💸 Get Paid #3: How I manage my schedule
Work, career and finance hacks for ChopLife ministers
I don’t think I’m an unusual millennial in that I work on a couple of things. For me, I’m on 3 boards across the FSDH Group and its subsidiaries. I co-lead my family office, Metis Capital, which works across Real Estate, Financial Services, Technology and Special Opportunities. I’m board chair of my first baby, She Leads Africa. I’m a frustrated Oprah who creates content across Instagram and my Newsletter. I like to stay mentally, spiritually and physically fit by working out 5/6 times a week, eating healthily, meditating daily and reading like a librarian.
Over the last year, I’ve been experimenting with different tools and practices that I can use to balance all these activities. I really need to shout out my life coach for helping me unlock these routines.
I tend to schedule my week on Fridays. On Friday afternoon, I open up my dateless diary (see mine here. This one is also cute) and plan for the week ahead. I start off first by listing out all the things I think I need to do category by category at the bottom of the page. i.e. She Leads is one category, FSDH is one category, Metis is one category, Domestic is one category and so on.
Then I go over the list and I ask myself which of these “to dos” are really going to move me forward. Often times, we get caught in “To Do” list mania where we write down all the things we could do instead of the taking a step back and trying to simplify this list to what we should do. Many of you may have heard of the Eisenhower matrix. Whilst, I don’t draw this exact matrix, I’m effectively doing this same thing. Narrowing down my list to things that really require my attention. Ultimately, I try to remind myself that productivity isn’t about what you do, it’s about what you accomplish.
Once I’ve pruned my list down, I slot the tasks into days across the following week i.e. one task goes on Monday, the other on Tuesday and so on. I’ve found taking a weeklong view to be much much better than trying to do this scheduling work daily. I think it’s because planning can be hard so getting it over and done with makes things easier. When I’m scheduling my tasks, I take a few things into consideration:
I try to limit myself to 2-3 big tasks a day
I assume I’m going to spend at least 30 mins each day responding to emails. I try to do this once a day and then go back to more focused work
I look ahead to see what meetings I have booked in the week. If one day has lots of calls/meetings scheduled, I reduce the number of tasks I assign to that day.
On days when I have many calls/meetings scheduled, I change the nature of tasks I assign to that day. I’m an introvert so my brain gets tired after lots of calls. Given this, on a day when I have a lot of calls, I won’t be able to do work that’s particularly creative. I can do administrative tasks. I can do reading. I may even be able to review people’s work but I certainly won’t be able to write a proposal or newsletter.
Once I have may tasks slotted into their respective days, I make a commitment to myself that unless something insane comes up, I’ll complete those tasks. This commitment is much easier to make because I only have 3 or so big things I try to accomplish every day. I’ve experimented with increasing that number but the more I increase the number, the more I have an excuse to let things slide …. after all it’s sooooo much to do in one day. By keeping things realistic, I take excuses off the table.
If something pops up in the middle of the week, I take time to think about whether it should be prioritized over and above what I already have on my life or if it cam wait. If it can wait, I add it to the next weeks to do list so I remember to slot it in when I get to planning for next week. If it’s urgent, I take something off this week’s list and move it to the bottom of next weeks.
Routines root us and I’ve found this routine to be incredible grounding and balancing for me.
Because I’m not a robot, every few weeks, I forget to do my Friday prep. You can call this my cheat week lol. I accept that and focus of getting back to my routine in the middle of the week. Life isn’t about permanently staying on the horse, it’s about
Learning how to get back up when you fall
Trying, when you can, to reduce the amount of time you stay in your fallen position
With love,
Yasbo