Minimalist Time Management: Keep Your Day Open
Leo BabautaBy Leo Babauta
There are the super-organized among us — those who schedule every minute and stick to the plan to the letter — and then there’s the rest of us. We schedule a lot of plans, but our days don’t usually resemble the plan very much.
That’s because things change, of course, and we have to be able to go with the flow. Time management, especially for the more fluid work arrangements of many freelancers, doesn’t have to be a rigid or time-consuming process.
For those who are overwhelmed by a schedule, and would like to take a more open approach, I suggest minimalist time management. Instead of allowing your life to be ruled by your calendar, let your life be ruled by the moment.
Here’s how:
1. Don’t schedule appointments. This will be a radical departure for many people, but it’s not a new idea and it’s worked for others. If someone requests an appointment, tell them that you don’t schedule appointments. Instead, ask them to call you a little before they’d like to meet to see if you can make it. If you’re free, take the meeting. I suggest keeping your meetings to a bare minimum if you want to get a lot of work done.
Now, there will be some things you’ll want to note on a calendar (I use Google Calendar, accessible from anywhere). These are events that you’d like to have on your calendar, but you don’t necessarily have to go to them. The calendar, then, serves as a way for you to see what your options are, but not as a tool to rule your life. I suggest not keeping too much on the calendar, though.
2. Know what you want to accomplish today. Have a short list of three things you’d really like to accomplish today. Your three most important things. You can have a short list of other small tasks you’d like to do in a batch (save them for later in the day), but the focus of your day should be the list of three important things. Let this list, and not your schedule, be the ruler of your day.
3. Focus on one thing at a time. To get your short list of three important tasks completed, you’ll need to focus on each one of those tasks in turn, and try to focus on them to completion. This will also be a radical departure for the multitasker in all of us. But single-tasking is not only more productive, it’s more relaxing as well.
It will take a little while for you to get used to single-tasking, if you are used to jumping from one thing to another and back. That’s OK. Just gently bring yourself back to your task, every time you feel yourself being pulled away. Keep at it and you’ll soon be knocking off your most important tasks easily.
4. Note tasks as they come up, to consider for later. As you’re working on your important tasks, and trying to focus, other ideas will come up, and other requests will come in. That’s normal, of course, but you can’t let those ideas and requests rule your life. Make a note of them on a sheet of paper or a small notebook (or wherever you write your list of 3 important tasks), and get back to the task you were working on. When you’re done with that task, you can take a look at your list to see what you should be working on next.
That’s it. Minimalist time management is keeping your day wide open, focusing on a small number of tasks you’d like to accomplish today, doing them one at a time, and prioritizing your tasks in the moment. For that, you only need a sheet of paper or a small notebook, and a calendar to put reminders of events that you can (but don’t need to) attend.
smqt
September 21st, 2007
I like your point about not taking appointments.
Although clients often want to make appointments because of their own scheduled work day, I try to keep a very loose calendar.
That has worked great for me so far because I can usually meet someone immediately, which gives clients great trust in your availability and attention to their project.
The downside can be that people think you don’t have anything to do, which is not good, so it’s smart to mention that you do this as a policy.
I think you need to make sure that you are very easy to reach though.
Another thing that might help is doing more by phone or chat, instead of meeting over every small thing. Although this is usually harder in situations where you work with many people on 1 project.
Ryan
September 21st, 2007
This post makes perfect sense! I find that even if I have 20 things on my to do list I really only get about 3-4 major things accomplished each day. It makes more sense to have those 3 things to focus on and not let the other 17 weigh down on your mind and keep you from doing your best.
Peter Chester
September 21st, 2007
This post is very idealistic. I love minimalism.
That said, I totally disagree about #1 “Don’t Schedule Appointments”. My nature is to go with the flow. By nature i avoid scheduling anything.
That said, not scheduling my free time, not scheduling my appointments, and not scheduling any other important events has consistently resulted in catastrophy.
For example, this last week, i tried to not schedule a phone call. We called eachother and missed eachother at least 8 times each. It’s been a week. We still haven’t connected. This is no way to do business.
Clocks are a technological advance of fairly recent history (700 years). Doing away with them now is like deciding to swap your car for walking: It’s entirely romantic, but not at all practical.
