Important life lessons and time management tips to help you get things done and focus on what matters!
Life is overwhelming. Your to-do list gets longer, not shorter every day. You’re constantly trying to catch up, but the finish line gets pushed further and further away.
You keep thinking, this weekend I’ll get everything caught up and then I can catch my breath, but inevitably someone gets sick, or family decides to pop into town and all your plans to get ahead go down the drain. How are you supposed to do it all?
You’re not supposed to do it all. In fact, you can’t. I’m not trying to be mean, but it’s the truth. So many women are running around in a tizzy thinking that if they just had a few more hours, or if they planned just a little better or if this or if that. It’s never going to happen. I know this truth, but I still struggle to remember it all the time!
I work full time and have a husband with renal failure that does dialysis 3 times a week and we have a baby girl. That’s already a pretty full plate to juggle.
But am I satisfied with that?
No!
I’m also trying to eat healthier and curb my stress eating so I can lose the last of the baby weight. I’m trying to take more care of my appearance by dressing better and getting my hair healthier. I’m trying to fix up and decorate our old house that’s slowly falling apart. I’m trying to keep my house clean, save money and battle our weed jungle in the backyard. Oh, and I’m trying to do better with praying and studying scriptures every day. And I should probably be exercising and getting more sleep at night. Not to mention this business I’m working on.
Um, I’m exhausted just reading that list! We would never ask someone else to do all that, so why do we ask it of ourselves? It’s madness!
I challenge you to write out all the little to-do’s that you’re working on. Every nagging thing you’re working on that’s floating around in your brain and realize how ridiculous it is to ask that much of yourself.
I’ve worked in a laboratory at a sewer treatment plant for the last 10 years and you’d be surprised how many life lessons you can learn from that.
1. You can’t do everything- if you add something, you should take something away
This is a philosophy I’ve learned from my boss and I love her for it! We run a pretty lean operation, there are only 2 or 3 people who run the lab.
Whenever we’re asked to add additional testing, she immediately starts running through our current battery of tests and asks about reducing the frequency of or eliminating altogether some tests.
She’s able to do that because she sees the whole picture of what the lab is actually required to do and what tests are more optional. Some of our tests are required by the EPA, while some are just useful information for the running of the plant.
You need to know what your main goal in life is so you can determine what activities are “required” to reach that goal and which activities are “optional”. If everything is important, then nothing is important.
You don’t need to get rid of any optional activities that you don’t want to, but next time you want to add something else to your plate, you’re going to need to push something else off.
2. Get the most important things done first so you can deal with the problems that pop up
Over the years my boss and I have started to do more and more of our testing in the morning. We work 10 hour days, but we get all our major tests done by lunch. Why rush to get things done when you have all day? Because it gives us time to deal with problems that come up. For a job that’s basically the same every week, we have a surprising amount of variability.
Our samples are in late, the power goes out, a piece of equipment is being finicky, I’m having a butterfingers day and drop things, our results are above the test limit and have to be run at a lower dilution. The sky’s the limit of what could go wrong!
By focusing on our most important tests first thing, we have time to navigate issues that come up and still get all the important things done.
And if we have a trouble-free day, then we have time in the afternoon to do other tests that aren’t as urgent.
If we don’t, then at least our most important tests got done.
Life likes to throw you curveballs. When you put off important tasks until later things will come up and derail you. Instead, prioritize those “required” activities and put them first before any “optional” activities.
3. Things will go wrong, give yourself buffer room
In the same vein, give yourself more time than you think you need, because something will inevitably come up.
This morning I got up early to write this post. I estimated that I’d have a 4-5 hour window to work on this blog. But my baby woke up from my alarm, so I nursed her back to sleep. Then I snuck out and ate breakfast.
I settled down to work and my husband wandered in after 4 hours of sleep, feeling sick and grouchy. By the time I diagnosed him, searched the medicine cabinet for the medicine he needed, discovered that we were out and ran to the store, I’d lost 3 hours of my morning.
It’s frustrating, but that’s how life goes. We’re dealing with real life and real people, so as great as your plans might be on paper, you have to give yourself a buffer and be flexible.
4. Take breaks- give yourself 15 minutes to sit, eat a snack and just breathe
The nice thing about working a job is you have built in breaks. By law, you get 15 min to step away and catch your breath. Do you give yourself breaks in life?
When I find myself getting more and more irritated, frustrated and irrational with whatever situation is going on, I know I need a break.
I make sure everyone will be safe for a few minutes and I go sit and eat something, putting in headphones if I need to. Pausing, and feeding myself gives me space to calm down, regroup and start thinking rationally again and stops me from doing or saying something I’ll regret.
Learn your limits and give yourself breaks when you need them. You can’t take care of others if you’re not taking care of yourself.
5. Accuracy and then efficiency- after a certain level, taking more time and being more careful doesn’t give you better results
Our first goal in the lab is to provide accurate results and then our second goal is to work efficiently. Since we’re small in numbers we try to conserve our energy.
We’ve found that after we reach a certain level of expertise, it doesn’t matter how careful we are or how much extra time we take to run tests, the results aren’t any better.
So, we don’t worry about it and we do the least amount of work we need to get the most accurate results. If swiftly running the test in 15 minutes gets you as good of results as meticulously running the test in 30 minutes, then run the test in 15 minutes and save yourself time and energy!
