Your Calendar is your Currency

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Do you remember that Hootie and the Blowfish song that goes “time, why you punish me.” I do. Don’t judge me or guess my age, we are here to talk about you today and how you spend your time.

And a lot of you treat time, a precious and beautiful resource, like it’s renewable. And it’s not. You can always make more money. But you can never have more than 24 hours in a day. I have 24 hours in a day. Beyonce has 24 hours in a day. JLo has 24 hours in a day. Tina Turner, God rest her soul, had 24 hours in a day. And the reason I want to state the obvious here, is that we all know this, but a lot of you (and me included), blame time.

We say things like…

-       I would do it, but I don’t have time.

-       If there were only more hours in a day/days in a week.

-       I never have enough time to (fill in the blank).

And if you want to get serious about delivering on your personal development strategy and change anything in your life, and create a life that is whole-ass/whole-self, you need to master your time. You need to start making time your bitch instead of bitching about your time. You need to start believing things like:

-       My time is my choice

-       My calendar is my currency

-       My time is precious and non-refundable

-       My time has the meaning I give it

You need to take your time and how you plan it and spend it as seriously as you take any important relationship, because how you treat your time, what do with your time, will either empower you or drain you.  If you want a life you design and one where you have time to do the stuff you love to do and need to do, you need to manage your time.

Here’s how to do it:

Step 1- Be aware of how you treat your time.

How do you spend your days? What do you do at work? What do you do when you’re not working? I want you to get super granular and do an audit. I’d love for you to break out your calendar into little chunks so you can say you spend XX% of time doing laundry and XX% of time producing this or that…. I really want you to focus on activities that are inputs and outputs… so think about what you produce in your time… you produce laundry if you put clothes in the dryer and that takes 3 hours per week. You produce a great strategy for the brand when you do your annual planning and within a week it takes 20 hours… You produce endorphins when you work out and that takes 5 hours a week…. You create love when you hang out with your spouse and you do that 10 hours a week…. I want you to be so damn specific.

 If you can’t remember what you did say last week, then start tracking on a Monday every flipping hour. Use a digital calendar and after you’re done put down what you did. From the time you get up to the time you go to bed.

Step 2- Decide on the top 3-5 ways in which you want to invest your time.

Here are mine (not in order)

1.     My business and the income goals I have.

2.     My family and friends and the specific connections I want to have.

3.     My health and what exactly I want to be able to do with that gift.

4.     My creativity and nurturing my passions for writing, podcasting, speaking.

Step 3- Scrub your output from step 1 and step 2; map and gap.

Where do you have alignment and where do you have gaps? And by the way, don’t judge yourself. You are amazing for doing this. You definitely didn’t put self-loathing on your time list, so drop that shit.

Step 4- Pick 1 of the top things, and devote the time you need to that area… Just 1….

-       List all the actions you need to take

-       List the approximate time it takes you to do the damn thing

-       Schedule it in your calendar like it’s an appointment with Oprah, Ghandi, T. Swift, etc.

-       And show the F up for yourself

As you get more comfortable, and see progress in that one area, add another. Remove the things that don’t serve you as you add the things that do…

Step 5- Plan your week, just do it.

Pick a day, take your calendar, block your time for what is important and the things you must do. Stick to a schedule and revise when there are things that “happen.” Your time will love you for it. If you don’t know how to do this, I do and can help you create more freedom. Email me at contact@workandwhim.com and let’s get started.