5 Totally Doable
Time-Management Strategies to Accomplish Your Goals
Growing up is dangerous business for your dreams. As the
commitments, meetings, and deadlines start to flood in, ambitions can quickly
drown in a sea of demands. Although we actively seek out responsibilities as we
get older—and I think that’s an essential part of being an adult—they come at a
cost: There’s no time for anything.
Despite that, we can’t give up on our aspirations when life gets
hectic. We all have the same 24 hours in every day, and what you get out of
life—at any stage of life—comes down to what you do with those hours. If you
can get a handle on your priorities and time management, you can still achieve
awesome things, even when you’re completely overwhelmed by everything you have
to do on a day-to-day basis.
If you have found something you genuinely want to achieve, you
can’t simply dodge your goals because they’re inconvenient. When you leave
ambition alone, that unfulfilled ambition turns into regret, and regret eats
away at you. There’s no real way to determine what all the long-term effects of
a life filled with regrets are, but in my short time on this planet, I’ve seen
some of them: I’ve had coworkers who were blamers and complainers, I’ve had friends
who were bitter and nasty, and I have personally been depressed—even suicidal.
But how do you figure out which dreams you should really
prioritize? We’ve always got ideas coming in—which are worth developing? And
how do you deal with that feeling of just having no time? How
do you get the ball rolling, and more importantly, keep it
rolling? Here are some of the principles that have helped me work toward my
goals... even when I’m stumbling along toward them like a drunk puppy.
1. Learn when procrastination can be good (and when to switch
gears).
There’s a massive downside to not following your dreams, but that
doesn’t mean you should follow every impulse you have. Not all of
your ideas are worth pursuing—that’s true for anyone. Which is why procrastination
can be so great: The things you truly want to accomplish will stick in your
mind like your first true love. Those are the ideas you have to do something
about.
I’ll procrastinate until I realize that an idea is sticky: When it
sticks in my head, I know it’s time to commit, to make a binding pledge and
obligation to myself to see it through. The commitments you really make become
part of who you are; you can procrastinate until you realize that this is the
real deal. But at that point, you’ve gotta go all in.
2. Start scheduling out what you want to achieve.
I used to fail at big projects because I didn’t know how to use a
schedule. If you want to accomplish something, you have to plan what you need
to do and schedule time to accomplish those things. Unfortunately, the
education system is designed to produce people who thrive within an
organization, instead of educating people who can get things done on their own.
Skills like scheduling are essential to succeed at any individual
undertaking, but they don’t tend to be taught in school until college—at which
point, habits have already been formed. Of course, the basics of planning
aren’t rocket science, which might be why we overlook teaching this ability.
But the skill of scheduling isn’t what requires so much
training; it’s the habit that requires training.
A solid plan gives you focus and purpose. When I learned how to
plan, schedule, and manage projects, I started achieving so much more. I made
more money, I started working out more, I started writing music, and doing a
whole bunch of things I had wanted to do—but couldn’t find the time for.
3. Make the timing right.
"The timing isn’t right" is one of the most common
excuses to avoid taking on a big project. It sounds like a reasonable excuse to
yourself and those around you, and in many cases, you can even look at your
schedule and point to the absolute lack of free time.
Unfortunately, waiting for good timing is nothing but an advanced
form of the most lethal type of procrastination. You have to find a way to
shake out some free time in your schedule: You might have to sleep an hour
less, work on the weekend, and find ways to combine activities. At my gym,
there’s kids’ jiu-jitsu and adult jiu-jitsu at the same time. For the parents
in the class, that solves the problem of finding a babysitter.
If you wait for the "right time" to do something, you’ll
never do it. You can’t put your dreams off until later, because there will
always be more and more demands on your time.
4. Act fast.
When you’ve decided to do something, you have to act quickly.
Successful people are obsessed with speed—speed is the antithesis of waiting
for the right timing.
Achieving a goal you really want means setting plans in motion as
soon as you commit to them. There’s no three-year deliberation, the intricate
plan with 500 dependencies, the clauses that requires a three-hour block of
time to work on a project, or waiting until your toddler is off to college.
5. ...but don’t rush the results.
While acting fast is absolutely vital, you can’t expect to hit
your destination right away, or that you won’t hit some bumps along the way.
When you’re taking on big projects, you’ll face all kinds of obstacles: You’ll
probably have less energy, especially if you’re sleeping less; you might
struggle to break old habits; and you’ll probably struggle to form new, healthy
habits.
Whatever you’re
trying to do, you’re guaranteed to struggle with some aspect of it, and you’re
also guaranteed to mess up—maybe just a little, but maybe a lot. It doesn’t matter,
just keeping hammering: There’ll be days where you don’t want to
do what you’ve set out to do. There’ll be days where don’t do
what you’ve set out to do. Whatever your problems, just keep at it—even if you
neglect what you’re doing for three weeks. Just pick it back up.
BY STIAN PEDERSEN
https://greatist.com/live/strategies-accomplish-your-goals
