Time Management for Women is a topic frequently overlooked by many of the time management “gurus.” Most of these experts are men who either don’t care or a clueless about the time management needs of women who are also CEOs of the household.
These days the pressure to be “super mom”, includes having a job (forget about have a career during these recessionary days), cooking, doing laundry, driving the kids to and from school and sports activities, trying to have quality time with the family. It’s no wonder we’re all under so much stress just trying to stay afloat.
THE MAGIC WORD “NO”
But, there are many things that can be achieved with the right time management for women. First and foremost amongst them is recognizing that less is more. In America we’ve been conditioned to buy a bigger house, drive fancier cars, and change wardrobes with the season.
However, the reality is that simplifying reduces stress. Simplifying also means cutting back on commitments to chair this or that school meeting or joining the latest social event. In other words, sometimes “no” is a magic word.
PRIORITY ONE
Time management for women also means recognizing what is a priority. The first thing to remember, though, is that if you get sick, all priorities go out the window. So, prioritizing your health is truly priority one. This is, of course, related to the magic word, “no.”
After your health, prioritizing your daily, weekly, monthly calendar cannot be emphasized more emphatically. Just think about the implications of prioritizing. Not everything needs to be done today or right now. The best prioritize is to use three categories, something like: NOW, SOON, WHENEVER.
These categories are pretty self-explanatory, but NOW means it has to happen within the day, e.g. picking up the kids from school. SOON means it needs to happen within the week, e.g. buying groceries. In this category most people feel they need to shop every day or even every other day. With a little meal planning, grocery shopping can actually be accomplished weekly, bi-weekly and, for some, even monthly. Lastly, WHENEVER essentially means when you get to it, e.g. buying a new CD or even socks.
By prioritizing, time management for women helps to bring clarity and reduce stress levels.
THE TOUCH ONCE RULE or at most TWICE
There are many people who will open a piece of mail, put it aside and move it around a dozen times before doing anything about it. The touch once rule of time management for women means if you touch a piece of mail, decide what to do it with it right then and there.
If you think about it, mail is pretty simple. This goes for snail mail as well as email. Mail could be spam or junk, a bill or invoice, a marketing or advertising piece in which you might be interested. Once you “touch” that mail / email, you should decide to delete it / throw it away, put it in your to be paid pile or slip into a review folder.
But, don’t just push it aside to “touch” over and over again. And, once you come back to the piece of mail, be ready to pay that bill or trash that advertisement.
MANAGE YOUR DAYS, MANAGE YOUR LIFE!
Time management for women is especially difficult because of the demands of both household and, if you’re working, your employer. This may seem obvious, but very few people actually follow this rule.
Develop a systematic calendar for managing your days. For example, most bills do not need to be paid as soon as they come in. Pick two days in the month, generally mid and end of month to pay your bills. If your bills can’t fall into those periods, work with the vendor to change the due date and ask if there is a “grace” period.
As discussed above, also consider shopping at most four times a month. If possible, see if you can schedule shopping during off-peaks days / hours, such as during the week and during hours when most people are at work.
These are just some examples of how you can free up your time by creating your own time management planner.
Tags: Time Management
