October 2, 2020
Time management can be our Achilles heel. We enter our week or our day with the very best intentions. And then, before we know it we are consumed with low priority tasks—or we are easily distracted with a new ‘urgent’ issue that arises.
A really balanced schedule is the key to a really balanced graphic design business…and life.
In this episode of the Design and Prosper podcast we chat about ways to help you prioritise the curveballs, batch your days, block your time and so much more.
Batch your time
03:00
Create a model week. What does an ideal week look like for your business? We suggest allocating set days or half-days to certain tasks in your business, for example Tuesdays and Wednesdays are dedicated design and client work days.
Allocate time to plan your week
08:45
At the beginning of the week, allocate 1 hour to organise your existing to-dos and plan out your week into your batched days.
Create a system for your to-do list
11:30
We discuss various techniques such as the A, B, C, D, E technique from Brain Tracey’s book Eat That Frog.
Schedule ‘regroup’ time or a buffer block in your calendar
18:30
Don’t completely jam pack your schedule! The buffer block idea was gleaned from the book 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington, which is to have at least 1 hour of unscheduled time in your calendar every day for the menial busy work—checking email, returning phone calls etc.
Spend 15 minutes organising your day
22:00
Spending 15 minutes organising your day into priority items will give you a sense of focus and purpose. You can do this at the end of the day if you prefer to jump straight in each morning.
Block your time
23:00
We find that many designers get a bit floaty with their time throughout the day. When planning out your day, block out time to allocate to tasks (for example, blocking in 90 minutes to work on concepts for a logo), set the timer and go! When the timer ends you move to another task. The timer will give you a sense of accountability and focus. The Pomodoro technique is also great for working through blocks of time.
Track your time
27:40
We know it’s not easy and feels like a pain in the bum, but we know you’ll be surprised to find out exactly how much you are working and where your time is going. Create categories for your time based on tasks you tend to do each week. Try this for two weeks and you’ll be able to see clearly those sneaky time bandits…and then you will be empowered to set boundaries in the future to protect your time.
Set boundaries with clients
30:30
Also check out our podcast No. 5 11 ways graphic designers can avoid client problems
Turn off all notifications
32:15
How easily distracted are you by shining lights and audio pings? As managing director of your graphic design business, you need to protect your time just as an office manager would safeguard phone calls and interruptions from interfering with their manager’s workflow.
Let go of being a perfectionist
35:15
Make ‘done is better than perfect’ your mantra.
Schedule in self-care time
37:40
The 12 Week Year refers to this as a ‘breakout block’ and it is the most wonderful gift you can give yourself in a week. This embraces the ‘slow down to speed up’ idea, by scheduling in (yes! schedule it in!) a 3 hour block for non-work related activities.
Ready to listen? Use the player below or listen on your favourite podcast player. You can also read the full transcript of this episode below.
Books:
12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington
Eat That Frog by Brian Tracey
The Artist’s Way by Julian Cameron
Pomodoro technique
Website for Pomodoro technique
Focus To-do App for Pomodoro technique
Chrome Extension for Pomodoro technique
Time tracking tools
Clockify
Toggl
Harvest
ClickUp
Project management
Trello
Monday.com
Clickup
Organisation
Eisenhower Box technique
OneTab for chrome compiles all your tabs into one tab for easy access later.
Kris Lubinski 0:00
Are you one of those designers who are constantly busy yet don’t seem to be getting anything done? In this episode, we’re talking about how to be a time management boss. You’re listening to design and prosper, Episode Number 14.
Hey, Don, how you going?
Donna 1:01
Hey, Kris, I’m well how are you?
Kris 1:03
I’m very, very well. Yes, it’s a little bit nippy today. A little bit cold.
Donna 1:08
It is. I’m freezing.
Kris 1:11
It’s a lovely spring day. Yeah, it’s lovely and sunshiny. It’s one of those gorgeous looking days, but it’s just a little bit. Yeah, it will be a bit fresh.
Donna 1:20
Yes, I am. I got too excited when I saw the gorgeous sunshine streaming through. And I opened up every window and realised Whoa, it’s a little fresh breeze out here. Anyway, perfect day to be recording a podcast.
Kris 1:36
Yes, and talking about time management.
Donna 1:39
Yes, this is a biggie, it’s a biggie. Once we crack this, everything is easy.
Kris 1:45
Everything will be easy. And there’s lots of aspects to time management that we need to consider.
