Over the course of my life, I have always been a huge advocate of managing your time.

 

Work smart, not hard!

 

Multi-task!

 

Delegate!

 

I think that these concepts are what drives me to be a manager.  These also seem to be inherent in “who I am”.  That doesn’t mean I can’t get better at them.  

As a young female in the workforce (during a time not so long ago where you were still scowled at if you didn’t become a teacher, nurse or then called secretary) I found myself developing skills that I later learned were managerial skills, long before I was a manager.  Ignorantly on my part, I began working those skills, practicing, re-working, failing, learning and ultimately becoming aware of a “set of skills” that I owned.

 

I returned to graduate school and found that, lo and behold, those managerial skills worked in all kinds of settings!  Skills like time management.  If I was going to work full time (I was a live in dorm director – available virtually 24 hours a day) I needed to unpack those skills and apply them in this new setting.  

 

Transferable skills…. who even talks about that anymore?

 

Anyway – one of those skills was in the area of time management. I had a million tasks and people for that matter (ok, only about 120 people that lived in the dorm) that wanted and sometimes needed my attention.  Not enough hours in the day for that!   I also had returned to school and that seemed to take a huge chunk of my time – so much more time than I had needed for book learning while obtaining my undergraduate degree. Of course, there was also this boy…..Then there was never quite enough cash flow, so I took on extra jobs. And while I was at it, because I was back at my alma mater working, I was asked as an alumni to become active in a couple of organizations I had been involved in as an undergrad.  Nothing on my plate.  I was usually pretty bored… NOT!

 

Time management.  It is so important in our lives.

 

I find that if I am not intentional about my time, my time is not intentional about me!

 

I have really fallen into this trap of not being “time intentional” while being unemployed.  I find that I get up a bit later, take a bit longer with my morning routine, putz around in the house, surf the net and oh around 2 pm I begin to think I should accomplish something.  UGH! And I say ugh, not because I can’t sit still – but because, in the end I really don’t want to.  There are so many things I want to do, I want to accomplish, I want to be successful doing. And I find myself “wasting” time.

 

New week – New agenda…

 

 

I was exposed to a new concept and app this weekend while listening to a Periscope broadcast.  It is called Pomodoro.  It is actually a time management/productivity concept that has been around for a while and I know very little about it except this:

 

You work for 25 minutes – focused – then you take 5 minutes off.  There is a timer.  It goes off after 25 minutes and says “take a break”. Then after 5 minutes the timer goes off and says “get to work”!  Bahahaha! Get to work, I love it!

 

There are people and teams using this concept in big business as well as in their personal lives.  I started this today. You can download a free app and get started yourself!  

 

Here are the basics:  You make a to do list – I do mine with my microphone since I “phone type” so slowly.  Then you choose a task, start the timer and go!  When 25 minutes is up – the timer goes off and tells you to take a break.  The object is to not let anything interrupt you during that 25 minutes (like my phone ringing right now from my son that I have had to ignore) and that the 5 minutes allows you to rejuvenate before you begin the next 25 minute stint. AND – this is big for some of us – when you complete the task you get to mark it DONE. Just like crossing your list off. I know there are some of you who live for this completion step in your day to day life – crossing off the list!

 

This seems to be brilliant!  Already, I have almost written my entire blog for today!

 

You can track and see how many ‘Pomodoro’s” – which is tomato in Italian I think – it takes for you to complete a normal task. Oops… gotta run it is break time be back in 5……

 

Well… I had to have the guts to tell my son that my 5 minute break was over and I had to hang up!  After I spent another 2.5 minutes briefly explaining this technique bahahaha… hey it is day one, I have to “train myself”.

 

Anyway… I am onto my next Pomodoro with the blog writing..

 

This concept, is supposed to help with task completion, burnout and time management and realistically understanding how long it takes to actually accomplish a given task if you are truly focused on it.  Since I now have so many irons in the fire – blog/website, Etsy, Ebay, job hunting, running the house – I was beginning to feel like I was not accomplishing any of these things with any regularity.   So this week – we will try this app.

 

There is a ton more to read on this concept.  I have no affiliation with it – just sharing an idea – but if you think you might be interested here is the link: http://pomodorotechnique.com/  I have “sceduled” a 25 minute Pomodora to read up on all the details myself. 

 

Let me know if you try this and if it works for you!  

PS If you are not using Periscope – I think there is literally a world of knowledge out there being shared.  I love to steal ideas from others – from folks who have tried and tested something and then I “borrow” it and see if I can apply it to my situation….oh wait… transferable skills.