This week’s episode gives you an alternative to Time Management. It’s called Guilt Management! I share an exercise with you that revolutionised my time management and my relationship with my business and family. Even better, like the best and most sophisticated business strategies, you get to colour in!
To find out more, watch this quick video in this week’s episode of Wonderful Web TV. Your Monday dose of Motivation, Mindset and Marketing.
I’d love to hear your comments and any tips you’d like to share. Share your thoughts below. I’ll come back and join in the conversation.
Cheers
Janet
P.S. If you like this episode please, I’d love you to leave a ranking and comment over on itunes.
Here’s the link (you can also subscribe here too)
I love the idea of guilt management. An idea I talk about in one of my books is the concept of guilt free leisure. I think we all need to learn to set aside ‘me’ time to enjoy ourselves, but also to be in the moment. Give 100% to whatever you’re doing in that moment. If it’s romantic time be romantic and don’t think about work. If it’s work time focus on the task not what you could or should be doing. Know that giving to yourself is as important as giving to others.
Using colours is a good way to visualise blocking out your time but Idon’t think that it solves the underlying problem that many women struggle with the idea of wanting to be superwomen & feel like they need to do everything. Also, personally it’s just another task I’d have to do to block out everything by colour and assign my leisure time. To me it feels like a burden. Also, it contradicts your last video where you said life balance is rubbish!
Talia´s last [type] ..A special 3-hour event for women entrepreneurs
Hi Talia I think the challenge us women face dealing with guilt is an ongoing thing that will take generations to work on! An exercise like this could never solve it but it is a really useful thing to do for a month or so if the guilt is something that is stopping you from growing your business and enjoying your life. It may seem on the surface that this contradicts my thoughts that life balance is rubbish. The idea is not to have equal amounts of colours. Instead it is to demonstrate to you, when you look at it over time, that you actually do spend your attention on many different things so not to beat yourself up when you are currently focusing on one of those things.
Love it. Thanks for sharing, Janet. We women ought to stop feeling guilty all the time!
Yep guilt does seem to be something us women specialise in.
Hi Janet,
I am soooo happy for this wonderful advice. I am juggling 1. Starting a multicultural choir and doing the promotion to create awareness, 2. Conducting an email campaign together with articles to promote my business, 3. Creating a website, 4. Doing voluntary work with women who have survived domestic violence, and 5. Spending time with my adult children. All, except the last one, requires paperwork. Does housework register on this guilt scale, because it is running a sad last in all of this.
I wake up with tension in my chest asking myself – “What needs to be done? What didn’t I get done yesterday?” and so on – ad nauseum. I like the idea of the colour coded plan – I am visual and that would suit me well. I will let you know how I go. Thanks, Dianne.
Oh Diane I felt stressed just reading what you have on! Love the idea of a multi-cultural choir by the way. You sound like you would really benefit from my CLEAR Time Mastery system. I’ll let you all know here when it is released which should be later this week. It is awful to wake up with tension in your chest. Hope this helps you create some order from so many interests.
Oh……and get a house-keeper!
Thanks Janet
I have been using outlook and a coloured calendar for a number of years. Green for coaching (2 thirds of my time); Blue for working on my business and learnings (may be a workshop); Purple for networking; Pink for sales AND Yellow for “me time”.
And Me time is a BIG ROCK that gets put in first!
I love my rainbow diary and althought its not balanced, as in even between colours, it really works for me.
Since having breast cancer 3 years ago, I dont feel guilty for allowing myself time for me. I love my clients and give them great value (thats why they stay with me for so long).
I make time for my son and for my husband.
And I now employ a cleaner and a gardener
Life is Good – and too short to do things I dont enjoy!
Your system sounds very similar to what I did when I was using Outlook. I was so disappointed when I switched to Google Calendar that I couldn’t colour code each day. If you look at it over a month or so and see there is very little yellow you are really in trouble! I also add in one for romance to make sure I take the time to nurture my love life. It is never, ever balanced but at least it reminds you of what is important. It sounds like you have that pretty well sorted. Such a shame it was cancer that was the teacher.
Great article Janet. Such a simple technique but so effective when you are going through stages of guilt.
Thanks again, will watch what I am really spending my time on
Sonya
Hi Janet,
I do love this tip and I’ve been doing something very similar by sitting down on Sunday evening with a with a week planner whiteboard and coloured pens (however colour blocks sound even better). Inevitably this showed up initially that I was working too much, so having allocated more hours to other things I am happier, healthier and more balanced.
However, I have always been someone with a keen sense of urgency and I still get incredibily frustrated that I’m not making faster progress with my business. Particularly that I am not able to get to some of the big things I’m excited about that will set me up for the future. But I’m just one person and I really deserve a life too. I think the key for me is trying to accept that my mind and desires races ahead of what one person can actually achieve, so I try to work on accepting that everything is happening in divine right timing.
I do think the way we allocate our attention is absolutely key to life satisfaction, so a great point to raise Janet,
Thanks Cate
Thank you Janet for the colour coding idea.
I still love using a paper diary and need it to remind myself of what I have planned (otherwise menopause brain kicks in and I forget).
After listening to your tip I have allocated colours for different types of activities instead of the usual black – my personal stuff such as yoga class is bright pink and business is orange, going away to visit my offspring is turquoise and my day job is an ordinary blue.
Oops – haven’t even thought of domestic chores yet
Lucky I live by myself.
As always, informative content. I love the very professional videos you produce – all in all a very professional online presence. I am wondering how long it took you to get to this point and how much time you spent initially in getting your vision off the ground?
I am just starting out and I’ve discovered that there’s a LOT to LEARN, a LOT to DO and a LOT of DISTRACTIONS – ie subscription emails, webinars, new products to consider/purchase.
However I love the whole idea of creating diversified income streams and the internet is a wonderful medium for that. I am committed to this journey – and feel that I am making progress, albeit slowly.
Just watching your videos encourages me and shows me that I can do this too.