Donna 1:51
Yes. Otherwise, you’ll be one of those really crazy busy people who are busy doing things all day long, yet achieve nothing, or very little.
Kris 2:02
Yeah, it is one of those things that there’s a lot of paradoxes. With time, I find it is one of those things where you feel like you need to spend so much time to get ahead. But the opposite is actually true. And it’s a little bit of a paradox. It doesn’t make sense. But in order to allow inspiration and ideas to drop in and, and by inspiration, I’m not just talking about creative ideas, I’m talking about ideas to get yourself ahead in business and all those things, you know, picking the right path and making the right choices. You need a really balanced schedule, you need a really balanced life and time management is all part of that.
Donna 2:44
Absolutely. It’s key. Yeah. So we have some solutions that we would like to chat about, and offer up for you to take on board, either one or two of them or all of them if your business needs it. So yeah, let’s get started.
Kris 3:00
Yeah. So the first one we have is batching your time. So we’d like you to think about (if you’re not doing this already) creating a model week. So what would the ideal week look like? And what are you doing on those days? So our suggestion for you is to have Monday allocated to certain tasks, Tuesdays allocated to certain tasks, and so on and so forth. And you repeat that every week. So for us, Monday is our podcasting and blogging day, for example.
Donna 3:32
Yeah, however, you may only need half a day, so you may batch in half days. So it’s really up to you to work out what the flow is of your business and when things fall and when things drop when you need to apply yourself in certain areas. And it does require you to really unpack everything, like putting it all on the table. Okay, this is my week, where am I at my best for the big, big tasks I need to be on. So I wouldn’t save those for afternoons when I’m bit weary or whatever, you pop those into the morning. And what part of the week do these things need to be done? So am I best at the beginning of the week? Or do I actually sort of have a bit of a slow burn up to really, you know, awesome fire at the end of the week where I’m really getting things done. So it really is so tailored to how you see your week, where you see yourself being the most motivated and productive. So it’s important to understand you, isn’t it, Kris? Yes. Understand how you work.
Kris 4:34
Yeah, it is totally unique to you. It’s not going to be the same for everybody. It’s going to be you know, Don mentioned being productive in the morning. Well, maybe that’s not you, maybe you are more productive in the afternoon and you have this really amazing spurt of energy from three to seven. The main point is we want you to have a regularity about it and a plan about it and just use a regular calendar. Like you might use Google Calendar, for example. And start blocking out time through the week that you do regular things. So you need to have time in your week for you to design clients, you need to have time for your week for your social media, you need to have time in your week for business building activities and business planning. So all of those things need to be scheduled in.
Donna 5:20
Yes, that’s why all needs to be unpacked on the table, you really do need to have a look at your entire week, and understand all of the elements that go into making your business what it is, and work out where all of those elements best fit. And batch it.
Kris 5:36
Yeah, and there’ll be things batched in there as well, for breaks and for self care. And we’ll get into that a little bit more later as well.
Donna 5:45
Yes, but batching time, I feel if you’ve not tried it, it will be one of those really, you know, ‘aha moments’ where you go, oh, my goodness, this is incredible. I get to say no to things that just popped into my, into my life. And you know, with client work, for example, if you have an afternoon, where you’ve batched, specifically for social media or your business strategy or admin, when a client comes and says, ‘I need this change’, you can say, ‘Sure, no problem, I’ll get to that, tomorrow or Wednesday’, or whatever the day is, because that’s when you’ve allocated client time. And so it’s really freeing to be able to understand the boundaries of the batching.
Kris 6:29
Yeah, like, maybe you aren’t doing design every day, maybe it’s only on two days of the week. And you communicate that to your clients. And they know that they that you have very focused design hours on Wednesdays and Thursdays, for example. And then that is your choice, you get to decide.
Donna 6:46
And you may not even need to disclose the mechanics of your working week with your client. It’s just when they get in touch with you, you know, when you you are allowed time for design work. So you just say ‘yes, sure I can do, I’ll get back to you on Thursday’, or whatever the day is that you actually have allocated for design work. But the bottom line is, it’s so freeing to be able to say when something pops in, ‘Oh, great. I know exactly when I’m going to do that’. Rather than ‘I’ve got to fit it in. I’m so busy. I’ve got all these things going on today’. You actually go ‘Yep, that’s a design thing that’s on that day, or that’s on that afternoon, or in that part of my week’. And it might be again, it might not be whole days, but it might be you’re batching parts of days or half days or whatever. So it’s extremely flexible. It’s worth a try.
