As entrepreneurs, we’re always looking for ways to manage our time more efficiently. I ran across this article in Ali Magazine about “chunking” also called “batching” your time to help bring order to your chaotic schedule. I would even recommend you doing this for your personal time since all aspects of our lives need structure. Scheduling appointments (even if it with yourself) increases the chances of it actually happening. Never seem to find time for yourself? Well, here’s your chance to plug it in to your day. You just have to honor the time you set aside as you would a professional appointment so you don’t feel gipped in the end.
No matter what, there will always be 24 hours in a day. So why doesn’t that leave you with enough time to get everything done? Your to-do list is turning into a wish list, the family hasn’t seen you for weeks, and you’ve given up on sleep. Too much time is spent trying to cram in too many things, so how can you gain control of your time before it drives you crazy?
Multitaskers are praised and admired for being able to get several jobs done at once. But the simple truth is that multitasking doesn’t work. It’s a wonderful concept and would be great if it really existed, but the human brain cannot cope. As people divide their attention among a number of tasks, concentration suf-fers and performance and productivity are eroded.
“If you look at classical psychology textbooks, they tell you people can’t multitask, it’s psychologically impossible,” says Stanford University Professor Clifford Nass. He was one of the researchers whose findings on the topic were published in a scientific paper in 2009. The study concluded that multitasking is counterproductive. So what’s a busy business gal to do?
Rock the clock
The answer is to chunk your daily activities into specific blocks of time. So attack all your e-mails in one chunk, schedule your meetings in chunks, and do all your phone calls in one chunk. It is known as time chunking and in Time Management from the Inside Out, best-selling author and time management expert Julie Morgenstern explains how it can easily bring order to your chaotic schedule. “It is my observation that the single most common obstacle people face in managing their days lies in the way they view time,” Morgenstern writes. “Therefore, the very first step in taking control of time is to challenge your very perception of it.”
Morgenstern contends that it is essential to view time as a tangible concept and not as something that is hard to get a grip on because it is amorphous and invisible. Her breakthrough moment came when she started to realize that organizing time is no different from organizing space. For example, she draws an analogy between a cluttered schedule and a cluttered closet. They both have a limited amount of space and are crammed with more stuff than can be accommodated. No matter how many dividers and baskets you buy for your closet, they will never do the job. The same is true of time management tools that fail to tame your schedule.
The organizing guru asks us to consider a schedule as something that has edges, a container that we can fill with a limited number of objects (tasks). In so doing it forces us to be more selective about what goes in, and prevents any one project from monopolizing our time. It doesn’t matter how big or small your workload, every project, task, and challenge can be chunked.
Create a plan
To chunk your time you need to create a plan of action that starts with an estimate of how long each task will take. In her book Morgenstern notes that the to-do lists of most of her clients lack time estimates next to the items. She advises writing estimates next to each one. It is a simple yet vital skill to master. Once you set aside chunks of time for specific tasks you will be able to make decisions about which tasks to handle, which ones you won’t, and what you can delegate.
Procrastination is one of the biggest barriers to conquering the time challenge and the principle reason for this, according to Morgenstern, is that an individual will try to do too much at once to tackle an overly complex task. The answer, she says, is to break it down into manageable time chunks. For example, break a three-hour task into six manageable half-hour tasks.
Morgenstern also believes we should develop a big picture view by prioritizing our goals (e.g., maintaining a happy home, excelling in business,) as well as everything we do. Important e-mails, business meetings, and even relaxation need to fall into a category.
Map your time
Instead of drawing up a schedule, consider what Morgenstern calls a “time map” to allocate your time. A schedule would have a specific task attached to a specific time, like “2:00-4:00 p.m.—write Joe’s report,” whereas a time map would indicate a general “2:00-4:00 p.m.—write reports.” By doing this you can clearly see if you have allocated enough time for your activities, plus it should make you realize that your time is not as erratic as you think it is. You should also take care not to over-schedule yourself, so build in some flexibility, and remember that the unexpected will always happen.
You could start time chunking by taking baby steps at first to see how it feels. Choose a single task and set aside the one hour you know it will take. Don’t allow any interruptions until the task is complete and don’t be diverted by e-mails that ping into your inbox. After a few weeks you will notice how much more quickly you’re able to get that task done.
By chunking your time effectively you will easily be able to work out where your time goes, and it should stop your flitting from one half-finished job to another. Every task or activity will have its own home, allowing you to be more focused and more productive. And you will gain more control of your time to help you live the life you want to lead.
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