Looking over the past few weeks, a theme is emerging in regards to what I have been thinking and writing about. That theme seems to be around the subject of creativity – from reconnecting with passion, to reclaiming creativity for ourselves, to the different levels of creative thought we engage in.
I have been thinking about a lot about creativity because well, I am a creative, and it plays a big role in my career and in my personal projects and aspirations. Also since I’ve started to put out content on a regular basis again, I have been reflecting on the nature of creativity and creative production. Today I am focusing on time.
Time management is absolutely important. We all have the same 24 hours in a day, and the same 7 days in the week. Some people are able to fit in a crazy amount of work and productivity in that time, while some of us squander most of our time or at the least we don’t direct its use properly.
If we want to be successful and creatively fulfilled, we have to do the work. And there is a lot of work – researching, discovering, prototyping, producing, pitching. Doubly so if we are building a stack and have a lot of things going on.
How do we manage our time in a way that squeezes the most of the moments we spend on the grind? How do it do it in such a way that preserves our time for rest, our empty space?
The answers will vary from person to person, but here are some principles to think about.
Reject the ‘I don’t have time’ myth
I have a whole blog post on this, and shout out to Ali Abdaal’s productivity course for hammering this idea even further home for me.
The usual knee-jerk reaction or reason as to why we are not getting stuff done is the idea that we don’t have time. We reach for that excuse and mentally conjure up a fog of activities, meetings, and commitments that are preventing us from doing what we need to get done.
More often that not, it is really just that, an excuse. All we have is time, the real reason is that we are not using it properly. Sure, you might really have so many commitments and pressures on your time that it is hard to find time. But you have more control than you think you do.
You have to shift to the mentality of making time. You know what needs to get done. Make the time for it. Do an audit of your time. Discover all time you waste and redesign your schedule. Prioritise what is important. Say no to something else. Steal time somewhere. Wake up earlier. Go to bed later. Delegate stuff to someone else. Run away from the world for a bit. Do whatever you need to do to make the time.
Protect the downtime
We are not fine-tuning our productivity and managing our time better so we can spend all our time working. Quite the contrary, we are trying to make sure we get things done while still being able to enjoy our downtime, our play, our leisure guilt free.
You need the cycles of productivity and rest to work at peak levels over the long term. If your work swells up to swallow up every second of your time, leaving you no time for yourself, no time for rest, for play, for contemplation, then you are probably doing too much, and not managing your time and energy well enough. Speaking of energy…
A lot of time management is energy management.
It doesn’t matter if you are an early riser or a night owl. What matters is understanding your energy patterns, your circadian rhythms and as much as possible aligning to that. Work when your energy is up and rest when your energy is low. Do the most important and focus requiring tasks first and out the way, then do rote things when you are a bit tired and fatigued. It is that simple.
Most people are freshest after waking up, do your most important work (the actual creative work that will move you forward) within the first 2-5 hours of your day, then schedule the more routine stuff like checking email, processing admin, having meetings to later in the day.
You can also batch similar tasks together and optimise your processes for greater efficiency. But direct your best energy to the most important things.
Build your life around the core important things
In The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, Steven Covey likens our schedules to a jar, and our priorities as rocks and sand of different grades. If you put the sand first, then the rocks on top, you would not be able to fit in as much as if you had put the rocks in first then poured the sand in. It is a great analogy to the idea of scheduling your most important things first, and everything else around that.
What is truly important to you? What will actually move you forward? It is probably your work, the quality of your creation, the quality of your study, of your networking, of your habits and day to day. Make sure these things are scheduled into your life on a weekly basis. A block of time – an hour, or two, or six, whatever you can manage. This keeps you on track and makes sure that those important things are actually getting done.
Find a way to chunk and bake the steps to your goals and projects into your daily routine.
Block the time, protect the work
In our attention-deficit world, the ability to focus and get things done is more prized and more important than ever. So, put the phone away, shut off the internet if you can, close the door, let people know to leave you alone for a while, and then just get things done.
It might be difficult at first if you are not used to it. The desire to check the feed, to distract yourself is powerful. But substitute that with the eventual pull that is the flow state. As you learn to settle into your work and focus on it, you will learn to enjoy it more. You will find yourself creating, exploring, learning, until you are sucked in so far, it legit takes a lot to pull you out and distract you.
Those are 5 quick principles and ideas to help supercharge your productivity. In the next blog, I will explore at least 5 more more granular tips and tricks to help you manage your time more effectively.