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Whatup Reader!

Let’s get right into it: Are you actually bad at time management, or do you simply need to work on expectation management?

I had a lengthy Voxer chat with one of my superstar clients yesterday, and while she has made TREMENDOUS improvements in her time management skills, she’s been feeling a bit stretched and a bit stressed as of late.

She reached out to me asking if we could spend some time organizing her schedule and I straight up told her that I didn’t believe that’s what she needed.

Not-at-all-shameless plug: I love helping people organize their schedules. It’s a tremendous way to use the time offered during a Maestro Meeting.

However, as is the case for this particular client, and perhaps for you, expectation management is paramount for time management, and is sometimes the only thing that actually needs to be worked on.

Things take as long as they take, irrespective of how long you want them to take.

Many times the biggest issue I see with folks who struggle with time management is that they are, and I say with love, absolutely horrendous with expectation management.

The issue is not that these folks underestimate how long things will take, it’s that they continue to expect things to get done quicker despite a literal mountain of evidence to the contrary.

Things take as long as they take, irrespective of how long you want them to take.

I shared the following slide with the Legacy crew during last week’s coaching call, and I’ve circled what I believe to be the most important action item for those who feel stressed about their schedule: Getting honest and objective with yourself about how long things take and how much time you actually have.

For those of you who like systems and acronyms and feel that your problem is rooted in organization, not expectation, you can CLICK HERE to read the blog I wrote about my CADE system for organizing and completing tasks.

I too would love to be able to write an email in 37 seconds (these Tuesday emails can take me hours). I too would love to be able to clean the house in 19 minutes (just because I don’t mind doing it – as per last week’s email – doesn’t mean I wouldn’t mind if it took less time). I too would love if 3 hours of scrolling only took 15 minutes. Do I need to scroll that long? No. Am I going to? Yes.

The point being, I too would love it if things took as long as I wanted them to take, but that’s simply not the case.

Things take as long as they take, irrespective of how long you want them to take.

And before you hit me with the “But but but people can decrease their marathon time, people can get faster at things with practice”, the reality is that 99% of the time we don’t see some super drastic change. Grown folks don’t suddenly cut their marathon time in half. Working professionals don’t shave hours off of their workflow overnight.

The efficiency improvements that come with practice typically take years, and as it relates to one’s craft, often the time that is saved on execution simply gets allocated to planning, or team management, or other activities that contribute to the higher-quality product that they now have the skill to create.

We can beat ourselves up for not being able to fit 3 hours of work into 45 minutes or we can accept it, objectively manage our expectations, plan our days accordingly, and live a happier, less stressed, less rushed, less over-scheduled life.

One MOAR thing before I wrap this up: Things take other people as long as they take other people.

Sometimes people will be faster than you, sometimes people will be slower than you. Yes, by all means feel free to outsource and delegate whatever makes sense for you, just make sure you aren’t doubling down on your poor expectation management by comparing your times others.

Things take you as long as they take you, irrespective of how long you want them to take you, AND irrespective of how long they take someone else.

Happy Tuesday, Reader.

Maestro out.

Do the thing.

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