TIME MANAGEMENT
By Kirin Parmar, MCP, MSc, B.Arch, Certified Life Coach | Enneagram Consultant
Website: kirinparmar.com
Set your sail to catch your true wind.
You won’t have to paddle all the time. And you’ll get a whole lot further.
Time is a finite thing. So what we are really talking about here is self-management to achieve our deepest needs in an era when we have never been more overwhelmed by having far more to do, with far more options that attract or distract. The vast majority of people struggle to free themselves up.
They never accomplish what they are most capable of. Yet, if we did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.
Thomas Edison
Traditional time management techniques no longer work. Information, understanding knowledge, intellect, great ideas, hard work, talent, network or luck all help. But the biggest factors that will propel us into our dreams are below.
Note that the following is a menu to choose amongst depending on who you are and where you’re at. Because we are all unique, our manifestations of and solutions to time-management have to be customized. That’s why it doesn’t seem to work when we just read a book. Folks write books for what works for their personality and their environment.
SELF-AWARENESS of our WHO
Truly knowing and seeing what there is to love about yourself, has to come before you can develop a vision that is a true fit.
Understanding our fullest potential, our challenges and our gifts are two sides of the same coin, working both for and against us. We can blossom the gifts while attenuating the challenges. Learn how to harness the gifts of your dark to reach your light. Time Management begins (and ends) with self-awareness and it’s an amazing journey.
Valuing our potential. We don’t value what we don’t understand or think others do not value. We also don’t adequately value what comes more naturally to us.
Understanding the underlying and often unconscious emotional needs that attract and distract us. How to get these met in ways that support us rather than undermine us. We are not just rational brains. Duty alone does not carry us. We hijack ourselves when we don’t take into account our emotions and feelings. Our heart’s desires.
KNOWING our WHERE
“Which way should I go?”
“That depends on where you want to get to.”
“I don’t know.”
“Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go” That’s an adapted version of Alice asking the way in Wonderland.
The important thing is if you put the energy into first figuring where you best fit, you save a whole of time and energy. You can be as efficient and effective as possible but what’s the point if your ladder is up the wrong wall? – adapted from Stephen R. Covey in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People)
- Find your ‘Wind’: Work with your Values and Talents to develop a Vision that matches your heart’s desires. Create your Path so you have clarity about your Priorities. Then you won’t spin wheels wondering what to say “yes” or “no” to.
STRUCTURE, ACCOUNTABILITY and ACTION! – THE HOW
The easy way is the hard way, and the hard way is the easy way
- Set Priorities by differentiating between what is Important and Urgent, Important but not Urgent, Not Important though Compelling (e.g. texts and emails) and what is not Essential to your Dreams.
- Protect and funnel the focus you need for priorities. DO LESS. “Choosing a “do less” approach isn’t about giving things up. It’s about getting clear on what matters most” (Kate Northrup in Do Less). Give yourself permission to let go of inessentials, be imperfect and procrastinate over the right things. Automate, Eliminate and Delegate. Get rid of Tolerations. Simplify. Minimize urgencies developing.
- Invest now in the things that will save time over the long-haul.
- Set, update and monitor plans, goals, and steps.
- Use support to encourage accountability to stay in Action: Most of us really need this. Willpower alone is not enough to resist the very human urge to avoid discomfort. We are wired to prefer what appears to be the easy way.
“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.”
Pablo Picasso
ENERGY MANAGEMENT – the WHEN
- Understand and manage when you assign your limited energy. What time of day/the week/the month are best to take care of the blocks you need to carve out for the various needs? When are you at your freshest for the hardest work – also known as THE PRIORITIES? Multi-tasking adds about 25% extra time needed for projects. Are you carving out the uninterrupted blocks you need? Are you also investing now to save time in the future?
SUPPORTIVE and SYNERGISTIC RELATIONSHIPS
- Constructive Communication: Independence has its place, but Interdependence is key to our healthy support system. This is about growing relationships that inspire wonderful synergy as well as mutual support. “…we don’t derive strength from our rugged individualism, but rather from our collective ability to plan, communicate, and work together. Our neural, hormonal and genetic makeup support interdependence over independence. ….we really weren’t born to walk alone.” Brene Brown
- Circle of Influence: Learn where you can have the most impact and let the rest get taken care of by the ripple effect.
SELF-CARE
- I love this one and I want you to as well!! This doesn’t mean hitting the TV or the Bar, although they have their place too. It’s about healthy play which is when our creative juices flow in unexpected and delightful ways. It’s about sleep when we regenerate so we can think more clearly with greater focus so we get done in less time. (A whole lot of goodness happens while our conscious minds give way to the sub-conscious.) It’s also about pure relaxation, calming techniques, mind-body connecting, self-love, and self- acceptance. We get to allocate a clear block of time for these goodies! It’s essential to our potential.
