Session 8 – Fast Action Step #5 – Get the Most out of Your Schedule

Fast Action Steps

1. Track how you’re spending your time using the Time Tracking Journal for the next three weeks following the steps in the session.

Session Transcript

We’ve been looking at, What do you do when there’s not enough time for leadership development?  And we’ve looked at 4 Fast Action Steps…

Fast Action Step #1 – Take Control of Your Schedule to help you with the mindset – the mind shift – for managing your time and focus

Fast Action Step #2 – Create an Annual Plan to help you get your most important people and events in place first so you can effectively plan the rest of your schedule – to make time for what matters most.

Fast Action Step #3 – Complete the Best Week tool to help you be most intentional with how you use your time.

Fast Action Step #4 – How to Use These tools to setup your calendar. This was where we brought it all together and gave you several tips.

In this session, I am going to show you a simple process so you can KNOW how you are spending your time and simple tool to use. And we will wrap up our Fast Action Steps and bring it all together. This is one of my favorite sessions.

In the BUSY seasons of life, these tools and habits we’ve been looking at take pressure OFF.

In the SLOWER seasons of life, these habits put pressure ON. And that’s good. As you have more margin, you are confronted by how you’re spending your time.

In some ways it’s embarrassing and in other ways it’s motivating. Because now you’re more aware of how you’re spending your time.

If you’re going to be a leader worth following, it will only happen if you are intentional with your time, not accidental.

Now, as you make progress with the couple of challenges you will run into is, How much time SHOULD I be spending on certain activities? And, How much time am I spending on them now?

Fast Action Step #5 – Complete the Time Tracking Journal

After you set up your Annual Plan, Best Week, and calendar, experiment and tweak them for a few weeks. If you continually struggle with time and focus, or you need help with what your Best Week and calendar should look like, you can use the Time Tracking Journal to track how you are spending your time.

If you haven’t already, go ahead and download the tool on this page and follow along as I go through it with you. We’ve included a blank template for you to use along with several completed weeks for you to see how a completed journal might look.

Here’s how it works…

The Time Tracking Journal is to help you see objectively how and where you are currently spending time and help you evaluate how you are spending your time. It will help you answer the questions:

1. Where is my time spent?
2. Does how I spend my time make sense for this season (of my life, work, career, etc.)?

The Time Tracking Journal includes all 7 days of the week and is divided into 10 minute increments. You will track everything – every waking minute is 10-minute increments. We know what you are thinking – because we’ve used all of the objections for ourselves and we’ve heard them from the thousands of clients who we’ve walked through the tool. So I’m not going to address every objection here.

Here’s what you need to know and do – Imitate before you innovation. Use the tools for 3 weeks – track every 10 minutes for 21 days. THEN let us know what you think about the tools and your recommendations.

So, here is the step-by-step process for using the Time Tracking Journal:

1. Start with one week
2. Every 10 minutes
3. Track the full day – from the time you get up until you go to bed, not just work hours
4. At the end of the first week, review all of the entries and create themes. At the end of the second week, you may identify one or two more, but most leaders generally do not add more than 1 or 2 themes after they create the original themes.
5. Review it with your spouse, teen or adult children, colleague or boss, assistant, close friend, or mentor
6. Get their feedback
7. Do it for two more weeks to make sure you have a solid view for how your time is spent.
8. Draft your action items and make the necessary changes to your schedule, Annual Plan, and Best Week

Knowing you CAN know how you spend your time doesn’t mean you DO know. Knowing you can know isn’t the same as knowing.

If time could talk, here’s what it would tell you (and me). I’m easy to track. But when you lose track of me, you will lose your peace of mind. In fact, if you lose track for too long, you may lose your mind.

If you’ll do it, you will be less fearful, and far more purposeful.

What you choose to do with your time speaks volumes about who you are. Who you are to those around you. Who you are to those who your life, work, and leadership does and could impact.

So that’s Fast Action Step #5.  If you haven’t already, take a moment right now to download the Worksheet on this page and complete the action steps for this session.

So, here’s what I want you to do, for the next three weeks, I want you to track how you’re spending your time using the Time Tracking Journal following the steps we just reviewed…

Remember, you don’t have to get it perfect, you just need to take the next step.

Next Session

As we continue our time and focus journey in the next session, we are going to move on to a topic which affects all of us – What do you do when you’re dealing with something incredibly challenging at work or at home that is distracting you?

And remember, you don’t have to get it perfect, you just need to take the next step.

I’ll see you in the next session.[/text_block]