Are you vigilant with how you spend your time?

I’ve always been conscious of how I spend my time. I try to be intentional, set priorities, focus on strategic work vs tactical – blah blah – we've all heard the same information.

Let me tell you about a speaker a couple of years ago who triggered me to rethink what I was doing. I was at a women’s leadership breakfast where the speaker was a daughter, sister, wife, mother, and CEO of a $35 billion company. She had the same 168 hours available each week as I did. She did not have more time! But she thought about her time differently. She was intentional with how she spent every hour of her week.

Now, you might hear this and think it sounds overly rigid. She had no time for fun and no time to go with the flow. That was not the case – she WAS intentional with how she spent her time. She intentionally spent time having fun and on lazy weekends. She understood her personal needs and priorities and spent her time accordingly. She didn’t wing it and hope it happened. She thought about her 168 hours a week as a resource.

How does this tie back to the theme?

Recently, I was working on something that had been on my priority list for six weeks. I started by being proactive and giving myself plenty of time before the deadline. And then... the deadline was here!

One evening, my daughter calls me.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
I begrudgingly admit, “Working — I’m behind.”
Her response: “I know how to do that.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me you know how to do this?”
Her response: “You didn’t ask me.”

What had been hanging over my head for six weeks took her less than two hours — and cost me $40.

The moral of these stories is to be vigilant with how you spend your time, be vulnerable, and ask for help.

Visit RKCMANAGEMENTCONSULTING.COM for ideas and methods to guide your organization toward steady, reliable progress.