(This post is written for alumni of LEAD 365, although all are welcome to read it.)

I’m supposed to be in New York visiting a friend right now. Instead, I’m sitting in my Grand Rapids home office writing this post with a new understanding of the risks of flying super low-cost airlines during hurricane season. Travel woes aside, I’m also learning something about how I spend my time. And it’s not pretty.

Do you remember the term “balcony time” from LEAD 365? Balcony time is set-aside time to focus on the important, big picture things that are not necessarily urgent. It’s time for a leader to think about the work instead of doing the work. Many of you manage people or systems every day, and it is quite easy not to take time away from that work to step back and check in to see if what you’re actually doing aligns with what you want to be doing: Are you developing your team well, and if not, what needs to change? Are there issues that need to be addressed but are easier to ignore? Are you promoting the culture you want? Are you all working toward the same vision? These are all balcony issues.

I post about time management and organization a lot partly because I struggle with these things, but mostly because many of our LEAD 365 participants have expressed that they struggle with these, too. Our modern life is so busy, many of us struggle to say no, and many of us have kids at home and spouses who also work. Throw in a hobby or two and a desire for clean clothes to wear and the week is full, right?

A new member of the alumni group recently told me about an exercise she found helpful: tracking how she spends her time, every minute of every day. (She got the idea from this book, which I’ve purchased but not started reading yet.) I already track what I eat (migraine-tracker notebook), what I do (external-memory notebook), and in theory what I spend (sorry I haven’t visited in a while, Mint), so why not track my time for a few weeks? Perhaps that would help me find time for my long-overdue visit to the balcony as Cygnus Services nears its third birthday.

Here’s what I learned in my first week of tracking:

• I lose track of time in the mornings, and constantly underestimate how much time I need to get myself and my child ready. This results in stressful scrambling to make our 7:30 carpool, and a bad start to both of our days.
• Evenings are not a good time for me to do, well, anything. As a natural morning person, I’m pretty much done after 7:00 pm.
• My priorities as demonstrated by how I use my time don’t really match the priorities I want my life to show. For example, I easily prioritize a clean house (daily dishes and laundry) over spending time with Josh and Avery during that little two-hour window in the evening when everyone is home and awake. Ouch.
• I don’t rest during the day at all unless I make myself rest. Instead, I work non-stop, taking work breaks to do household chores and errands. I almost always eat lunch while driving, unloading the dishwasher, or managing email. No wonder I’m done at 7:00!
• I don’t schedule enough time for email. Email can be such a time waster, but I’ve restricted the time I spend on it so much that I’m woefully behind. Not good for a professional who teaches others about the importance of communication!
• I schedule balcony time, and then fill it with naps and yard work. Really.

I’ve already made a few changes. This morning, I got up at 5:15 instead of 6:00 (natural morning person, remember?), got myself ready, and made breakfast before Avery woke up at 6:15. Because of that, she and I had a really nice breakfast together and easily made it out the door on time. Score one for quality time!

I also realized that I keep trying to do balcony time in the afternoon, but my brain is tired by then. This week, I scheduled balcony time for Wednesday morning, and I’m going away from my house and its tempting piles of laundry to let myself have a few focused hours thinking about how to close out 2016 well and enter into 2017 with a plan. You might not have laundry to worry about at work, but I know that you have other distractions screaming for your attention if you are in your office. I strongly recommend that, as much as possible, you schedule balcony time someplace far away from your office, like a coffee shop or the library. 

There’s plenty more I could share about what I learned, but hearing about how I plan to clean my house differently is likely wasting your time at this point. 🙂 So instead, I’ll turn it over to you. Do you know how you spend your time? I found tracking my time extremely helpful and plan to continue for another week or two. If you are scrambling during your week to get it all done, I recommend that you do the same.

Lead on!
Meredith

Image by cristianocani. Used under CC-BY-2.0 license.