“I have no time” is one of the most common phrases we hear from our clients, our friends and even our family members. It seems that our lives are in the hands of someone else or rather, someone else’s schedule.

Time has become scarce, or so we think. In households with small children, the routine of waking them up and getting them ready to go to school takes a lot of time. In the afternoons, homework and extracurriculars make parents look more like glorified chauffeurs and then dinner needs to be served, the kitchen needs to be tidied up and preparation for the next day still needs to happen. If you add an office job, whether in an actual office or from home, then commuting (if applicable) was, and continues to be, time-consuming. Being dragged into unexpected meetings becomes a norm and the expression “I am swamped” is the regular answer to the question: how are you?

Here is the truth: kids’ schedules won’t change as they grow it might get a little more complicated; your unexpected meetings in your office will still happen; your kitchen will have to be cleaned up before going to bed and you will still need to feed yourself and your family. Those are likely uncontrollable events. Nothing you can do about them. But notwithstanding the chaos that is created by complicated schedules, we are here to tell you that you can still be in control. It won’t be perfect. But what is? It may not work every day. But once you learn to take control of it in your way, some of the stress created by such an overwhelming schedule should start to dissipate!

Where to start?

We like to start by really understanding what your week looks like and that can only be done with a big piece of good old paper!

  • Our first suggestion to our clients is to grab a very simple piece of paper. No fancy calendars or planners, for now. You have to see your schedule as a big picture!
  • Create a column for each day of the week and then on the left, write down the hours of the day (skip your sleeping hours, for now). Leave a blank space on the left side of the paper or at the bottom…we will use it as well.
  • Now, start identifying those things that happen every week. For instance, if you have children and you have to take them to a class in the afternoon, then write that class down and block the time that the class covers. So, if the class is on Mondays between 5-7 pm block that time. Ideally, you will also block the time it takes you to take them to and from to make it as exact as possible.
  • You will do this with all those other things that happen “always”. Make it as detailed as possible. For example: if you need to commute and take public transportation, then mark it down, starting with the time you need to leave your house.
  • Include as much as you can…your usual hours at the office, and your usual breakfast and dinner time (assuming you have lunch at the office, otherwise, include that time as well), make sure, or try, not to leave anything out.
  • Once you are done, you will have an initial picture of the things that are your “uncontrollable”. For this exercise, we are going to call them “fixed”.
  • Use the space that you left at the bottom or on the right of the paper to write down your “to-do’s”. That is everything you have to do but that is not already part of the “fixed”. For instance, you probably have to get groceries, clean your house, meal prep, call someone that you have been meaning to call for a while, make that appointment with the dentist or your doctor…you get the idea. Just right down, no specific order.
  • Once your list is ready, start putting numbers next to each item on that list based on the priority of each activity.
  • Now it is time for the planner…go get yourself a planner. The one that you like the most and the one you know you can keep handy.
  • Transfer your weekly “fixed” into your new planner and start giving real dates to your to-do’s without overlapping on your “fixed”. You will see how all of a sudden, your schedule starts to make a little bit more sense.

This is a recipe for organization and with organization comes less stress and more control over your activities.

Be firm but flexible. Life happens. Some days (or most days) will not go as planned: perhaps your appointment was longer than expected, perhaps you didn’t realize that your car needed gas and your stop at the gas station made you miss your train/subway which in turn made you miss that important appointment. That is ok. It is not about having a perfect schedule. It is about learning how to work with your schedule!

Stay well,

MV