Sunday Night Success

I was sitting in the doctor’s office a couple of weeks ago waiting for my appointment and reading a crumpled magazine from the waiting room collection.

Later, I was sitting in the dentist’s office, waiting again, tapping my fingers on my knee with nothing to do.

I was driving to pick up some groceries, 15 minutes each way, and listening to the horrible local radio station.

Every day I walk ten minutes each way, in silence, to the local high school to teach my math classes.

Empty minutes

What do all of these different events have in common?

In a world were time management is a constant struggle, and you are trying to fit more into the same amount of time, these are empty minutes. Valuable minutes that pass with nothing valuable being accomplished. Valuable minutes that will have to be added to another part of your day so you can get everything done.

Please don’t misunderstand. Downtime, relaxing, and just being in the moment are all important. But, there seems to be a lot of minutes in my day that I could be multitasking and getting something else done.

Filling the empty minutes

I have started to fill up some of these empty minutes by making sure I have something to do whenever I am faced with these small chunks of free time. My main tool for filling my empty minutes: my iPod touch.

Doctor’s and dentist’s office? I have a document application so I can read eBooks or white papers, as well as using the note application to write my blog posts and newsletters, or just capture stray ideas.

Driving and walking in silence? I have a huge list of coaching, business, and marketing books on my reading list. I have started downloading audiobooks and listening to them during this down time.

Fewer empty minutes, more family minutes

By filling all of these empty minutes I have been able to spend more time with my wife and son. I have managed to “read” two of the books on my list while walking and driving, and written entire articles while waiting. All of this time translates directly into time I can put into other priorities.

Small amounts of empty minutes add up. How different would your time management challenges be if you started filling up your empty minutes?

I belong to a book club. About once a month, we choose a book, read it, then get together to discuss it. The idea is to expand our horizons, and read books we might not normally choose. I joined of my own volition.

I constantly get razzed by my success partners because, quite regularly, actions related to my book club end up on my list: getting the book, reading a certain number of chapters or pages, etc. And it frequently ends up coming down to the wire whether I actually complete the book by the deadline. The others give me grief, wondering why I joined a group such as this if I find it so difficult to keep on track and get my reading done.

I can see the irony, but I defend it by saying that even things we enjoy doing sometimes are challenging to get done. And often, things we would like to do for ourselves fall by the wayside in favor of other things that seem to be more important. Sometimes it is important to make ourselves do things that are just for us. Otherwise they may not happen at all. I put reading on my actions list not just because its good for me to read new books and expand my horizons, but because if I didn’t schedule that time for me, I know that I would probably not make time for it. It would fall to the bottom of the pile of a list of other actions that seem to be more important than something that is just for me.

Do you find that you tend to neglect yourself in favor of others, or actions that seem more important and less selfish? Do you also find it difficult to do something for yourself, to the point that if you didn’t put it on your action list it would not get done? I think a lot of us tend to put our own needs at the bottom of our priorities list. I would like to know if you agree, and how you deal with it.