Image by Christian Benacer, taken from stock.xchng
If you think you own your time, you’re either enlightened, or kidding yourself. For most people, including me, it’s the latter. Whenever you find yourself attending pointless meetings, spending too much time on email, or at your boss’ beck and call - you don’t really own your time.
Oftentimes, this makes you less productive.
However, if you create your own schedule and stick to it without outside interruption, you’re more apt to accomplish your daily goals. You own your time.
What do you do to gain control of your time? Here’s where you can start:
Keep your mobile phone silent. Constant attachment to one’s phone is integral to corporate (and Filipino) culture. Observe your behavior with your phone. You’ll find that it usually distracts you from what you should be doing. After all, everyone can reach you 24/7 - including text message spammers.
By putting my phone on silent, there’s less pressure to answer calls and messages. I look at my phone 2x a day and often find out that I haven’t missed anything important. This also forces other people to adjust to your schedule and your priorities, rather than putting you on call 24/7 like an emergency room doctor. (Unless, of course, you are an emergency room physician. In that case, I can’t help you.)
If you receive too many emails each day, do something about it. I’ve discussed this at length in my “How I Freed Myself from Mountains of Email” series. If you haven’t read it yet, I advocate that you look it over and see how you can apply some of the ideas into your own email routine.
Practice saying “No”. Do you ever wonder how people include themselves in your schedule? It’s probably because you say “yes” more times than you should. For example: Can we speak for an hour about this project that you’re not even part of? Yes. Can you send me Mr. Smith’s contact info? Yes. Do you’ve time? Yes. If you want to learn more about the art of saying “no”, we’ve an article from last month about it.
Respect your own time. If you don’t respect it, no one else will. If it’s your rest day, don’t get suckered into saying “Yes, I’ll put in a few hours this day to cover for you.” even if your colleagues tell you it’s “Just this one time, promise.” It’s almost never just one time. If they get away with taking your free time away once, they’re apt to do it again.
It also helps to think of your time as money. It’s especially true in the workplace. How much do you get paid per hour? If an obnoxious coworker drags you into an irrelevant brainstorming session for an hour, it’s like you just gave that person your money. You could’ve spent that hour doing a more pressing task. The next time someone asks for your time, rephrase the question in your head as if they were asking you for money. “Do you have an hour to read this silly forwarded email?” will become “Do you’ve $50 you could give me?”. Notice the hesitation you feel.
How much of your time do you really own? Do you find yourself giving too much time and attention to others?
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