Ahh, September. That time of year when the leaves start falling, the air turns crisp… and everything gets so crazy busy that you might not even have time to notice anything except the next thing on your to-do list.
Are you feeling “time tension” right now? It’s that nagging push-and-pull feeling that says: I have so much to do! No matter how I use my time today, there are at least three other things I should also be doing with that time, including:
- Planning for Q4
- Planning for next year
- Checking in with clients
- Wrapping up yearly goals
- Handling some urgent school issue for the kids
- Tackling a home project that needs to get done before winter
- Getting outside to enjoy the fall weather…. And so forth. The list never ends.
Good time management is hard to achieve when you’re pulled in all directions and everything feels time-sensitive.
It’s easy to get paralyzed and/or panicked in those moments. Things like achieving peak productivity and strategic prioritizing—all the careful time management planning work you’ve done—fall away. You lose sight of the big picture and just think: Let me start getting things done. I’ll start going through new emails, or research that thing I’ve been meaning to research, or focus on some other relatively simple task. The objective becomes crossing things off your to-do list, as quickly as you can.
That feels like good time management, but is it?
You’re achieving a bunch of tasks! You’re answering emails! Getting a lot of things done is better than getting nothing done, right?
And sure, that’s probably true. It’s just that you can do better than “finish random tasks, or accomplish nothing.”
Those can start to feel like your only options when you’re overwhelmed, overscheduled and panicked about your workload. If you start internally panicking about how many things need your attention, it’s a natural response to shift into reactive mode.
There’s no plan for how to manage and balance all of those different demands. So you just start doing triage by giving your attention to the tasks that call out to you the loudest. Maybe you notice how messy your desk is and decide that now is the perfect time to clean it out. Or a colleague asks if you can review something for them, so you spend an hour on that.
Breaking Free from Reactive Time Management Traps
Acting from a reactive place feels like you’re being really productive, in the moment. Think of playing Whac-a-mole: you’re knocking down tasks one after another, as they pop up in front of you. They’re just likely not the tasks that are actually aligned with your most important goals and top priorities.
Avoiding that reactive mindset is all about remembering that you have the power to control your own time and set your own priorities. A few simple strategies can help you remember to use that power to achieve your goals, even when you’re totally overwhelmed.
3 Ways to Avoid Reactive Time Management Patterns
1. Reconnect with your most meaningful priorities. Staying in relationship to your goals is critically important because you’re so busy and so many new, urgent tasks are always popping up and calling for your attention. If you’re going to be able to ask yourself, “Is this new request a higher priority to me than spending time on [X, Y or Z project],” you’re going to need to be clear about what those X, Y and Z priorities really are.
2. Notice the signs that you’re becoming panicked and reactive. What does your body feel like when you’re becoming overwhelmed and unable to prioritize everything that’s on your plate? Does your mood change? Are there patterns you can notice around the types of tasks that tend to make you feel like you don’t know what to do next?
3. Practice the Pause. Practice the Pause is an extremely simple strategy I’ve devised to help you increase focus and work more productively on the things that are most meaningful to you. Noticing what’s happening around you is the first step. Then, you’ll use what you’ve noticed to figure out the right thing to do next so your actions are aligned with your top priorities.
Need more support creating focus and prioritizing the things that are most important to you?
The end-of-the-year pressure is going to kick in soon. Now’s the time to make sure you have the tools you need to enjoy a productive, lucrative and joyful Q4. My Practice the Pause technique is one simple tool you can add to your time management toolbox right now. Click here to access a free guide to Practice the Pause. Reach out to me with questions—or to tell me how this technique works for you!
Be well,
Sarah
- Boost Fall Productivity by Disconnecting: Here’s How - September 30, 2024
- Three Steps to Stop Making Reactive Time Management Decisions - September 15, 2024
- Ready to Lean Into Your Year-End Goals? Try These Three Time Management Strategies - August 31, 2024
