Do you race through the day with your heartbeat outstripping your pace? Do you end up being late, guilty, and frustrated, not to mention exhausted and slightly cranky? Our clients’ creative time-telling certainly ups the pressure in their high-achieving lifestyles.
It’s just so easy to schedule work days under the delusion that we can move through space without having to actually drive from point A to B, always find a parking spot, or never miss the train. We schedule back to back appointments and obligations but never think about contingency time for commuting, waiting, other people being late, last minute calls, needing to stop for petrol, or a multitude of spur of the moment hold-ups. How self-defeating is that?
On weekends we pack so much into two itty-bitty days: errands, friend & family time, cleaning, exercise, appointments and, wait for it, relaxation! Monday rolls around and we feel like we have been through the spin cycle. It’s almost a relief to go back to work!
We’ve learned the hard way, that there is a difference between being creative about how you use your time, and being creative about how much time actually exists. Then there’s that pesky little thing called being realistic about how much time something will actually take you to do.
Feeling out of control of time leads to feeling frazzled, always trying to catch up and always feeling frustrated. That’s a burnout cycle. Get realistic about time-telling and your sense of overwhelm and exhaustion will drop. You’ll need some patience and you may not accomplish absolutely everything you want to each day (take a deep breath before you hyperventilate!), but it does mean that minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week you will begin to own your time. Now that’s worth every minute.
Here’s one great tip: Automatically give yourself a 20-30 minute buffer zone around meetings and appointments. No, this does not mean squeeze in something else. If you get to a meeting early, bonus! Take a quick walk around the block to stretch tired muscles or maybe just grab a quick cup of tea and daydream about how you are going to enjoy this weekend, not fry it!