More Than WE Know

It’s been a cold, rainy Saturday in Connecticut which gave me the perfect excuse to do what I would have wanted to do anyway - curl up with a book.

However, I was able to convince myself that I was being productive since the book I chose was Julie Morgenstern’s Time Management from the Inside Out, second edition: The Foolproof System for Taking Control of Your Schedule–and Your Life. I rationalized that the time I spent reading it would be saved by the improved time management I would get as a result!!

(hopefully more valid reasoning than the tale about eating celery because the calories spent in chewing outweighed the calories in the celery itself!)

In the end, I didn’t exactly accomplish more tasks - instead I got a different understanding of my relationship with the tasks on my list.

Julie’s book doesn’t just give tips and lists and spreadsheets for organizing your life into manageable chunks. Although her book does have “time maps” as she calls them, it also gives plenty of weight to the idea that there might just be an underlying reason for the mismanagement of time. In other words, I might not be getting some things done, because I’m getting something out of not having them done.

Julie identifies several psychological obstacles which she reviews in detail. Among them are:

#1 - You have unclear Goals and Priorities

#2 - You are a Conquistador of Chaos

#3 - You have a fear of Downtime

#4 - You need to be a Caretaker

#5 - You have a fear of Failure

#6 - You have a fear of Success

#7 - You have a fear of Disrupting the Status Quo

#8 - You have a fear of Completion

#9 - You have a need for Perfection

#10 - You have a fear of Losing Creativity

I really liked this outline of psychological obstacles to time management, because I think they dovetail with the main psychological obstacles to business success. It makes sense that the two are closely linked - we avoid getting things done that might help advance our business for all of these reasons.

Time management, like business management, involves self-awareness. It is not enough just to put more and more tasks on our to-do lists and carve our days into smaller and smaller slices. Instead we need to become aware of our motivations and our fears. What is driving us?

In my opinion, the best way to gain clarity is to spend some time with yourself (perhaps a rainy Saturday afternoon), take out a paper and pen (or a laptop) and write out what would it look like if you really accomplished everything on your to do list.

Would your life look the way you want it to? Or would you simply have gotten a lot of things done but not made any real progress?

If it’s the former then you are on the right track. You are ready to figure out what is holding you back - fear of failure? a need for perfection? worry about how your success will affect everyone around you? putting everyone else first?

Whatever it is, you need to recognize it and own it before you put any more energy into crossing items off your to do list.

And what if the life you imagine after your to-do list is complete, is still not the life you want? Then you need to go back and start over on your to do list. Take off all the items that other people have added, and all of the “should’s” that you have added.

Ask yourself - What are the things you want to do, need to do, feel compelled to your very soul, to do? Those are the ones that belong on that list.

After giving this question some thought, I realized that my most important goals are to advance my business and find ways to integrate it into my life. As a result, my list today went from:

laundry, pick up clutter, clean the bathroom, go to dry cleaners, go to grocery, get gas, fax letter to the bank, scan photos, and do some office work.

To:

Read. Write. Spend time with my husband.

It wasn’t the most efficient way to spend my day. But it feels much more satisfying than if I had crossed every item off of my to do list. I may not have accomplished everything, but I accomplished the most important things.

Understanding the distinction between being efficient and being effective is the most important key to achieving entrepreneurial success.

What’s on your to do list? Does it align with your overall vision and goals, or is it simply a list of tasks that seem to never end and never get you anywhere? Or do you think the answer lies somewhere inbetween?

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