Here’s a piece of  good commonsense advice I’ve heard before, but is finally sinking in now. I’ll pass it forward,  hoping it will be useful to you, too, in this season.

In her new book, Take Back Your Time, Christy Wright tackles the mindset and practicalities behind time management. Like Marie Forleo, she urges you not to try and do everything that’s on your plate. Instead, she  suggests 5 main steps:

1. Figure out what’s important to you
2. Figure out what doesn’t matter
3. Create a schedule that reflects what matters
4. Protect what’s important (create boundaries)
5. Be present

The last one is really interesting. Wright says that much of the pressure people experience arises from feeling that no matter what they’re doing right now, they are guilty for neglecting other responsibilities. As a working mom, she says, she felt guilty when she left her kids in daycare to go to work, and worried about them all day long. Then, when she was home with her kids, she felt bad about all the stuff piling up at work.

Do you identify?

This is a lose-lose game, obviously.

In the chapter dedicated to being present, Wright recommends various mindfulness techniques and other tactics for staying in the moment. What I find most useful is the simple acceptance that we can’t

1. be two places at the same time, 
2. clone ourselves,  
3. do that crazy time warp thing Hermione did in the third Harry Potter book. (But how I wish I could!!!)

So whatever time we’ve blocked on our calendar for work,  is work time, and the time we’ve scheduled for home, is family time. (Or any other, 2, 3, 100 conflicting responsibilities you have…) And when you’re in a certain place that’s important to you, with people and tasks you care about, you might as well focus on doing a good job and enjoying that time. It will certainly be more productive than juggling and agonizing and feeling terrible.

The first obvious example is to put your phone aside and focus on what you’re doing. You’re encouraged to come up with specific ideas to make that easier. For example:

1. Use a “phone box” during family dinner,
2. Leave the phone in your bag for an hour, check it for 10 minutes, and return it there for another hour,
3. Communicate clearly with your colleagues about when you check your phone from home (e.g. only once, between 8:30-9:00 pm) so they know when they can expect a response,
4. Put your phone on airplane mode while using a focusing app for a predetermined amount of time.

A second favorite, relatable to anyone who worked from home with other people during the pandemic, is how to manage interruptions:

1. Use a divider to separate your desk from the rest of the room/house. Everyone is instructed not to pass the divider unless the house burns down.
2. Close the room to your home office, with a clear sign that says when you’ll be out, and clear instructions not to yell, knock or open the door unless the house burns down.
3. Use my headset, with clear instructions not to speak to you when the red light is on unless the house burns down.

Wright also talks about wandering thoughts, and suggests you bring yourself back to focus by asking, “what’s in front of me right now?” 

This is something I found useful, because I tend to daydream, and fortunately, with some practice, it gets easier to bring your thinking back to the task at hand.

So focusing on what you’re currently doing makes it more productive, enjoyable, and can prevent you from feeling guilty simply because you’re thinking of the task and not your own woes. But the big game changer for me was just deciding that feeling guilty was counterproductive and made no sense.

It came in handy this week. Last week I went through a minor surgical procedure, and expected to spend the latter half of that week resting. I planned this out and was prepared, down to the series to binge on. No guilt. However, I expected to be back in shape this week, tackling my list of tasks, which are a part of my quarterly plan. Instead, I was in pain and ran a fever. Normally, I’d be really resentful about my health thwarting my plans. But this week I wasn’t. In fact, I have a meditation that I listen to before going to bed which has a generic sentence about what a wonderful and productive day it had been. Usually, I do think of that day’s “wins”, but this week, there weren’t any. Every day, I just congratulated myself for taking another day to rest. No guilt.

For me, that’s a hell of a win!

Do you have any amazing focusing ideas? Any insights into how to leave guilt behind for good? Please comment/reply and let me know!

Gavel photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

Time Turner photo by Warner Bros.