Spring is the season of new beginnings: holistic time management – be more productive with your time
We’ve all acknowledged there are never enough hours in a day. Learn how to use holistic time management to look at yourself as a whole person, rather than the separate parts of your life and manage your time accordingly: the work you, home you, leisure you.
Give Yourself Space
Reminder yourself that in order to be your best self you need space. There is a lot we can do to take control of our own wellbeing. Make sure our body (and mind – for they are inseparable) gets what if needs to function at its best. Creating space for self-awareness and perspective can greatly improve our quality of life.
You don’t need to be 100 percent “on” 100 percent of the time. That’s the path to burnout and illness. If you’re so busy, our calendar is so full that people can’t get time with you, chances are you are missing important moments of your life. The key is to operate at 85 percent capacity, so you’re not fully stretched and stressed all the time. Less is more.
How to manage your time holistically: Establish your Why
Start Small. Find time to just sit, decompress and take stock. Write down everything that’s on your mind, including tasks to be done and things you’re thinking about; which ones have the biggest impact, and which activities can be eliminated, automated or delegate. Right there you’re freeing up space.
Define what productivity means to you.
Productivity is subjective. Ask yourself, “What am I doing today that my future self will thank me for?”
Do three important things and not a hundred low value things. Go hard for an hour, your “power hour”. Get to work, whether you need to do laundry or prepare a presentation for an upcoming meeting and stay focused for one hour at time.
Resist Perfectionism and Embrace Self-Compassion
Discovering the buzzkills in your day can help you to discover how your decisions affect your energy. Each decision takes energy and require us to weight options and sacrifice one path over another. It’s a lot of mental and emotional effort, and it can leave you with decision fatigue. It’s times like this that you need to be kind to yourself. Speak to yourself with compassion and understanding, and accept you’ve done your best today, and tomorrow is a new day with a clean slate.
Self-Care is at the heart of holistic time management. In fact, I believe self-care should be at the heart of everything.
True self-care is all about staying emotionally fit and healthy, being aware of what depletes you and taking steps to replenish your mental and physical health. By taking small positive actions consistently you create a balanced lifestyle. Be mindful of your sleep, exercise, nutrition, career, stress and relationships and make time to take care of yourself; when you take care of yourself everything naturally falls into place and you find time for your happiness.