Shane Pearlman
September 21st, 2007
@Ryan - the problem most people have is they make to do lists that are unattainable, which is down right depressing. Each night, before going to bed, I make a list of the 3-5 most important things for me to accomplish the next day. There is always more but these are the ones that will move my business, my friendships or my family forward in life.
This has lead me to feel content each and every night while not being quite as overwhelmed.
Brad V.
September 21st, 2007
Great post!
My biggest problem is I get easily distracted with things that waste my time. I have a short attention span, so when I plan on doing a task, it can’t really last no more than an hour or I start losing interest.
Knowing this, I’m able to maximize my attention span by scheduling my time in one hour chunks, leaving a break between items. This way I still get stuff done but don’t get as distracted. I know this sounds a little complex, but it works for me!
Yann
September 21st, 2007
This post is just a shallow rip off of GTD and the “4 hour week” - If you’re going to paraphrase what others have said much better before you, without adding *anything* new to the table, at the very least, you should mention your source… If not, it seriously looks like plagiarism.
Leo
September 21st, 2007
@Yann: I’ve read GTD and 4-Hr Workweek, and I love both of them. I am indebted to both. However, neither talks about keeping your day open. GTD talks about “hard landscape” for appointments, and so doesn’t discourage them. 4-Hr Workweek touches on some of these things, but doesn’t address them directly as far as I remember. Neither talks about choosing your 3 most important tasks.
In any case, these concepts have been around way before either of those books were published. Do you think they invented them? That’s the funny thing … people seem to think that the place they first read something is where the concept originated.
Samm
September 21st, 2007
The real problem here, is that if you don’t schedule appointments, you will lose business. Yes, it is tedious and time consuming, but if you can’t set a time to meet with the corporate suits, they won’t make the time for you. You may get away with this with very small businesses, but when others work on a timed schedule, you will have to adapt if you want their business. Most businesses will find this method extremely unprofessional, and it also makes you appear unreliable.
The bottom line is that your clients need to know that you can meet deadlines and get the job done, and this is the exact opposite message you want to impress on possible clients. It may help you get more done in a day, but it will also help you lose business. Not a good trade-off in my opinion.
Effectus
September 22nd, 2007
What a lovely post. Of course this cannot fit everyone’s way of getting things done, but it surely fits mine.
I’ll be using it - thanks a bunch!
Ian
September 22nd, 2007
I think I may try telling my Dr’s office that I don’t schedule appointments! You can’t not take appointments, the only people who can do this are people who’s days are already open.
Now keeping meetings to a bare minimum, that is not only good it’s great!
Design Submit
September 22nd, 2007
I agree with 2-4 but is #1 a joke??? I cannot imagine saying that to a client and it sounds like a logistical nightmare that would only work if the two parties happen to live 5 minutes away from each other.
marilyn's shampoo
September 22nd, 2007
telling a potential client you don’t schedule appointments will roughly translate as ‘i am a flake and i couldn’t give a monkey’s about your business’ to most peoples ears.
Self Help Zone
September 24th, 2007
Good post,
Most of us always wish to have more time in our hands so that we can accomplish more things, not only for work related things but also for personal matters.
Some of us want more time in order to deal with more work related matters to meet the deadline in finishing the deal or any such related stuff.
Dan,
Time Management
Francis Wade
October 10th, 2007
This idea is a provocative one, but a closer look at the fundamentals reveals that there is a predictable fallout from these habits.
#1 — this habit, if followed, essentially puts you at the mercy of other people’s time management systems. If they are effective, then the meeting will happen. If not, then it will never happen.
In some cases, the person will refuse to play along, and simply say “you call me instead.”
If someone is fine with fallout of this habit i.e. missed appointments, then fine… they can implement this habit freely.
However, they shouldn’t fool themselves that this is a more effective habit than that of scheduling their own appointments,
What appears to be a minimalist habit actually is one that creates all sorts all problems.
You: “Call me when I should start working on my taxes”
IRS Agent: “No we won’t…. But we will let you know when you owe us the taxes, penalties and interest related to not paying.”
But the principle seems to be sound — it might be languaged as “schedule the minimum number of appointments with other people as you need.” That could be expanded to mean “schedule the minimum number of activities that you need to be productive,” which is essentially what #2 is saying.