When it comes to being an accountant and a mom, how well are you managing your time? If you’re like most of the women I speak to and coach, your answer is probably, “Not as well as I’d like.”
If you can relate, it might seem like there’s never enough time and that you have no control over your time. It can be frustrating when you’re trying to do your best, both at work and home, yet there aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish what you want and need to.
Maybe you find yourself having to work late to meet deadlines or stay up late to get housework done. Perhaps you feel so busy that you miss time with your kids, or you find yourself not getting the amount of sleep that you’d like.
If your to-do list never seems to decrease and you feel like you’ll never be able to catch up, the hard truth is that you may not be managing your time effectively. I’m not saying you’re not managing your time; I’m saying you’re probably not managing it effectively.
The good news is that you’re listening to this podcast, and time management for accountant moms is my specialty. Thankfully, if you learn how to manage your time properly, you’ll be able to find the right balance between work, family, and rest.
You’ll effectively accomplish the things that matter and let go of the things that don’t. You’ll also reduce your level of stress and increase your level of happiness and fulfillment.
Sounds great, right? I promise you it is. You just need to learn a few tangible and intangible time management skills.
With so much information available on time management, I wanted to distill it all down to what I consider the most important but also share some things that no one else is teaching about time management. Interestingly, learning effective time management skills isn’t all about time management.
I’ll explain more in a minute, but for now, just know that the intangible time management skills I’m going to share are even more important than the tangible ones.
This week I’m going to discuss the top tangible time management skills you need to know and the top intangible skills that will make a huge difference.
Top tangible time management skills
When I refer to a time management skill as “tangible,” what I’m saying is that these are the things you would normally associate with learning how to better manage your time. These proven skills will make it much easier to effectively manage your time.
Have time management goals
We all know how important it is to set goals professionally and personally. If we want to move from point A we need to know what point B is; otherwise, we’ll just stay stuck at point A.
When I refer to having time management goals, I’m not talking about what you want to achieve with the time you have; I’m referring to how you structure your time. In other words, how much time do you want to spend working, taking care of your household, being with your family, doing self-care things, sleeping, etc?
What does your perfect week look like? How would you like to spend the next 30 days? If you could wave a magic wand and have the balanced life you’ve always dreamed of, what would that look like? You need to have a vision for your time management.
Know how to prioritize
You’re an intelligent woman but don’t assume that you know how to properly prioritize. Why? Because you’ve also been a young girl who was most likely raised to put others’ needs first.
The truth is that it’s extra challenging for a lot of women to learn how to prioritize because we have to go against our early programming. That means we have to be even more aware of what we’re choosing to do with our time and choose more intentionally.
In a previous episode, I talked about the Decision Matrix that will help you prioritize, but as a quick summary, you need to label everything on your to-do list as easy or hard and then as high impact or low impact. Then you prioritize in this order – easy/high impact, hard/high impact, easy/low impact, hard/low impact, typically removing the hard/low impact things.
That’s just one way to approach prioritizing, but whatever you do, you need to override the programming in your brain. Don’t give in to your brain’s natural tendency to make everything seem urgent.
Throw away your to-do list
I know you probably want to gasp at the thought of throwing away your to-do list, but there’s a reason I recommend that you do. The truth is that Your brain gets very overwhelmed with to-do lists making it challenging to use your time effectively.
When I work with time management coaching clients, I do have them dump everything out of their brain and onto paper, but just as a way to declutter their brains. Your brain is for processing, not for storing, so the more you can get out of your brain, the better it will be able to do all the accounting work you need to do.
Of course, you need to know what you need to do, but the key to better time management is that working off a to-do list is not as effective as you might think. The next tangible skill I’m going to share makes it possible for you to throw away your to-do list, so don’t panic.
Calendar everything
Again, your to-do list is not an effective way to manage your time. It should just be used as part of the calendaring process.
Once you’ve decided your time management goals, you’ve got your to-do list, and you know what you’re prioritizing, it’s time to calendar it all. Put everything on the calendar so that you’re only working off your calendar, not a to-do list.
If you want to decrease overwhelm, this is helpful. The reason working off a to-do list isn’t helpful is that your lower, reactionary brain cannot put the things on your list into context and makes everything seem urgent.
Learn how to use your higher brain to make decisions ahead of time, prioritize, calendar things, and then throw away that to-do list. Now you only need to focus on what you scheduled and when.
One last point about calendaring – don’t think that everything on your to-do list needs to be done for this week. It just has to be put on the calendar for some point in time.
Be Kind
I tell my time management clients all the time, “Be kind to the future version of you that has to do what you put on your calendar.” In other words, do not pack so many things back-to-back that you have no white space or time to breathe.
Overscheduling yourself is not kind. Not planning for unexpected things to happen is not kind. Not calendaring your free time before anything else is not kind.
