in their world, on their terms. Understanding the importance of play, as well as a few simple strategies for getting involved in the action, ultimately makes it easier for us to find the time and energy to get in the game. So what’s a parent to do? Here’s what the experts recommend…
You’re staring down the barrel of a seemingly endless to-do list. You know it’s time to get started, but where? Do you start with the smallest task or the largest task? The task you like most or the one you like least? The important one for yourself, or the urgent one for someone else? When it comes to prioritizing our to-dos, most of us tend to approach the situation with some degree of subjectivity. But this line of thinking often leaves us totally paralyzed — hovering over our to-do lists for who knows how long, trying to decide where to get started. The key, therefore, is to become as objective as possible when choosing which tasks to prioritize. That’s where the 3 Qs (The Three Questions) come in…
As you reflect on your experiences with homeschooling — whether you feel like you knocked it out of the park or it knocked you on your butt — consider that formal schooling is but one of many ways that we raise our children to be successful adults. And the good news is, some of the best teaching we do is incorporated into our everyday interactions with our children — no additional time investment required. The three primary modes of teaching are…
The #1 time management question to ask yourself when approaching any task is, “How long is this going to take?” Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to dramatically under- or overestimate how long tasks take based on how we feel about them. In order to be effective at time estimating, you must take your feelings out of the equation. These two exercises can show you how.
Holy moly! So you got through the initial outbreak of the Pandemic. Now you’re working your way through the unstructured summer months. And it’s looking like the fall won’t be offering much relief, with most schools reopening on a part-time/flex basis, if at all. One way to make the job of full-time parenting/entertaining/educating more manageable is to add a little structure to your days.
In the journey from chaos to order, people often find it easier to organize space than time, because space is something you can actually see. Stacks of papers, piles of clothing, and shelves full of knick knacks are visible. You can pick things up and move them around in your space to see how they fit. You can easily see when your plate (or your closet) is too full. Time on the other hand, is completely invisible. It’s something you feel and it feels … utterly amorphous. But, not anymore! It's time to make time tangible.
As much as we all crave quality time with the kids in our lives, relating to children can be surprisingly tough. What do they like? What are they thinking, feeling, experiencing? Striking up a conversation about these things can be challenging. That’s where books come in. Books can provide a powerful point of entry for relating to kids. They are written and edited by professionals who understand the issues and interests children face at various ages and stages. Therefore, they can be used as a way to spur conversation, explore emotions, discover hobbies and interests, learn new information, or purely for entertainment. Oh, the places you’ll go!
What is perfectionism? Perfectionism is the pressure we often put on ourselves to do things extremely well. When applied to every single everyday task, perfectionism can sap the joy from your life, lead you to work yourself to the bone, and crush your ability to be present as you obsess about whether you did or will do a good enough job in each of your endeavors. Freeing yourself from the logistical burden and psychological paralysis of perfectionism liberates you to manage the wide scope and scale of everything you need to do and helps you stay grounded over the long haul.
Talking is one of the most valuable ways we can relate to another human being. If the eyes are the gateway to the soul, conversation is the gateway to the inner thoughts, insights and experiences of another person. Unfortunately, conversing with children doesn’t always come naturally to us adults. Every age and stage, from pre-verbal through puberty and beyond, comes with its own unique challenges. Yet, it may be comforting to know that, when it comes to talking with children, your goal is really to have them do most of the work. Your job is simply to create a safe space for your child to express whatever they are thinking and feeling. Our helpful age-by-age guide can help you get started.
Picture this. You are lying in bed, desperate for a good night’s rest; but each time you approach the precipice of sleep, yet another intrusive thought jolts you awake: Don’t forget to refill your prescription before Friday. Remember to email Kathy back first thing in the morning; Make sure to call the bank about that $12 maintenance fee. You toss and turn, trying to remember not to forget these to-dos, all the while losing out on the precious sleep needed to execute these tasks with efficiency. This sleepless night could have been prevented with this one easy habit.
Once you have kids, finding any uninterrupted time in the day that’s just yours — to just be quiet, to just think, or to just get one small thing off your own to-do list — is really hard to come by. But, believe it or not, it is possible to buy yourself back some me-time after you have kids. You just have to be super organized and intentional about it. You don’t want to find yourself hiding in a closet just to steal a moment to yourself. You want to build it into your family’s day.
