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Hello Jeanne!
Imagine three buckets in front of you.
You start filling the buckets, then others come up and with your permission, fill your buckets some more.
At some point, the buckets are full and no more can be poured into them.
If someone comes up asking to fill your buckets, it is easy for you to see that nothing more will fit, so you say no.
So, why is it so difficult to do the same with your time?
Imagine these three buckets ARE your time.
Let's decide what to put in these 3 buckets to help simplify your life and gain better control over your time.
1. The first bucket is called Flex. This includes:
- completing tasks
- doing project work
- meeting with clients
- answering emails
Most of your time will be Flex, as it should. You have to get stuff done. What ends up happening for a lot of us is that we allow our calendar to be consumed with Flex time. So we need to make sure we have some of the other two…
2. The second bucket is Focus. This is the time you spend on planning and creating strategy – both professionally and personally. We need time to think about where we are now and where we want to be, strategically thinking about what we need to do to get there:
- What connections do we need to make?
- Who do we need to build relationships with?
- What support or guidance would be helpful in achieving these goals?
- What vacation do we want to take next summer?
3. The third bucket is Fun! We need to make sure we have Fun scheduled in our calendar because most of us, quite honestly, just don’t have enough fun. We tell ourselves we will work it in when there is time. That time doesn’t happen or at least, not often enough. You need to have Fun in your calendar EVERY week!
As you look ahead, make sure you have ALL THREE buckets in your calendar - Flex, Focus, & Fun!
You can use color coding in your electronic calendar to easily see what you may be missing.
How do we use this when setting boundaries?
Well, my friend, when you have better control over your time, you feel much more focused and clear about your priorities. This makes it much easier to set boundaries.
If you aren’t clear about how you are spending your time, you can’t be clear with others and will continue to allow them to fill your buckets to the point of overflowing.
The time is come. You can totally do this! I've got your back.
As always,
Be. Here. Now.
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