I like to think of myself as a lazy hard worker. I enjoy working hard, but I don’t see the point of working harder than necessary.
What’s something that you’re spending too much time on without reaping appreciable results?
Do you send 30 minutes making your kids cute little bento box lunches, when they’d be just as happy with a sandwich, carrot sticks, and grapes? They make sandwich cutters that take 10 seconds to use if you really want to get fancy.
Do you spend time arranging your kid’s toys on shelves, just so they pull everything back off minutes later? Hard pass! Get some bins that toys can be easily chucked into and put away.
Do you spend way too much time making Pinterest pretty dinners when your family would be just as happy with spaghetti and meatballs? Throw some fresh basil and parmesan on top if you really want to get fancy.
Conserve your time and energy for more important things.
6. It’s all in the setup. Use your brain to set up and then let it run on autopilot
In the laboratory, we have standard operating procedures for all our tests. They’re basic instructions on how to run each test, so we can get comparable results each time they’re run. It helps maintain accuracy, but it also has a side benefit of creating a routine for each test.
I take the time before I start to set up my tests in a specific arrangement. Once I know everything is in order, I can run through the test with barely a thought. And at the end of the test, I double-check my work to make sure everything went according to plan.
Your brain loves routines. It can accomplish things with very little thinking on its part.
I’m a big fan of creating systems and then zoning out while I get things done. Our brains are amazing, creative thinking machines that can analyze and make decisions at the drop of a hat, but they get worn out easily.
Just as we talked about conserving our time and energy in the last point, we also want to conserve our brain’s energy. There’s a phenomenon called decision fatigue and the theory is that the more decisions you make, the more it tires your brain. And just like fatigued muscles stop working as effectively, your fatigued brain slows down. When our brains are tired we make poor decisions, our will power wanes and we start slipping up.
By setting things on autopilot you can get things done while conserving your brain for more important thinking.
I love having routines and a schedule for taking care of the house, then I don’t have to exhaust myself debating if or when I should do something. My house stays relatively maintained and I can conserve my brain for more interest thinking- like solving family problems, or ideas for this blog!
If you want some help making your own routines, get my free D.A.N.G. E.A.S.Y. Quick Start! It’s my system for simplifying and automating any part of your life!
7. Test and change- continually optimize
The way I’ve kept myself entertained for 10 years in the laboratory is I’m constantly tweaking my systems to see if I can find more accurate or more efficient ways to do things.
By having systems set up that I can run almost on autopilot, it frees up space in my brain to analyze the process and throw out ideas on how I can do things differently.
Of course, this didn’t happen right off the bat after I learned a new test nor do I get new ideas daily, weekly or even monthly. But I’m open to the idea of changing and since my brain knows I’m open to new ideas, every so often it’ll say, “Hey, have you thought about doing it this way?”
I’ll try it out a few times and see if it’s a good change.
At home, I do something similar. I try meal planning one way, then tweak it to see if another way works a little better. I try doing all our laundry at once one day a week or I try doing one load every day. I try getting up early to get things done or staying up late.
I’m constantly testing and tweaking to see what’s the best way for our family to do things and when’s the best time to get it done.
I drive my husband nuts because he’s more of an if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it kind of guy and I’m a scientist so I’m constantly experimenting to see how we can get the best results. And sometimes my experiments are disastrous and I have to backtrack to the old way of doing things, but that just confirms that the new way wasn’t the right choice for us.
That’s why my D.A.N.G. E.A.S.Y. System is so powerful- it helps you make personalized systems that work for your unique life, instead of trying to fit into someone else’s system.
8. Ask for help- you’ll be amazed at what a difference it makes
I’m definitely more of an independent worker than a team player, so I’m not very good at asking for help. My boss has taught me that you can be an individual worker and still work together as a team towards a goal. Our lab goal is accuracy and efficiency.
It took me years to learn to appreciate and then ask for help with my work in the lab. We often have multiple tests running in the background so when a timer goes off whoever is nearest will take care of it, even if it wasn’t their test.
Since I never asked for help, my boss started offering to help. At first, I’d say no, then over time she wore me down until I’d accept, and now I’m finally comfortable asking for the help I need because I can see how much of a difference a little help can make.
When we hire someone in the laboratory there’s a steep learning curve and the new person slows us down for a long while before they learn enough to actually be helpful in the lab.
I recommend asking for help before you need it. When I was pregnant, I made it very clear that I’d love to have a couple of ladies I could call last minute if I needed help or babysitting and I had a few neighborhood ladies enthusiastically volunteer- and I’ve totally taken them up on it. It’s so much easier getting help when I know specifically who I can call. I do still hesitate, and would rather do things on my own, but I push myself to not try and do it all alone and get help when I need it.
Just think if your friend called asking for help- of course you’d jump to help her in any way you could. Your friends are more than willing to do the same for you!
Conclusion
Time management is about more than just organizing and scheduling. As Peter Drucker said, “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”
Productivity is a process that you continually refine. Simplify and pare down to those things that are the most important and will make the biggest impact in your life. Then automate them to eliminate as much daily decision making as possible. Check in with yourself once a week to see how your systems are doing.
If you want more help with this, I’ve outlined the 8 simple steps that I use to simplify and automate so many different areas of my life in the DANG EASY Quick Start. Grab your free copy and get back in control of your life!