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For you who pre­fer lis­ten­ing to read­ing, this post is also avail­able as an episode of the ​“Done!” pod­cast:

The imme­di­ate gets priority

A com­mon occur­rence is that the area of respon­si­bil­i­ty that is the most oper­a­tional and prac­ti­cal in nature tends to over­shad­ow the rest and take up more of your time and focus than it per­haps ought to. The urgent and seem­ing­ly des­per­ate­ly impor­tant things get dealt with first and the time you have after fin­ish­ing these is what you are left with to deal with every­thing else. The con­se­quence of this unequal dis­tri­b­u­tion of your most pre­cious resources — time and ener­gy — will be that you always have to do things in a hur­ry and a con­stant feel­ing of inadequacy.

Make it clear

In order to have time for every­thing you have to do, it is a good idea to clar­i­fy and define how much time you actu­al­ly need for each area of respon­si­bil­i­ty. If you are in charge of, let us say three, areas, this does not auto­mat­i­cal­ly mean that they each get a third of your time and attention.

So, how do you clar­i­fy how much of your prime assets each area is allowed to claim?

Do this

1. Begin by list­ing your areas of respon­si­bil­i­ty so that you see them clear­ly before you.
2. Now choose one to start with and ask yourself:
   • What do you need to accom­plish in this area and when?
   • What do you need to do to accom­plish this? Mean­ing, what key to-do-tasks and meet­ings do you have to do to get the job done? This is where it real­ly pays off to be spe­cif­ic and detailed in your descrip­tion. List the tasks and meet­ings in a spread­sheet (you will need it for the cal­cu­la­tion you are about to make).
   • How much of these things do you need to do dai­ly, week­ly, month­ly, and annu­al­ly? Choose the timescale that comes most nat­u­ral­ly to you in your job and role. If you need to work with all areas of respon­si­bil­i­ty simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, I am guess­ing ​”week­ly” is an appro­pri­ate timescale and I sug­gest you lat­er express how you divide and dis­trib­ute your time between the areas in terms of ​“hours per week”.
   • How much time does each thing take to do? Do the nec­es­sary to-do-tasks take a total of 30 min­utes to do every day? Does the recur­ring team-meet­ing take a total of two hours every month?
3. Con­tin­ue list­ing all the major tasks and meet­ings your oth­er areas of respon­si­bil­i­ty con­sist of.
4. Add up the esti­mat­ed amount of time for each area of respon­si­bil­i­ty in the unit of time you have cho­sen (hours, in this exam­ple). How are the hours dis­trib­uted between them? Does this cal­cu­la­tion cor­re­spond with how you have dis­trib­uted your time thus far in real life?
5. If you need more time for some­thing or for one of the areas you are respon­si­ble for, make sure to block recur­ring hours in the cal­en­dar to work active­ly on them, or, if you wish to be a lit­tle more flex­i­ble in your plan­ning, design a tem­plate-cal­en­dar so that your cal­en­dar accu­rate­ly reflects the dis­tri­b­u­tion of time you actu­al­ly need from now on.

Increase your chances of reach­ing your goals

If you make it very clear how much time you actu­al­ly need for each area of respon­si­bil­i­ty to reach the goals you are respon­si­ble for attain­ing and suc­ceed­ing in what you want to accom­plish, it will become eas­i­er to ensure you have the time you need for your tasks. Doing this exer­cise will also make it clear if the respon­si­bil­i­ties you have and the goals you have either set or are respon­si­ble for are rea­son­able and attain­able in the first place. The chances of you ful­fill­ing your ambi­tions increase and does so in a sus­tain­able way.

What’s your way?

How have you ensured that you have the time you need to make progress in all the areas you are respon­si­ble for? Do you have a tip or trick you could share with the rest of us? Feel free to write me an email and do just that. 

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