The most common complaint I hear from my clients and colleagues is, “I wish I had more time!” There are many reasons for this. We commit ourselves to an inordinate amount of tasks, and end up with way more on our plates than we can handle. We allow our co-workers to distract us from staying focused on our work. We are often barraged with demanding clients who ask us to revise work we’ve already completed. And then there’s the time-sucking King of Black Holes: E-Mail.
On top of all that, we’ve got families and social lives and a wide range of obligations calling for our time and attention and energy.
If you’re like most people, you find yourself on a daily basis engaged in a juggling act without one free moment to pause and figure out how to streamline your to-do list. Your productivity and efficiency would benefit greatly from implementing some of the time management techniques you’ve learned over the years, but you simply can’t find the time to implement them. (Or so you tell yourself.)
So here’s a question for you:
Are you actually attempting to carve out more time to tackle your to-do list every day, or are you simply resigned to some fixed idea that there is simply not enough time to accomplish everything you’d like to accomplish? (Something tells me it’s the latter.)
I invite you to take the Eliminator Challenge. It’s simple. Only 3 steps:
Step 1
Take a sheet of paper and write down 10 non-essential activities you regularly engage in that require time, focus, and energy. Be honest and identify activities that could absolutely be eliminated from your life for an entire week. Treat it like an experiment. Start with the obvious ones, like non-work related social media or chit-chat with co-workers. Then dig deeper and add items that either distract you from your priorities, or influence your overall attitude in non-productive ways, or drain your enthusiasm. Next—write down a simple solution in parentheses. For example:
- Too much Facebook. (Eliminate the app off your phone and don’t log-in for 7 days.)
- Too much TV and video streaming. (Unplug the TV, or TiVo your shows and watch them next week, or abstain altogether.)
- Chit-chat / idle gossip. (Walk away when you catch yourself engaged in one of these conversations or text threads or emails!)
Step 2
Look over the list and pick three items you’d be able to eliminate immediately for 7 days. If you find it easy to eliminate those three, keep ticking things off your list until you’ve reached your limit or until you’ve knocked out all 10.
Step 3
Once you’ve eliminated these non-essential activities for an entire week—take another quick inventory to see if there are any other activities you can do without for the next 7 days. If so, add those items to your list. Finally, take a few minutes to identify activities you’d be able to eliminate for a full 30 days. After cutting something out of your daily routine for 30 days—it’s safe to say you probably don’t need it in your life on a regular basis.
Like most habits, it will be uncomfortable at first to make these changes, and you might find yourself waffling on a few of your favorite modes of distraction.
Keep in mind—it’s only an experiment and it’s only 7 days. Anyone can give something up for 7 days. (No Facebook for a week??!? ARE YOU NUTS??!?)
Once you are over the hump and are cruising along, you might fall off the wagon a few times, and that’s to be expected, so just jump back on pick up where you left off! By continually taking the challenge, even if you only eliminate one or two activities per week, you will still be creating space in your daily schedule, and will reap the benefits of gaining more precious time for yourself!
