THE TIME MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

The way I do it is using a ‘Day-to-day’ trello board. It is similar to the boards I use to set my goals, but has a few specific traits. I’ll set it up with the following lists: TO DO; DONE; MONDAY; TUESDAY; WEDNESDAY; THURSDAY; FRIDAY; SATURDAY; SUNDAY; just like the image bellow (an example I created just for showing what I mean):

I use the color labels to identify the type of activity and level of importance it has. In my scale: blue is a regular programmed activity (example: going to the gym every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday); green is a non-regular low importance activity (that, if necessary, can be delayed); red is a non-regular high importance activity (should not be delayed unless absolutely necessary; black is a critical activity (kind of like if I don’t do it, an asteroid will fall on earth and destroy humanity).

Every beginning of a week, you should look at your monthly and weekly boards and update your DAY-TO-DAY board with the activities you need to get done on that specific week by placing them on the TO DO list.

The catch here is that, since trello is automatically synced to your phone through it’s mobile app, AS SOON as you have a thought about something new you have to do (example: just noticed the tv remote control is out of batteries, you have the “I gotta buy some new batteries”), just pick up your phone and write it down in the DO TO list. You don’t have to figure out when you’re gonna do it on the spot. Later on, in the day, when you’re doing something tedious like waiting in a line, instead of playing candy crush, open up your trello and schedule your TO DO activities to some day in the week. This process also involves a curating process, since not all activities we, at some point, chose to do truly bring value to our lives. If it doesn’t make you happy, doesn’t make you money, and doesn’t make you better, DON’T DO IT (don’t know who said it, but it’s a really good advice).

Since you have a very graphic view of all of your activities for each day, it is pretty easy to decide which is the best day to allocate each task (maybe on Wednesday, you’re going to the supermarket already, so just put the “BUY BATTERIES” activity on that day also).

Once an activity is finished, I can then send it to the DONE list. If, at the end of the day, not all activities have been accomplished, just allocate the ones that are incomplete to another day. That way you’ll never leave tasks behind. Either they get done, or they get reprogrammed. One point here is that the blue activities (regular) don’t go to the DONE list, since they’ll be scheduled again for that day on the next week.

Another big part of this system is the ORDER. At the end of each day, I’ll look at the next day and put the tasks in the order I plan on doing them, from top being the first to bottom being the last. That way you don’t have to think about what’s next. Just follow your pre-arranged order and get shit done. Of course, this is flexible and you can (and will) make changes throughout the day. But it eliminates the process of figuring out at each step of the day what to do next.

Trello has a LOT of other features I’m not covering here, but that I do use in some cases, such as making a checklist inside a task, or making comments (example: you have a dentist appointment and you can write the address in the comment section).

If you’re anything like me, you’ll get addicted to the system and start checking and adjusting it all day long, trying to optimize the process. It ends up being fun and SO efficient.

Some people have asked me if I do any type of division between professional and personal tasks. I’m not a believer in the whole “work-life balance” thing. To me it’s just life. So, I don’t separate it at trello, which is specific for my personal use. But that’s just me. Feel free to use the colors in any way that suits you and your life.

That’s the trello part. Now let’s get to google calendar. Just as trello, I’m not going to explain at all how the platform works. There are endless sources for that information, and I don’t think it would be worth the readers time for me to explain here.

For me, google calendar’s main advantage is the ability to invite and be invited to appointments. That enables you to be more secure there aren’t any miscommunications between the people involved in the appointment. As trello works for my personal use, google calendar is my tool for time management with third parties (which can be someone from my team, from other companies, or even personal matters).

Every time I have an appointment with someone, I will ask for their e-mail address, create an appointment on my calendar, invite all the people that should be involved, and set a specific color. Here the color organization you use is entirely up to you. Since I share this calendar with some team members (I highly recommend doing that), I try to include all the appointments that will keep me out of the office (even if it does not involve other people, like a doctor's appointment), and will separate it in red (personal), blue (business related to ongoing projects), green (prospection of new clients) and yellow (time off). So, it would look something like this hypothetical example below:

Very important: each and every one of these appointments should have a specific task in your trello workboard also. That is the only way you will be able to have a complete graphic overview of what your week is looking like.

At the end of each week, I like to review my DONE list, and my google calendar for that week. Normally doing that gives me insights about some other follow up tasks I should perform. Then I archive all the tasks in the DONE list.

Pretty simple right? That’s all there is to it, really. It takes a little bit of time to get used to the habit of writing down things that pop up in your head that you need to get done, scheduling and organizing your time, but you’ll soon see the gains in productivity. The awesome part is that you end that feeling that you just “didn’t do enough today”. If you did all the items in your list, you’re done for the day. If that starts to happen too often, it’s time to put on some more demands in your TO DO list, make some bigger goals or try to accomplish your current ones faster. Soon you’ll find the perfect balance between overwhelming yourself and not doing enough.

Another cool thing about this system is that it is absolutely scalable for teams too. Trello allows you to delegate a task to a team member that is part of that board. That way, you can organize the time of your whole team in this manner, and you and everyone else will know what each person is dedicating their time this week to. I plan on eventually implementing that for my team, but haven’t got to it yet.

At last, I wanna leave a few tips about things I learned along the way of trying to be more time efficient.

If something takes less than 2 min to do it, and you could do it now, just do it. Sometimes we have people counting on an atitude of ours and doing it immediately probably won’t change a lot in your ongoing activity, since you were already interrupted to acknowledge that the activity has to be done. You never know how doing that immediately will affect the future events. It’ll probably gain you more than 2 minutes to do so. It also has the advantage of making you look sharp and aware of what’s going on.

Also, I believe technology has given us a present that we don’t quite use enough. I’m referring to UBER (and similars). It made being driven from one place to another a lot less expensive than it was before. I’ve read a few studies that said that for most people using uber would be cheaper or the same price as having a car. Those studies didn’t take into consideration what you could do with the TIME that gives you. Imagine that instead of the tedious activity of driving in traffic every day (done by millions of people every day), you instead used that same time on the back seat of an uber reading a book. How many books would you have read in 20 years? Think about it.

Hope you guys liked the post. If you implement it and it works out for you, or even if it doesn’t, let me know your experience. Have a nice one!

Obs: I highly recommend printing your vision, and current year objectives and putting them in some place where you will see them very often. I put my vision on my door and my objectives on the bathroom mirror. It will help motivate you when things get hard. Kind of remembers you what you’re fighting for.