As I’ve shared in previous articles, I am an ADD poster child and have forever struggled with staying focused and sticking to routines. Over the years, I’ve experimented with, acquired and developed an array of strategies and tactics to help me stay organized and complete projects on time. However, every now and again, a perfect storm of deadlines, distractions, and obligations line up and wreck my productivity and peace of mind—even with all my acquired skills and systems!
While my time management skills improved vastly over the years, I was still only successful 85% of the time. I realized if I wanted to keep my business growing, I needed to do better. Then one day, it happened: I instantly pushed it to 99% and the transformation wasn’t due to a book or a course or some new software. My desire to get better at managing my time converted to a non-negotiable necessity when my daughter was born.
My wife and I had been trying to bring a child into the world for 9 years. Throughout 8 of those 9 years, we experienced financial hardships and heartbreaking personal losses, and pretty much came to the end of our rope. After exhausting most of our financial reserves and ALL our emotional fortitude—we let go of the idea of ever having a child of our own flesh and blood. However, in February 2012, we received the life-altering news that Amanda was pregnant, and by September of that year, we were blessed with our baby girl, Logan. Holding her in my arms for the first time, I made an unshakable declaration, right then and there in the delivery room, that I would spend as much time with her as possible. Soon thereafter, I was faced with the hard fact that my habit of letting things intermittently fall by the wayside time was going to jeopardize my declaration. I realized it wasn’t enough for me to simply want to change my time-management habits; to honor my commitment (to spend as much time with my daughter as possible) my desire to change would have to become a non-negotiable need. It was that need that drove my commitment to taking control of how I spend my time every single day.
So for me, the compelling and meaningful “reason” for seriously taking the bull by the horns (with regard to time management) was, and is, my daughter. When I find myself occasionally adrift from the systems I’ve set in place for maximizing my work time and for super-charging my productivity, I recall my commitment to maximizing the time spent with Logan, and that’s all I need to get myself back on track.
Whatever compels you to revolutionize your time management habits might not reveal itself to you as dramatically as it did in my life, but I guarantee, it’s there to be discovered; you might just need to do some soul-searching.
Here are 3 of my favorite books to help get the ball rolling:
- The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work by Shawn Achor
- The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
- Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind by Jocelyn K. Glei
