Learning how to manage your time at work while maintaining a healthy work-life balance, including while travelling, is essential for entrepreneurship. But it isn’t easy. Being a creative, driven, and visionary person comes at a cost. While others are motivated by money and status, you’re more interested in pursuing your passions, reaching your full potential, and making the world a better place.
Traditional, technical roles just don’t work for you. You need to live a purposeful and intentional life that’s endlessly fulfilling; otherwise, you feel angsty and annoyed. With that, you keep getting caught in an endless cycle of desperately trying to figure out what you want to do in this life, then distracting yourself by planning trips and other “escapes” that temporarily make you feel more alive.
(Yes, I get it because I’ve been there.)
When everything feels overwhelming and you’re being pulled in a million directions, it’s easy to fall into the trap of writing out lists. Unfinished projects here, future goals there… You tell yourself that getting it out of your head and onto ‘paper’ will help, but it only makes it feel more overwhelming!
Queue feelings of inadequacy, failure, and all the other ways in which you self-depreciate before spiralling into a shame-fulled black hole of negativity 😵💫.
What makes it even worse is that deep down, you know there’s a middle ground between being structured and being spontaneous. You know it’s possible to effectively manage your time at work without giving up anything (or anyone) you love. You know you could utilize your time and maximize your efforts better. But despite pulling out all the stops and writing out your 100th ‘To Do’ list of the week, you aren’t managing to find that balance. So the shame-fuelled cycle begins again.
I resonate with this because it’s my story, too. I used to feel guilty all the time when I didn’t stick to a plan, even if I’d tried my absolute best to follow through with commitments to myself. I was constantly beating myself up for not being good enough, trying to prove myself to others, and seeking validation from anyone with a voice. This went on for years, with work-life balance a distant dream that seemed too far out of reach for someone as ambitious as me.
Eventually, after 14+ years of personal development and investing in individualized coaching to figure out who the heck I am and how to live with (and even like) myself, I had a significant breakthrough.
Each time I reflected on my lifestyle, priorities, and how I wanted to spend my time, there was one common denominator: ‘To Do’ lists were making it worse. They made me feel small, incapable, and not enough. No matter how I approached them, they only served to add more stress and pressure; not alleviate it.
I tried various forms of time blocking, which helped to some extent. But I ended up micromanaging myself so much that it was physically impossible for me to adhere to the schedules I’d made. Then I’d hate myself for failing, have a mental breakdown, get rescued by my boyfriend, and go back to Square One.
Funnily enough, where things really started to improve was during the COVID-19 pandemic. With considerably less distractions from people in general, and literally nowhere to be, it forced me to do some deep introspection about how I wanted to live my life and who I wanted in it.
What came from that time was a realization that living intentionally didn’t have to mean meticulously controlling how I spent my time. When I was able to trust in my own ability to get stuff done, and prioritize according to my intuition, I started looking for more flexible ways to be productive.
I began to manage my time at work and life better by grouping tasks into much broader categories according to the intention behind them. So, instead of having a huge list of things I wanted to get done work-wise, I’d write out the high level intention, or the reason why I wanted to do them, and leave out the detail. For example, I might put:
- “Help more people see the value in coaching”
- “Gain confidence in entrepreneurship through collaboration”
- “Strengthen relationship with {boyfriend}”
Whenever things got too granular, I’d look for similar items and try to zoom out more to see the bigger picture. I kept details in a separate notebook, which naturally gathered as I had meetings, came up with ideas, etc (organized by date). But I told myself I wouldn’t look at them unless I really needed to in that particular moment (and, most of the time, I never needed to).
Each morning, I’d make a cup of tea and set 3-5 intentions for the day, making sure at least one of them was unrelated to work. And that was it! My entire focus for the day was to keep those 3-5 things in the back of my mind so that I could prioritize tasks organically in line with what I wanted to make progress in.
It helped me successfully manage my time with work and my personal life and took all the pressure off, for several reasons:
- There weren’t any ‘To Do’ items, so I couldn’t fail because the goal was to make progress pertaining to my intentions (and Rome wasn’t built in a day)
- I wasn’t left with a visual of unfinished things at the end of the day, so could actually feel accomplished (sometimes, I wrote out “small wins” before bed)
- There was plenty of space in my day to do all the ad-hoc or unexpected things that came up, alongside more goal-oriented tasks—a natural balance
I continued taking an intentions-based approach for the bulk of the pandemic, and my work-life balance completely transformed. I was 10x more productive, yet 10x more energized because instead of shaming myself into doing things (exhausting), I was motivated to do them as my rationale was crystal clear.
While learning how to compartmentalize my time was a real game-changer for my business, health, and relationships, things did become unsustainable when the world started opening up again. With so many more distractions and unanticipated invitations, events, and opportunities, I found myself wanting to do everything and losing the balance I’d worked so hard to create.
It was then that I turned to my partner for help. “Can I digitize this system I was using, but make it more automated?” I asked. And then began a new form of partnership. We set about to create a method of living an intention-based life, while still keeping track of the minute details that would be necessary to complete individual tasks as they became a priority.
The system makes compartmentalization simple and straightforward, with no ‘To Do’ list in sight! The genius lies in the fact that the system has flexibility and spontaneity built in, allowing the user’s priorities to change in realtime with very minimal administration required.
Tasks are automatically prioritized and organized according to their underlying intentions, and only top priority tasks are made visible so it’s impossible to feel overwhelmed. It provides a helpful structure for increasing productivity, while giving the user complete creative freedom over how they want to experience life.
No micromanaging. No guilt. No time wasted.
This system has changed my life and it continues to be the #1 tool I use in my business every day. If you’re burned out and ambitious, find your own way to manage your time at work while making room for your personal life, all without compromising your productivity. Where there’s a will, there’s a way 😉.
If you’re ready to ditch the ‘To Do’ lists, stop feeling guilty whatever you do, and free up more of your time without sacrificing productivity, I can help. I share my proprietary system with select few entrepreneurs and train them on how to use it effectively. To inquire about my 1:1 business coaching packages, email me with the subject line ‘PRODUCTIVITY TOOL’ at sophie@prospology.com.