Stop trying to fit a square peg in a round hole by forcing yourself to manage your time in a way that makes you overwhelmed or feel like you need to hustle. When you plan your calendar, you should be constantly considering the future version of you that has to follow the calendar and set her up for success.
You know what she needs at various times throughout the day, so give them to her. You know she’s tired at the end of the workday, so decide in advance what’s for dinner; you know she struggles with leaving work at work, so schedule time at the end of the workday to tie up loose ends. Just be kind to yourself.
Know how to focus better
It can be tempting to multitask, especially as a busy accountant and mom, but multi-tasking is not an effective time management skill. According to a study published by the American Psychological Association, you actually spend between 20 and 40 percent more time when you multitask.
The truth is that multi-tasking not only costs you time and efficiency but it can also reduce the quality of your work. You need to learn how to focus better on completing one task at a time.
If you calendared everything, then your calendar will tell you what you should be focusing on and for how long. I’m going to discuss an intangible time management skill that will help you learn how to focus better, but for now, you need to know how to do one thing at a time so that you allow your brain its optimal processing ability.
Stop Procrastinating
Procrastination is one of the biggest time wasters. If you want to learn how to get more done in less time so that you can create more time, you have to stop procrastinating.
If you were kind to yourself when you calendared things, then you just need to follow the calendar. But what happens is that your brain is often not onboard with expending the energy to do the thing that’s calendared, leading to procrastination.
In order to follow through and not procrastinate, you need to learn how to manage your mind. Mind management is the key to overcoming procrastination and to time management.
The truth is that for accountants, we rarely feel like doing anything we’ve calendared because what we do takes a lot of mental energy therefore, it’s just easier to procrastinate. But when you understand how to get your brain onboard, you can easily overcome procrastination.
Now that I’ve shared the top tangible time management skills, I’m going to share some of the best intangible time management skills that have made a huge difference for myself and my coaching clients.
Top intangible time management skills
There’s plenty of advice out there about time management and time hacks, but what no one is talking about are the intangible time management skills that make time management more effective. If you’d like to have more control over your time, then the following intangible skills will make a big difference.
Understand what a circumstance is
What I mean when I say to understand what a circumstance is, is that there are circumstances, and there are our thoughts about circumstances. Circumstances are neutral; they don’t mean anything until your brain makes them mean something.
For example, time is a circumstance that is neutral; it just is. It’s not good or bad. It’s not a problem. You have 13 tax returns to get done in the next 15 days is a neutral circumstance. It’s not a problem until your brain tells a problem story.
The truth is that time doesn’t cause us to feel overwhelmed, busy, or anxious. Time can’t cause us to feel anything. Time and the things we need to do with time are not a problem.
What we choose to do with time is up to us, but it’s still our choice. The things we have planned on our calendar are also just neutral circumstances that don’t make us feel pressured, worried, or stressed.
Time is not to blame for how you feel or for what you don’t get done. When you understand what a circumstance is and that it’s neutral, you have much more control over your time management.
Be aware of your thoughts about time
Your thoughts about time are EVERYTHING when it comes to time management. Your thoughts create your relationship with time, and if you have an adversarial relationship, you’re going to have a lot of problems managing your time.
You need to be aware of what you’re thinking when you create your to-do list, calendar things and then have to follow through with what’s on your calendar. You need to be aware of what you’re thinking about the things you need to do and the amount of time you choose to do them in.
You also need to be aware of what you’re thinking when you don’t follow your calendar, when unexpected things come up, and when things don’t get done. What you think about time and your ability to manage it will have a huge impact on how productive and efficient you can be.
If you want to feel more focused and in control of your time, you have to start with what you’re thinking. Those tangible time management skills are a small piece; it’s your thoughts that are pivotal in time management.
Manage your feelings
Managing how you feel is also one of the most important keys to successful time management. Why? Because how you feel drives all your actions and inactions.
Want to stop procrastinating? You need to create the feeling of determined or motivated on purpose.
Want to get more done in less time? You need to create the feeling of focused on purpose.
For example, if you had 10 things scheduled to do and only got 5 done, you need to create the feeling of acceptance instead of judgement in order to take action to get those undone things done.
Have something on your calendar that you’re feeling resistant, overwhelmed, or confused about? You need to choose the best feeling you can in order to replace resistance, overwhelm or confusion.
Need to be super productive and not procrastinate? Manage your feelings.
When you manage your feelings you’ll be amazed at how much more you’re able to get done. Manage your feelings and you’ll have so much control over your time.
Hopefully you now see that while there’s so much information out there about the typical tangible management skills, it’s the intangible skills that no one is teaching. I’ve said this many times, but when you learn how to manage your accountant brain you can manage everything else, especially your time.
Summary
It can be frustrating when you’re trying to do your best, both at work and home, yet there aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish what you want and need to.
There’s plenty of advice out there about time management and time hacks, but what no one is talking about are the intangible time management skills that make time management more effective.