Kris7:38
Yeah, it’s just really empowering. Also to know when you’re getting up what the day is going to be about. You’re not feeling like a puppet being pulled from one direction to the other. It’s very..
Donna 7:46
Yeah, exactly.
Kris 7:48
Very empowering. I know that I’m getting up today to do some beautiful design work, and nothing else is going to intrude in my time today.
Donna 7:57
Yes. I don’t have to get distracted by admin.
Kris 8:01
Yeah, that’s right. And that’s another one— invoicing accounts. Admin needs to be scheduled in as well. I don’t really mind the idea of communicating to clients that you have batch days. I think it’s up to you personally, if you like that idea, but they might be inspired by it as well.
Donna 8:18
Yeah, absolutely. personal choice.
Kris 8:21
I think it it could be even in your contract, or in a welcome pack, how your week works. Because you might even have a whole day off in that week, you might decide, ‘well, I’m going to have three intensive days and not work on certain days’. So I think that’s okay to communicate that.
Donna 8:38
Yeah, definitely. I agree. It’s totally up to you. It’s whatever you want to disclose. It’s your business.
Kris 8:43
Yeah. So another one.
Donna 8:45
Yes, allocate time to plan your week. This is a biggie, actually sit down weekly, and allocate your week allocate where things are going to be going throughout the week?
Kris 8:58
Yes. So if you’ve got a big master list, and it’s a little bit overwhelming, you need to start pulling out those key things that you want to achieve for the week and putting it together in a planning project management tool. You could use something like Trello. We use Trello
Donna 9:14
We love Trello.
Kris 9:15
Yeah, we love Trello. There’s Monday, there’s Clickup. So many. But it’s a really excellent way to visualise all of your to do lists in one spot. And you can have a master list, you can have a weekly list, you can have a daily list. But the point is, you need to spend an hour at least, I would say would you say Don? At least an hour?
Donna 9:36
Absolutely, at least an hour…
Kris 9:38
Plan your week, and if you go back to that model week, where you batch your time, this needs to be scheduled in every week. This is on repeat every Monday, you are planning out your week.
Donna 9:49
And it becomes really easy because if you use one of those planning tools like Trello or Monday or Clickup you get to shuffle and shift and archive leasts and transfer and all of that amazing flexibility that you really need in business, once something is at a certain stage, it moves on to the next stage. And so on phase one, phase two, phase three, working with a pro gramme like that allows you to have that flexibility to really manage your lists, rather than get overwhelmed by them. And you don’t have to see them all at once. They’re all in there. But you don’t have to see them all at once you only see what you’re meant to be working on for that day.
Kris 10:30
And most of these project management tools also have a calendar view, if that’s what you’d like to see. And you can always pop out the important things into a separate calendar, if that works for you, as well. Or even onto a little physical paper to do list. I know that a lot of people like to work that way. They just like to be able to tick things off with a pen.
Donna 10:48
I love it, I do that! I literally do that… I get my little pen and my little checklist. And there’s just something really cathartic about ticking a box or crossing off something off your checklist. It’s really cool to have that sort of physical connection to it, as opposed to just sort of archiving in the digital platform.
Kris 11:07
Yeah, it’s satisfying.
Donna 11:07
It’s really satisfying. Yeah, I really enjoy it.
Kris 11:11
I think that both you and I don’t we like to actually physically draw the little circle the little box, and then you get to actually tick it.
Donna 11:19
Yes, I literally do a little box…little box, I’m coming for you! I’m gonna be ticking you! It’s lots of fun.
Kris 11:28
There’s so many ways, but the point is yes, allocate time to plan your week. Yeah. So number three is create a system for your to do list.
Donna 11:37
Yeah, there are so many schools of thought for systems and how to prioritise your tasks. And you really need to find one that resonates with you. It’s a very personal approach.
Kris 11:48
Yeah, there are so many systems. And we’ll run through a couple of ideas now. And you need to find one that resonates with you. So the thing is, often we have just too many things on our to do lists, and it’s very overwhelming. And you know, where do I start? And so a lot of the systems will pare it back, they’ll eliminate that feeling of overwhelm.
Donna 12:10
Yes, that’s the objective, eliminate overwhelm with your lists. Absolutely.
