The objective of time management is to maximise the time you spend on important things.
This means reducing the time you spend on UNimportant things
…which also means working out what’s important and what is’t. Harder than it sounds!
For example, is BUYING FOOD important, or not?
Well, clearly if you don’t do it you’ll starve, so it HAS to be done. But HAVING to do something isn’t my definition of importance. MY question to you is “Is it something you’d like to maximise or minimise?”
- Do you have a life goal to maximise the time you spend at the supermarket?
- Will you regret not having spent more time there, when you reach the end of your life?
I think you can see that, unless you are a chef who loves choosing their ingredients (which is fine) for most of us the buying of our food is NOT important.
Wow! Our lives are FULL of things that we HAVE to do, but which are NOT important! Having realised this, we can then embark on phase 2 which is thinking about how to reduce then time spent on them.
For example (in the case of food shopping) you could….
- Automate it and buy one click from the internet
- Delegate it and pay someone to do it for you
- Do it less often, but getting more in one go
- Be less fussy about getting the exact make, right size of pack etc
- Be more efficient and find somewhere nearer or quicker even if it costs a bit more
- Do it faster by having a very efficient system of list (in order of location on the shelves?) bags, parking etc
- Multi-task and listen to podcasts while shopping so you get double use of your time
- Make it more enjoyable by listening to music on headphones,
- Make it social and go with a friend so you can chat as you go round collecting your groceries
There are always lots of ways to do it, once you have taken that key step of REALISING that even though you HAVE to do it, it’s still not important.
This is the essence of Time Management. Understand the above and it will change your life.
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