Time management with purpose. Be true to yourself and manage your time to reflect it.

Recently I participated in a three-week webinar series by Dr. Spencer “Skip” Niles called “Reclaim your soul from work: Making choices that honour your authentic self.” This was very thought-provoking.

Skip describes your “soul” as your highest, best, and truest self. Your authentic self. He presented how by getting in touch with your “soul” you pay more attention to intuition, imagination, relationships, hope, and compassion at work.

As I reflect on the webinar it really got me thinking about how so many people are frustrated with the tsunami of information that overwhelms them at work and home. It is so easy to get caught up with just being busy every day at work, focused on the routines of work, achievement, control, and the rationality of work. As you think about your own time management, make sure you stay true to the ‘authentic you’, your ‘true self’ so that you get the things done that are your priorities…not someone else’s. Do your time management with purpose.

Start now

For many people, September is the beginning of the work year. Many people work at a school or college, have children who are going back to school, or they have taken all their summer vacations are getting back into the swing of work again. So why not try something new right now? Try time management with purpose.

How do I do this?

One thing I do is make a ‘To Do’ list with only three things written on it that I want to accomplish each day.

Yep, three things on my ‘To Do’ list.

These are my priority each day. When and if I get them done, I can move on to others.

I choose the most important projects each day based on what my “true self” feels is important. I am going to do things that fulfill my purpose and goals and make them a priority. I keep my long-term goals posted so I don’t lose track of them and make sure my daily “to do’s”are helping me get to the long-term goals.

With only three things to look at, it is easy to determine if they indeed “feed my soul” and help me to stay focused on what is important as I “reclaim my soul at work”.

Do you manage your time daily to reflect your ‘true self’?
Are you reflecting the ‘authentic you’ in your daily work?
If so, how do you do it?

Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a monthly newsletter for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.

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At the end of December I took a tech-free day to write, think, process how 2016 went, and explore my vision for 2017. The first part of this day was shoveling snow, truly a tech-free event, as we had about 14 inches of very wet snow. This delayed my mini-retreat by two hours but I did get my upper body workout in 🙂

As career coaches and practitioners, we can provide better services when we slow down and take time to think, prepare, create, and be mindful of each moment. We serve our clients best when we are in the moment with them. I strongly encourage you to consider a tech-free day. Mine typically starts at 8am and ends around 5pm.

The first thing I worked on was coming up with my 3 words to guide me in 2017, inspired by Chris Brogan who has done this for over 10 years. I then moved to my budget, online seminar offerings, business plan review, and finally to my short and long range “to do” list. One thing I decided on this retreat is that I want to do a tech-free day every month. Last year I had three tech-free days spread throughout the year, plus a 100 mile backpacking trip that was completely tech-free and cleansing. Each time I discovered a renewed sense of purpose. I need to do this more.

I find that life just keeps getting faster and ever more filled with technology creating a sense of being busy. You have to choose down-time daily to take control over this busyness and regain a more peaceful and thoughtful routine. I’m thinking about this a lot as I will be speaking on March 2nd in Brunswick Maine for the first “To Live For” Evening of Stories and Music where I will talk about ‘Taking 10’ minutes daily to regain our lives. I also had a conference proposal accepted by National Career Development Association on a similar topic for the June annual conference.

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