#009 - Reclaim Your Time

#009 - Reclaim your time

5 strategies from my time management coach.

‘Control over our time.’ It’s a paradox of freelance life.

We’re drawn to freelancing by the allure of a more balanced life.

But we often find ourselves time-starved and focused on low-impact tasks.

I faced this challenge in 2019.

I had left my 9 to 5 for freelance life, eager to have more control over my time and live an integrated life.

I was always busy and wasn’t showing up as the best version of myself for my wife, dogs, family members, or friends.

In our business, we felt like the cobbler who was so occupied making shoes for other people that our child was walking around barefoot.

We were so busy working ‘in’ the business we didn’t have time to work ‘on’ the business.

In short, my time investments weren’t generating positive returns.

I was time broke.

That’s when I found a time management coach named Elizabeth.

Here are 5 strategies that helped me reclaim control over my time.

1. Getting real with myself

Working with my coach, I realized that my issues were symptoms of an unhealthy relationship with time that I had developed in my 20s.

I had come to believe that:

• “If something is important to someone else, it should be important to me”
• “I’ll fit in important activities when I have time”
• “If I can just be more efficient, I can get everything done”
• “I will lose my value if I’m not crazy busy and putting my clients’ needs above my own”

Past attempts at planning were short-lived due to limiting beliefs like:

• "Routines are boring and will stifle my creativity"
• "I can’t spend time planning when I should be doing"
• "I don’t feel like doing what I planned to do"

2. Getting clear on priorities

Next, Elizabeth had me prioritize the various aspects of my life:

Health > My wife & our dogs > Family > Business > Friends > Hobbies

This became an important lens for making time allocation decisions.

When considering a new commitment, I could assess whether it would come at the expense of other priorities.

3. Creating a time budget

With my priorities clear, we built a time budget. Here’s the equation:

Weekly External Expectations + Weekly Internal Expectations < [24hrs - self care] x 7

I identified the time required each week for:

1. Self-care: sleep, eating, personal grooming
2. External expectations: Commitments to others like recurring meetings, commuting, walking dogs, relationships, work time
3. Internal expectations: Commitments to myself like working out, household responsibilities, social time, golf

It became evident my weekly time requirements (total of commitments on the left side) exceeded my net available time (hours in a week minus time required for self care).

Working harder or more efficiently wouldn’t fix the problem.

I had to choose the most essential items and get comfortable letting everything else go.

Using my priority ranking, I resigned from a volunteer board position and stopped mentoring startups.

4. Time allocation

With my balanced time budget, we optimized my schedule.

Elizabeth pointed out how fragmented my calendar was.

Jumping between tasks like client meetings and project work incurred mental switching costs that drained energy and stifled deep work.

We built a new baseline calendar that:

i. Allocated time to internal and external commitments

• By establishing those as non-negotiables, my health and relationship wouldn’t get compromised when I got busy or stressed

ii. Considered my energy

• We optimized for when I’m most creative (mornings for deep work) and most collaborative (early afternoons for client meetings)

iii. Incorporated “layering”

• We found opportunities for effective multitasking - when tasks could happen simultaneously, using different mental channels. For instance, I used time in the car or walking the dogs for catch-up calls with friends.

5. Weekly & daily planning

A deliberate weekly and daily planning practice became my new secret weapon.

Weekly planning

I set aside two hours each Monday morning to:

• Reflect on the previous week and assess my efforts across my priority pillars. Were there areas where I fell short or did great?
• Review my project list (larger initiatives requiring big work blocks) and determine the top 3-5 projects for that week
• Transfer priority projects onto my calendar using the ‘front end loading’ technique.

Front-end loading means that projects with deadlines are allocated to Monday/Tuesday, so there’s overflow time available on Wednesday/Thursday

• Use the ‘batching’ technique to fill the remaining time with items from my task list (smaller, less time-consuming initiatives like administrative tasks and personal errands).

Batching means grouping like items together to maximize efficiency

Daily Planning

I start each morning by taking 20-30 minutes to lock in my schedule for the day ahead.

• I review the previous day and determine if anything needs to be carried over
• Assess whether the items on my calendar are still priority projects
• Identify the 2-3 most important things I need to accomplish that day
• Set aside designated windows to check and respond to emails. If a message can’t be responded to in 5 minutes, it gets allocated a separate task block.

Note: I write out daily tasks on a piece of paper and keep it next to my computer all day. As I complete tasks, I take great pride in striking them out with a sharpie.

Investing your time like money

Freelancers often say they don’t want their lives to be run by their calendar.

But taking these steps ensures my calendar serves me, I don’t serve it.

The first step to reclaiming your time is to view it as a finite resource you invest, not something to manage.

Pay yourself first by investing time in your priorities, not the priorities of others.

Establish routines for investing time that will carry you through when your motivation is low.

Invest your time wisely; you’ll see compound returns in your business and freelance lifestyle.

​

Jeff Gadway
Freelance Marketing Alliance