The foundation of the system is structure. Many people have an initial resistance to the idea of structure, but please believe me when I say that it is critical to start with a structure.
I believe a structure is essential to use your time to get what you want in your life. The structure becomes the integral part your ongoing planning. A plan is essential to be effective, yet as we live day-to-day we seem to get caught up in doing rather than planning.
Let’s look at some examples of where you EXPECT structure and planning to be in place.Do you ever fly? How would feel if your airline decided NOT to use the air traffic control processes (plans) and NOT to have any flight plans. Would you accept that? No. Why not? Because it would not be safe.
There are many other examples. Going in for surgery is another example. Do you want a focus Plans and Process OR do you want a focus on Doing?
Yet, most people fall in to the trap of Doing rather than Planning.When I talk to my clients and groups about this the first comment that comes back to me is “yeah, but those things (flying, surgery) are for really important situations and safety is a major issue!” Think about that response for a minute. This implies that your time is not important enough to plan for.
Do you really think your time in not important? Not important enough to plan for? THINK AGAIN.So, if you expect a clear effective plan for important events like flying and surgery, then you should expect that same for your own time.
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The next excuse I get is “it’s too hard to plan all the time.” And this I can agree with to some extent. Many time management systems are detailed and/or complicated. What I also see everyday is that activity without a plan wastes massive amounts of time and energy.
The structure that I have seen help most clients be more effective is a weekly plan.First you need to create an Ideal Week template. Imagine a typical week in your life and think about what would make it a perfect week – your ideal week. That’s what you want to put on your ideal week sheet.
There are two rules. You cannot pretend you have more time – 24 hours a day 7 days a week – that’s it. Secondly, this is about a “normal” week – not a holiday away or not having to work or any other situations that are not typical for you. Create blocks of time (use different colors) for the different categories where you will spend your time. At this stage the blocks can be general and have headings like exercise, travel, work project 1, home project 2, time with family and so on.
Structure creates flexibilityDean was reluctant to use the structure initially because he thought it would be restrictive and rigid. What he found was that the structure gave him a much greater sense of what was happening for, what needed to be done and the time available to do it.
The visual representation of time helped Dean to see things differently AND it helped him to see how he could move things around to suit himself (and reduce time pressure). With no structure Dean had been at the mercy of management by crisis, constantly rushing to get things completed last minute and feeling trapped by the amount of work that was urgent.
This insight happens for all people who open their mind and are really prepared to change what they are doing to create a better life. Structure creates flexibility and leads to time mastery. I believe life mastery cannot happen without time mastery.
Page 14The next step in the 21st Century Time Management system is to create an ideal week structure. Make it colourful and make sure you have included all aspects of your life (not just work).
Just before I get you to define your ideal week structure, I want to introduce you to what I call capacity.