For me personally, I had to experiment with just about everything above in order to stop getting distracted from my own priorities- a particularly sticky challenge for my core personality type. I’d been known for being talented and effective – “superlative” when I used to work in an employer’s office that was also a good fit and was with people that I could love and respect. So it was the most demoralizing, and inexplicable thing when I found myself dragging around when I worked for myself. It felt like trying to unstick from slow-moving quicksand until years into it, I sank and hit bottom. Now that was interesting because when even every distraction and numbing chocolate came to a standstill, I found there was still ground under me and I was breathing (!). The bed was soothing, the trees and sky outside were beautiful. My body had had enough and rebelled against my mind to take charge. I was still enough at last, to finally wake up to there being something bigger than myself going on – there was a mystery – and finding the courage to get expert insights and guidance.
A counselor also introduced me to the enneagram and through that, I learned that there was nothing wrong with me inherently in that I was meant to have my type of struggles as the challenging side of my gifts. There were forces in my past and present experience, however, plus my limited knowledge of how to handle them, that had amplified the struggles to their insurmountable degree. I would have to make different choices and learn new tools for anything to change. It’s like a windscreen wiper was now starting to operate over the perceptions of my personality’s filter. There would be work alright, but the wondrous discoveries and adventures would be worth it.
The Universe unfolded one wonderful resource and support after another. The wisdom of the enneagram relieved me of embarrassment and inspired me. Counseling hosed down the inner critic and self-limiting stories and their anxiety-sapping energy. It got me to express my needs and face into my fear of conflict in order to set limits. Gradually I turned from woe over my challenges to loving my new understanding of my gifts and into what I could expand. I learned to work better with my heart to recognize its deepest needs, and with my gut, the place of deep knowing that does not get confused and run on assumptions and tell stories that send me down a rabbit hole of time and energy loss. I learned how to use my mind to question more and express constructively. To use mindfulness and breathing to catch my patterns. I used life coaching as a vehicle for putting awareness into action. To create my mission, vision and path to give structure to moving into power and dreams. I learned that if a ‘chore’ was not my bliss, I was not meant to do it and give myself permission to hire out. The costs get offset by my greater earning capacity as I focus on my priorities. I automated, delegated and eliminated. Yet still, I was not done.
Determined to focus heavily on time-management to unblock the last bits, I also checked in with more coaches, and read amazing authors and a long survey trail to uncover more strategies. Brene Brown’s books and TEDTalks were instrumental in daring to lead my life by daring to use the vulnerability of the heart. Gretchen Rubin’s book The Four Tendencies told me that it is over 40 percent of people (– spanning different personalities -) that particularly need a structure that includes a source of external support to keep us accountable to our own priorities. “Obligers” are overly drawn to caring about the needs of others. This makes us “rocks of the world” – great for society. But at great cost to our own needs. We need to put on our own oxygen masks first in order to stay the long-term course for ourselves and others.
I worked with an Enneagram coach to acquire some strengths of the other Types – we can get out of the box of being just our core type. I have learned how to embody mantras (mindwork) with mudras (bodywork) to amazingly speed up the growth of new neural pathways to enable me to undo old habits and stick to new ways more quickly. More and more energy and joy poured in.
Theory is just knowledge that does not go anywhere until we consistently PRACTICE new ways by moving into consistent, right ACTION. Courage is not about waiting for fears to subside in order to take action. It’s about taking action to have the practice that it takes to grow courage. And it’s also about having FAITH. Faith that many of our fears are more about shifting mindset than reality, and that the Universe is supportive in ways you can’t imagine until you first take the right action. It’s a bumpy ride that’s way better than giving up in the valley of despair. It does not seem like too much work when one feels incrementally more freed up, powerful and positive along the way.
It may not seem like it at first, but we are actually lucky if our challenging sides lead us to the end of the road that is a catalyst for the journey into awakening and self-awareness. By one measurement, only 22% of us are currently awake, and then there’s still the journey of intentional practice. Humans are wired to want the easy way. Coaching is not for everyone. It is for those willing to become self-aware. We all get to make our own choice to live lives that are fair to middling or to pick up the gauntlet in order to thrive. In order to thrive, we cannot avoid the fears. The only way is through. The fears are mostly not true. A veil of illusions that seem so real. Like in Alice in Wonderland who struggled to find her voice among people who confused her. But when she did, everything scary went away. It was all over and she was in the sun. In real life, it does not happen that quickly and completely. But it happens. Fears stop being walls and become just hurdles you can recognize and step over. They can become the game – something you bat and tell the Universe to take back, you’re not having it! (Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame, in her book, Big Magic). They can become a source of humor and connection if we but dare to share.
We are not meant to achieve this journey alone – and we won’t, for if we are willing to do it, the Universe surprises us by stepping in with caring people we could not fully see before, to make sure we are not alone.
