Plan your week, so you have spare time.

This episode shares the tenth of my 10 methods to manage time effectively.

Plan your week, so you have spare time.

This episode is about learning to plan your week.

It is the last episode in my mini-series full of tips to manage your time better to fulfill your life’s purpose. In the transcription of this podcast, you’ll see the link to my website where you can see more resources.

The organize schedule story

My favorite story from Stephen Covey is about the teacher who puts five bowls in front of him on his desk in front of his class.  

One is empty.  

One is full of large rocks.  

One is full of pebbles.  

One is full of sand.  

The last is full of water.  

He asks the class how to fit the contents of the four full bowls into the empty fifth bowl.

Everyone who tries ends up putting in the water or sand or pebbles first and by the time they get to the big rocks everything overflows in a big mess.

Then the teacher shows the answer.  

First put in the big rocks.  

Then sift the pebbles in slowly around the rocks.  

Then jiggle the bowl as you pour in the sand into all the cracks.  

Finally, let the water slowly settle in and fill the bowl!

The lesson is, always put your big rocks in first and fit in everything else in your schedule around them.

Your big rocks are the “must dos” that will have the biggest impact for the week.

Set your time free, weekly planner

It’s time to put everything we learned into practice, by taking some quiet time before the week begins to plan your week.

Take a look at any of the easily-available free planners on the internet. They will all work (including Google Calendar, which I personally use).

While your calendar is empty, put in the big rocks.  

Things like prayer and temple.  Family time.  Exercise.  Sharpening the saw (your mind) etc.

Make sure to include solid time periods for reflection and relaxation in your big rocks!

Then add the “eat the frog” steps for each of your big goals for work and life (the pebbles).

Then add in all the meetings and “busy work” that if you don’t do will get you fired or keep you from succeeding (the water).

You will find that after you get good at this you will always have extra time to spare.  

You will need this time to handle important emergencies that come up unexpectedly to even the best weekly planner.

Plan your week tips

I use my calendar tools to keep me focused. Every few hours, my calendar reminds me of my mission in life with automatic reminders of the missions we identified in session one.

For example, I summarize my mission as Fascinated/Loving/Proactive and make that pop up as an alarm on my phone clock in the morning, afternoon, and evening. 

I also set reminders in my Google Calendar for the beginning of the day to see my day’s schedule and 30 minutes before each item scheduled.

I use calendly.com to automatically remind the people I’m supposed to meet with, so they don’t forget. Then I sync it with my calendar with very strict rules so others can book an appointment with me without taking any of my time.

I use virtual assistants to respond to messages, post my material on social media and of course produce my podcast (Search: Upwork).

I use Zapier to tie my ads and posts (etc.) to automatic texting and emailing programs. So, it all works seamlessly without any thought or time needed from me.

This is just a brief insight into how I tie everything together. In the last 10 episodes, we studied how to get it all done in the equivalent of a Sunday. Meaning, 8-10 hours a day and have plenty of spare time.

I hope these insights help you manage your time and reach your goals.

 Please reach out to me with any questions or if you’d like to schedule a session with me.

Time management tips review:

Rabbi Noah Weinberg emphasized that if you learn something important review it 4 times to lock it in and if it is very important – 101 times.  

He would have us say the same important idea in a different way every time, so it became a part of us.

My favorite example is – “A happy wife is a happy life”.

Some of the ways I restate it (101 times, of course!) are:

If my wife is happy, I don’t sleep in the doghouse.

When my wife is happy, I get my favorite dinners.

If my wife is not happy, the kids become much harder to help.

When my wife is happy with me, the world is a brighter place.

I hope you get the idea.

I’ll leave it up to you how many times you want to review each of the below lessons. But I hope it is at least four times!  

If you want to schedule a visit for me to visit you or your organization, I and run a comprehensive workshop to implement these ideas and lock them in for you it would be my honor!

 Rabbi Dave’s 10 ways of managing my time effectively:

1. How to find your life purpose that will excite you so much that you will succeed no matter what!
2. Discover Strengths, Unique to You, In Order to Accomplish Your Goals
3. Prioritize Goals in Your Life in each major area of your life: materially, physically, mentally, spiritually, and personally.
4. Use My Time Wisely – Time Stealers a personal inventory to analyze what you are spending your time on now.
5.  Work Smarter, Not Harder: Time Management Tips. Where are your current actions taking you? – As Steven Covey said Put First Things First – Begin with The End In Mind
6. Sharpen the saw – Self Improvement.
7. Organize Your Mind – 4 Steps to Getting Things Done: Clear out the clutter. Develop a filing system, so you don’t lose your way.
8. Prioritize – Eliminate; Delegate; Automate – so you can Concentrate​, and then prioritize what’s left.
9. Take action steps now – the key to accomplishing your dreams, break down each goal to simple steps and then take the most important one first.
10. Plan your week, so you have spare time.

In the next podcast, we will look at “Bonus Step: Reward Yourself” to celebrate every success both large and small along the way.

For more guidance and tips on how to live your dream life, go to my website, https://therabbiwhogotrichonsunday.com  to access content-rich articles and more.

You can also access a link to that web page through the show notes, if you are listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast platforms.

Resources 

1. https://calendly.com/
2. https://zapier.com/
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Weinberg