Kris 12:15
Yes. So one approach might be to split your list into must do’s, would be nice to do, or something to delegate and archive. So that’s a really simple three step approach. And there’s another way that you can do it… I think it was Brian Tracy ‘Eat that frog’.
Donna 12:35
Yeah. Love it. Yeah,
Kris 12:37
Yeah, Eat That Frog. We’ll get into that in a little bit. But it’s a really good book. And he talks about the 80/20 rule, where if you have 10 items, two will be much more valuable than the other eight put together. And what he suggests to do is actually put an A, B, C, D, or E before each item. And so A is similar to this other three step one, it’s very, very important, like something you must do, it’s something that there’ll be kind of major consequences. If you don’t do the A’s, then you’ve got B, which is the tasks that you should still do, but it only has mild consequences if you don’t do it. A C task is something that’s nice to do. But they’re not really any consequences at all, if you don’t do it and trying to think of an example like that it might be folding the washing. You know, it’s like a home task Yeah, it’s a ‘it’d be nice to do’, but there are no consequences if you don’t fold the washing, for example. Yeah. Then you’ve got D, which is something you can delegate to somebody else. D for delegate,
Donna 13:36
I love D’s. I love those—they’re nice ones. Yeah.
Kris 13:41
And we talked about this in another episode, where sometimes D is something that’s not business related. So it might be just getting a car washed or getting your house cleaned or something like that.
Donna 13:50
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Kris 13:51
E is a task that you can just eliminate altogether. So that’s the ABCDE task approach. And then if you have multiple A’s, you just rank them from one to say three, and you’re A-1 task is your biggest, most scariest, most important task of all and the whole concept of the Eat That Frog book…the premise is, if you had to get up in the morning, and you had to eat a really big frog, during the day, at some stage through the day had to eat a frog (which is really gross and nobody wants to do it), it’s better off to get it done. First up. And then you just don’t have to worry about it for the rest of the day. It’s done. You’re feeling free. You’re feeling like you’ve achieved something huge. Yeah, you got to eat those big frogs first.
Donna 14:38
Yeah, absolutely. We recommend reading Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy. We’ll put the details in our show notes. But essentially, he says resist the temptation to clear up to small things first, and that’s what Kris is saying. Eat the biggest thing. Do the biggest thing because that’s the thing that’s about you’re really going to be procrastinating on. So the whole book, it’s gold. It’s a really quick read. So you should get your hands on it.
Kris 15:02
Yeah, it’s such a cute little book. Yeah. And it’s old, it’s fairly old now. I think I read it like, some 20 years ago, but it’s still relevant.
Donna 15:10
It’s really relevant. Yeah.
Kris 15:12
Lots of good tips in there.
Donna 15:13
Yeah, absolutely.
Kris 15:15
But not just these basic kind of getting things done in your day, but setting goals and getting ahead in your life. Yeah, that’s a good book.
Donna 15:22
Yeah, it’s a really good one. Yep. Grab it.
Kris 15:25
Yeah. So just back to the the system. If you have multiple A tasks and multiple B tasks, you would never do a B task when there’s still an A tasks left undone. So that’s the key.
Donna 15:37
Yeah, that’s the key. It’s that simple, guys.
Kris 15:39
It’s really simple.
Donna 15:40
Get your big things done. First, the things that you are most dreading. They’re gonna be the most freeing once they’re done.
Kris 15:47
Yeah, there’s another technique called the Eisenhower box technique. It’s a productivity routine. And really, it’s quite simple. It gets you to write down at the end of the day is not at the beginning of the day, it’s at the end of the day, you write down the six most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow. And if you’re interested in this one, just Google it, it’ll come up with heaps of images with Eisenhower box. And there’s a little section of four boxes where you prioritise them, there’s must do’s and not so important to do’s. And yeah, it’s a little system.
Donna 16:22
I like this one, I like this system. And what I really love about it is that you get to do this at the end of the day, because I find that writing and planning, but just the daily tasks, not for your weekly set your wakeup tasks, but for the daily tasks. You can waste time doing this at the beginning of the day, you can get bogged down in it. Whereas if it’s at the end of the day, you come into your day, beautiful and fresh. And you see those six things and you’re ready. They’re prioritised, they ready in the order of true importance. And of you go, you just hit the ground running. And I yeah, I really love that concept.
Kris 16:57
Yeah, it’s a bit Eat That Frog in its approach as well. Is that you have to do the most important ones first.
