Here’s to Better Time Management in 2016!

Happy New Year!

January is a great time to take a good look at what worked in the past year, what didn’t, and what you want to do differently in the year to come.

I’ve got lots of exciting things coming down the pike for my business, but there are always areas that I could improve in too. One of those areas for me is time management.

The nature of my business is really fast paced, so while I would love to sit down and devote a full, uninterrupted hour or two to one project, that’s just not easy to do. Maybe you can relate.

However, I know that multi-tasking doesn’t save time. So what’s a business owner who has a ton going on but also wants to focus to do?

Time Chunking

Tony Robbins made this concept well known a couple of years ago. Time chunking is a hybrid between multi-tasking and single-tasking. It strives for the uninterrupted focus of single-tasking, but allowing for the modern day reality that you are going to get interrupted at times.

The goal of chunking is to cut down your to do list and make it more manageable.

It works because you allow yourself plenty of time (a time chunk) to get a project finished, allowing for interruptions.

Here’s an example of how time chunking can work for you.

You normally work from 8:30 am until 4:00 pm. During that time, you need to:

* Check your email at least 3 but realistically more like 10 times all day long.
* Finish writing a blog post.
* Have a session with a client.
* Send your blog post to your team.
* Make headway on a new project you’re developing.
* Have a quick call with a team member.
* Sign and send a contract.
* Ask your team to place 3 product orders.
* Talk to a colleague you’re collaborating with on a project.

So the first thing you want to do to chunk your time is identify what fits together.

In this case, that might be:

* Make headway on a new project you’re developing.
* Finish writing a blog post.
* Send your blog post to your VA.
* Ask your team to place 3 product orders.

And these fit together too:

* Talk to a colleague you’re collaborating with on a project.
* Have a quick call with a team member.
* Have a session with a client.

The first set fit together because they are solitary projects you need to devote time to, and then check in with your team about. The second set fit together because they’re all meetings or conversations you need to have.

So now you fit them all into your day. If the client session is at 10:00 am, plan the rest around that.

* 8:30-10:00 – Check email first thing, then get the conversations out of the way before your session.
* 10:00-11:00 – Client session
* 11:00-11:30 – Check email for the second time, then sign and send that contract.
* 11:30-3:00 – This is your main solitary project time. You’ll take a break for lunch when you need to, and at the end, you’ll check in with your team.
* 3:00-4:00 – You’ll check email for the third time and plan out the following day based on what you need to get done.

It might feel like you’re giving yourself way more than enough time to finish the tasks in each time frame, but that’s the beauty of the system.

That’s how much you get done in a normal day now, and you feel rushed the whole time. You can accomplish the same amount, never feeling rushed or pulled in multiple directions.