For many people, breaking away from the gravitational pull of work is extremely difficult. In fact, for the high-achievers among us, it may seem down right counterintuitive. In pursuit of work-place success, our personal lives are usually the first thing we sacrifice. But this puts us in a precarious position — when our work/life balance is off, our performance suffers, along with our happiness and motivation. We end up feeling overworked, exhausted, and depleted. And overtime, we begin to lose sight of the very reason we became so invested in our work in the first place. In order to truly “make it,” mastering your work/life balance is not just a nice-to-have, but a necessity.
Parents are constantly juggling responsibilities: work, household logistics, personal and professional relationships, loving and raising the kids, all while trying to find time for self-care, exercise, hobbies, and a little shut eye. On a good day, managing this juggling act is a delicate balance. What happens when life throws you a massive curveball?
Open up your current to-do list and take a look at it. How many of your tasks have a time estimate next to them? If you are like the majority of people, probably none. When writing out to-do lists, most of us only ask ourselves one question — what do I need to do? — and not how long will I need to do it? Yet, the difference between good and bad time managers pivots on the asking of this critical question…
It’s one thing to learn how to productively work-from-home as an individual, but; collaborating with others in a remote workforce is an entirely different challenge. Not only must we learn to stay in sync with remote colleagues — many of whom may be operating under different hours, work-loads, or circumstances than ourselves — the vast majority of us must also learn to navigate working from home alongside our roommates, partners, parents and children — which presents another unique challenge. While some of our pre-existing systems can be applied to our new working conditions, it is also necessary to develop new and specific protocols to ensure that we can work with others — both within and outside of our households — in a productive, collaborative, and harmonious manner.
For many years, the business world has been wrestling with the logistics surrounding the adoption of remote work and implementation of flexible work hours. Never did we foresee that a global pandemic would have us scrambling to uncover the answers to these questions, practically overnight. Without a clear roadmap to follow, many companies, individuals, and teams are struggling to navigate this dramatic change in circumstances. Daunting as the task at hand may be, the present situation provides a unique opportunity to find solutions to these age-old challenges. The key lies in creating functional systems and establishing a clear structure to your work week that facilitates productivity, while putting guard rails in place to protect your personal time and space.
In the old days, when leaders got involved with how their people worked, they were deemed micro-managers — the worst name in the book. But today, being an involved leader is essential to harnessing talent, particularly when managing a remote workforce. Lack of visibility can cause anxiety and uncertainty — for both managers and their direct reports — leading to over-work, wasted time, and missed opportunities. With less face-time, leaders must take a more active role in structuring the way their teams work.
Our hobbies, our passions, and what we do for pure relaxation fuel and restore us physically, emotionally, and psychologically in the most efficient way imaginable. Those restorative activities provide care and nurturance for your soul — providing you with the energy you need to get through everything life throws at you. And yet, in our parent time survey, a whopping 84.5% of parents said they spend too little time on hobbies and personal relaxation. Let’s change that!
We’re all working with the same 24 hours in a day. But subtract time for sleep, personal and household maintenance — such as eating, showering, cooking, cleaning, etc. —, and work, and we’re left with precious few hours remaining. Naturally, we all want to make the most of this time; yet, you might be surprised how much time clutter is stealing from you. Understanding the root of the problem will help you release it for good.
Raising kids is all about the unpredictable: juggling responsibilities at work and in your personal life with constant shifts in your child’s mood, interests, abilities, and needs. If you leave the predictable activities — like cleaning, laundry, meal prep, and cooking — to the burden of daily decision-making, you won’t have the energy and time to deal with the true surprises, like the post-dinner temper-tantrum. When it comes to logistics — the stuff that has to get done to keep yourself, the kids, and the household running — the goal is to automate the predictable, while shrinking each system to its smallest footprint.
Ok, ok, so your belongings seemed to multiply over the winter this year. Your pantry is so overstuffed, you can’t tell how many jars of peanut butter are hiding in there. Your closet is so overflowing with who-knows-what, it’s hard to find anything to wear. And your home office, let’s not even talk about those towering piles of paper you can’t bring yourself to look through. But there’s no better time than Spring to indulge the urge to purge — to rid yourself of all the stuff weighing you down, getting in your way, and stealing your energy rather than fueling you when you try to relax at home.
Question: What is the biggest time management challenge in businesses today? Here is the real problem via time management experts: If a back-to-back meeting culture is allowed to become the standard practice, it leads to meeting overload, which prevents real work from getting done.