Minimalist Time Management: Keep Your Day Open
There are the super-organized among us — those who schedule every minute and stick to the plan to the letter — and then there’s the rest of us. We schedule a lot of plans, but our days don’t usually resemble the plan very much.
That’s because things change, of course, and we have to be able to go with the flow. Time management, especially for the more fluid work arrangements of many freelancers, doesn’t have to be a rigid or time-consuming process.
For those who are overwhelmed by a schedule, and would like to take a more open approach, I suggest minimalist time management. Instead of allowing your life to be ruled by your calendar, let your life be ruled by the moment.
Here’s how:
1. Don’t schedule appointments. This will be a radical departure for many people, but it’s not a new idea and it’s worked for others. If someone requests an appointment, tell them that you don’t schedule appointments. Instead, ask them to call you a little before they’d like to meet to see if you can make it. If you’re free, take the meeting. I suggest keeping your meetings to a bare minimum if you want to get a lot of work done.
Now, there will be some things you’ll want to note on a calendar (I use Google Calendar, accessible from anywhere). These are events that you’d like to have on your calendar, but you don’t necessarily have to go to them. The calendar, then, serves as a way for you to see what your options are, but not as a tool to rule your life. I suggest not keeping too much on the calendar, though.
2. Know what you want to accomplish today. Have a short list of three things you’d really like to accomplish today. Your three most important things. You can have a short list of other small tasks you’d like to do in a batch (save them for later in the day), but the focus of your day should be the list of three important things. Let this list, and not your schedule, be the ruler of your day.
3. Focus on one thing at a time. To get your short list of three important tasks completed, you’ll need to focus on each one of those tasks in turn, and try to focus on them to completion. This will also be a radical departure for the multitasker in all of us. But single-tasking is not only more productive, it’s more relaxing as well.
It will take a little while for you to get used to single-tasking, if you are used to jumping from one thing to another and back. That’s OK. Just gently bring yourself back to your task, every time you feel yourself being pulled away. Keep at it and you’ll soon be knocking off your most important tasks easily.
4. Note tasks as they come up, to consider for later. As you’re working on your important tasks, and trying to focus, other ideas will come up, and other requests will come in. That’s normal, of course, but you can’t let those ideas and requests rule your life. Make a note of them on a sheet of paper or a small notebook (or wherever you write your list of 3 important tasks), and get back to the task you were working on. When you’re done with that task, you can take a look at your list to see what you should be working on next.
That’s it. Minimalist time management is keeping your day wide open, focusing on a small number of tasks you’d like to accomplish today, doing them one at a time, and prioritizing your tasks in the moment. For that, you only need a sheet of paper or a small notebook, and a calendar to put reminders of events that you can (but don’t need to) attend.
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