Why Time Management is a Myth (and What To Do Instead!)

How many times have you told yourself, “If I just had more time in the day, I could get it all done.”

Y’all, we need to stop this way of thinking. Because the reality of today’s demanding workplace, not to mention feeling stressed by the constant pressure to “have it all,” means we’ll NEVER get it all done!

Time management is a myth, and today, I’m going to talk about why – and what you should be doing instead to maximize the time you have, manage expectations at work and at home with the emergencies that inevitably arise, and get your best work done without the constant stress.

Check out the video below for my thoughts (and grab a free tool below to help you prioritize after you’ve watched!)

After you’ve checked out the video, won’t you head down to the comments section? We want to hear from you! What are you doing to maximize the time you have and let go of the time management myth?

Friends, I talked about the podcast I’ve been listening to, The ONE Thing with Gary Keller, and how he prioritizes his most important work first. If you’re stuck on how to prioritize your best work, I’m going to share a free tool to help you out!

It’s a tool that I normally give to clients in the fourth quarter of the year to prioritize what work needs to be finished before year-end, but it’s a great starting place throughout the year to help you when you feel like there’s just too much on your plate!

You can make a real difference for someone else when you share your story. So don’t be shy about leaving a comment. Every little bit of wisdom helps!

Listen to this video as a podcast!

Video Transcript:- Hey there, friend, it’s Stefanie Krievins with Pro Troublemaker Nation and today I wanna talk about time management and really the myth of time management. So many of my clients come to me saying if I just had more hours in the day, if I just had more time to myself, I could get it all done and I don’t think that’s true. Here’s my three tips to help overcome that mindset of if I just had more hours because you only get 168 every single week unless you have some tips for time travel that I don’t know about yet. 168 hours, what do you do with those? One, in modern American work culture, the work will never be done. Give yourself grace and understanding to know that you will probably never feel caught up but you need better systems and structures to manage the workload. Do you have a project management system? Do you have a task list? Do you have your most important work prioritized and on your calendar? That’s how you feel successful, productive and caught up. Second, you need to start the day with your most important priorities. You need to articulate those. Write ’em on a posty, an index card, on your calendar but get that work done first. I’m really digging this podcast called The ONE Thing right now and it’s based on the book by Gary Keller of Keller and Williams Realty Group, right, wildly successful executive and the reason he’s been wildly successful and you can too is that he started every single day with his most important priorities from working out so taking care of himself, making sure he spent time loving on his family and then getting to work and getting the most important work done because what happens usually in the afternoon or at whatever point you let it happen and this leads me to tip number three which is leave space for the oh shit time, the oh shit stuff that comes up at work. We know it’s going to. We know at some point our day needs to be about other people’s priorities both real emergencies and fake emergencies. Leave time for it. Don’t overschedule yourself. Don’t overburden yourself with so much work that you can’t be flexible and adaptable yet start the day with your most important priorities which does not include your email inbox. It includes real work, real thoughtful work that you have to get done. That’s how you’re going to feel caught up, productive, successful and then leave that flexible time usually in the afternoon for ad hoc meetings, for the thing that your boss puts on your desk and says I need this in an hour. You know it’s gonna happen. Plan for it. Plan for the time but you don’t necessarily have to plan for the work. Friends, I’d love to hear your stories wherever you’re watching this. Where has leaving yourself grace and space to respond to emergencies, where has choosing your priorities first helped you be successful because your story is going to help somebody else and now, friends, let’s get off the internet and be the Pro Troublemaker you’re meant to be and get the real work done and I’ll see you soon.