Some of you guys asked me about time management, seeing how I have a full time job (9@5), manage the blog by myself & I’m also currently working on building an accounting practice for entrepreneurs (OUF, yeah that does seem like a lot now that I read it, lol…) I wrote this blog post to give you a little bit of insight on how I manage my time & hopefully inspire you to manage yours!
1- Passion: Honestly the number one thing to help you manage your time is passion! If you’re passionate about your work or project, you will go out of your ways to make time for it. Often, people say they “don’t have time” to do something, say exercise. Most likely the reason why you can’t find time is that you hate to exercise, so you’re definitely not passionate about it. If you were, you’d either fight that “I’m not a morning person” crap and wake up in the morning to work out, or hit the gym at lunch/after work, or late at night – there are always options. So what’s the solution? Find a workout you do enjoy: maybe it’s yoga, pilates, running, wtv. Once you find what you love, you will figure out how to carve out the time. The same goes for your work or life projects. Ask yourself: Are you passionate about it? Are you sure this is what you want to do? What is your dream really? Picture it, how bad do you want it? I started the blog with 0 followers, 0 interest from anyone and I did it for myself, b/c I loved fashion & b/c I had a message to share and little by little I carved out the time to work on it as a hobby, until it became much more.
2-Priorities: We simply can’t do it all in the 24hrs per day that we get, so make a list and be realistic. It’s so easy to get discouraged when you write out a list of 20 things and you get to accomplish only 2 – total defeat! You feel you did nothing, but maybe you did those 2 things really well, that’s worth more than doing a crappy job on 20 things. Make a list that makes sense and stick to it!
3-Distractions: Oh boy, if you only knew how much I love to watch TV. I could binge watch Games of Thornes, Modern Family, Jane the Virgin, Riverdale…shall I go on? LOL – TV is my best friend and my worst enemy, so to avoid it, I dive right into my work and keep the TV watching to the evening! Trust me, once you get into something you love, it will suck you in completely! Sometimes, I even forget about mealtime (not that I recommend that), but when the creative jucies start running I forget about the TV and go full course to finish my “to do” list. Not to mention how rewarding it is to accomplish a task, makes me feel like I had such a productive day, which in turn makes me want to do it all over again tomorrow.
4-Sacrifice: Yes, to be successful, you need to sacrifice some time, but that shouldn’t prevent you from spending time with family and friends. You might have to say yes to a fewer things, but you need some downtime too – it will give you the energy & fuel to continue the next day.
5- Agenda: I’m old school and I keep a paper agenda – my entire life is in it and I love it this way. If you’re more tech-y, you can use your smartphone to fill it out. Whatever the case may be, keep an agenda and stick to it. Sometimes I have an event I do not want to miss at 8am, I make sure my agenda is up to date, I wake up early to make sure I have enough time to get to the location + find parking. I get in, talk to the right people, check out the collection, ask all the necessary questions and I’m out in 30 mins, just enough time for me to get back to work! Without an agenda, you can’t prioritize and as such, you can’t stick to a schedule & accomplish all that you set out to do.
6-“Miracle Morning”: One final thought I really wanted to share with you ladies. Recently, I read this book called “The Miracle Morning” by Hal Elrod. It’s an amazing book, very easy read & it gives tons of tips on how to wake up in the morning without hitting the snooze button and how to take advantage of the morning by waking up early. I’m trying it now and I must admit that it is definitely transforming my life. I’m the type of person who usually sets the alarm clock at 3 different times b/c I’m sure that I will hit the snooze button at least twice before I drag myself out of bed, but in doing so I make the waking up so much more painful. It’s honestly better to just rip off the bandaid and take advatange of the early hours. It really sets the mood for the rest of the day. I’m proud to say that I became a Morning Person :) Give it a try, you won’t regret it!
Hope this was useful & that it gave you clarity on your own time management. Let me know your thoughts xoxo
Kisses,
WCX