Harvest Time

I was at a local festival the other night when I bumped into one of my neighbors Jim Wobick, who is a full time farmer from down the road. We were talking about the harvest and he mentioned how all the crops seemed to be ripening at once, of course complaining about how little time there is to get everything on the tractor for sale. He shrugged his shoulders and said, in a resigned tone of voice, “I guess I’ll have to make time to get everything done.”

Does Jim have the power to create an extra hour in his day? Does he have a secret lab? Does he have a “time stretcher”? Hardly. What he does have is time management skills.

I asked around and found some really great ideas for managing some seemingly unmanageable deadlines, and I figured since I can use them, I might want to pass them along to our faithful blog readers too.

1. Understand your limitations. You only have so much time in a day and you can’t spend the whole day working. Make sure you budget for fun and relaxation. This is just as important!
2. Take stock of the activity and evaluate (realistically) how much time it will take. Try to plan ahead since some of these tasks might need to be done daily, weekly or monthly. Also make sure to add in a buffer for unforeseen complications.
3. Always add time in for interruptions, coffee breaks, talking with people about their lives – you get the idea.
4. Address the most time consuming projects first, at the beginning of the day. You are just beginning your day fresh and new and the bulk of the activities (i.e. distractions) haven’t started yet.
5. Don’t procrastinate! There are always projects to do that we really don’t like doing. Get them out of the way first! They weigh on your mind (i.e. distraction) and when you finally get that task done, you’ll feel like you’ve hit the summit of a mountain. AND since that feeling of accomplishment is physiologically linked to happiness, the rest of your tasks won’t seem so difficult.
6. Learn to say “no”. Personally, this is my most difficult lesson. You can’t be expected to do everything for everyone and while it’s sometimes almost painful to tell someone you can’t help them, you need to keep in mind your own limitations (see #1). Evaluate the requests and their importance. Besides, you can always help them later if you accomplish everything you need to get done.
7. Try to plan ahead. Much of what we do is cyclical and happens every day, week or month.
8. Combine activities when possible. For newsletter editors, planning the month’s activities at the same time as entering them into your newsletter page is one example. Try to find ways to streamline and combine your tasks.
9. Prioritize and set goals! Figure out what can be put off for tomorrow and what must be done today. I am a huge fan of making lists (my husband thinks it’s hilarious) and I put everything from laundry to homework on it. Once I make the basic list, I then order everything according to the most pressing to the least. I start crossing things off the list one by one and feel like I’m making a lot of headway when I see all the things crossed off.
10. This is the most important time management tip and one I heard from my neighbors and friends I talked to – HAVE FUN with your days! Take some time during your busy day to just breathe, take a walk or stretch. I have a small photo book with me and when I start feeling really stressed out, I just take a minute to pull it out and smile.

It sounds almost counterintuitive but a little bit of planning and some careful forethought is time well harvested.