Better Time Management Is Preceded By Intentional Time Design

In a world that’s busier than ever, it's often hard to get it all done. We know that consistency is important but it’s difficult to get into routines and daily disciplines when there’s so much going on pulling you out of your way. 

It’s exactly this problem that has popularized the idea of time management. Of course we can’t change time itself, but we can manage how we use our time so that our days are full of the things that are most important to us. And the idea is - those who are really good at managing their time get more of the right things done, are more productive, and feel more complete at the end of the day.

This is where strategies like time-blocked scheduling, having an organized task list, and having protected Deep Work blocks can be really effective. I’m a huge proponent for all of these things and use them myself! However, those strategies alone are missing an important nuance:

Better time management is preceded by intentional time design.

Time design helps you establish the overall rhythm you want for your life. It takes into consideration the season of life you’re in (which may make you more or less available than usual), the overall balance you want to achieve so that priorities aren’t compromised, and helps you truly quantify your time.

And this is critical because once you’ve been thoughtful about the parameters of your days, then you can create a time-blocked schedule that builds on your overall design. Time design gives different days, and times of days, specific intentions so that you can make sure your daily activity maps to it.

In working on my own time design and supporting others with theirs, people often arrive at these conclusions:

1) They didn’t have  a real game-plan for how they enjoy every day and get all of life’s responsibilities to fit together optimally

2) They see why their life is stressful, and how their self-care gets pushed out

3) They realize that their days could run so much more efficiently, and their capacity expands, with a little more structure and intention

Now this might be hard to picture so if you’re curious to see how I use Intentional Time Design to map out my weeks, I created a video walking you through exactly how it works, alongside other high-performance systems I’ve built into my life.

‍Click here if you want to check those out and create more freedom in your life so that you can get more consistent with the things that matter most to you.

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