Donna 17:03
Yeah, absolutely. It’s definitely worth googling. And, yeah, again, we’ve talked, we’ve been talking about how flexible all of these things are, and how they really do need to be tailored to the way that you work. So doing a little bit of work on you, and how you operate personally, is really important for any of these systems. For any of these approaches, you really need to go ‘that fits me’ otherwise, you’ll be resisting. And all the time I’m just drive you crazy. If you go, ‘Oh, I can’t think of anything worse having to put A’s and B’s’. Well then that’s not for you. But a simple little Eisenhower box at the end of each day might be just right up your alley. And you go ‘Yes, I can get my head around that’ and it’ll be really empowering, because it’s still getting you to prioritise and do the big tasks first. So yeah, have a play, I think what suits you personally.
Kris 17:57
We don’t want this to be a complicated thing. It should be really easy. It should feel really easy. And a little bit fun, even. Yeah, so if it’s not feeling fun, then it’s not the right one for you. And there’s so many out there. And if you have any ones that you’re using or you discover, after researching this, please share with us.
Donna 18:14
Let us know!
Kris 18:15
Yeah, we love to hear.
Donna 18:16
Yeah, we love systems.
Kris 18:18
We do.
Donna 18:18
And we love love ways of making life easy. And that’s what a really good system should do. Is make your life easy or easier.
Kris 18:27
Yes, it really should.
Donna 18:30
That’s the objective. Okay, bringing us on to number four, we think it’s incredibly beneficial to schedule, regroup time, or a buffer block in your calendar. So this is something that we gleaned from the 12 week year, and you need at least one hour of unscheduled time every day. That’s where you haven’t got it in any of your batches. It is just completely free for you to actually review and respond to emails, listen to voicemails, and respond to them as needed that type of thing….make any necessary calls, you know, follow up on your to do lists, all of that type of administrative stuff. And, even quick meetings and things like that.
Kris 19:12
Yep. Quick meetings, there’s often overflow from your day and you just need that buffer time. Yeah, so 12 week, year, now I’m feeling terrible, because I can’t remember the name of the author, but we will put it in the show notes.
Donna 19:24
Yeah. I can’t remember either…sorry!
Kris 19:27
Yeah, I’m a big fan of 12 Week Year, the book. Yeah. So he coined the buffer block. So it’s just created to deal with those sort of unplanned things that arise. So it really frees you up, because throughout the day, you know, you don’t have to be distracted by those little interruptions because you’re going to get to it later in your buffer block. You can make that call. You can respond to that email. You can do all that stuff later in your buffer block.
Donna 19:56
And it’s exciting to have that little unallocated time slot. It’s really great. It’s come to me… the author (it’s come to me via Google) the authors for the 12 year week, Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington. So yeah, I would have felt really bad if we didn’t pop that in there. Because it’s a significant impact I think that it’s made on the way that we work, Kris.
Kris 20:24
It really has made a significant impact, and it’s a really good book for goal setting and so many things. The premise of the book is that we schedule too far into the future, we plan and set goals too far into the future and what we thought we’d achieve in a year, we can achieve in a 12 week period, and really focus in. And it has all the steps to do that. And it’s really quite incredible what you can achieve.
Donna 20:50
It is a really empowering book.
Kris 20:52
I think, Don and I have done a few rounds of 12 year and it is really powerful.
Donna 20:57
It is really powerful. Love it. So coming back to just wrap up on the buffer block. Basically, you may need two of those, depending on your business, you may need to have one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Or you may split it and say I’ll have half an hour in the morning of unscheduled time and half an hour in the afternoon (or have it in the middle of the day so it sort of overlaps the morning/afternoon). But again, that flexibility—we keep harping on about that, that it’s really the key to making any system work is making sure it works with you.
Kris 21:29
Yeah, like for most people, one hour might be enough. But you might need more time, you might need two one hour blocks. Who knows? It depends on how many people are getting in touch with you how much email correspondence you need to deal with regularly.
Donna 21:43
Yeah, but just remember, buffer blocks are really designed to deal with that low level busy work. So make sure that that’s what you use them for. That’s the unproductive stuff that can take up time. That’s the stuff that you should be doing in your Buffer Box.
Kris 22:00
All right. Next one is spend 15 minutes each morning sorting out your day. We’ve talked about organising your calendar at the beginning of the week, organising your schedule and your to do lists at the beginning of the week. And giving quite a bit of time to that…so a good hour. But you need to check in with it every single day. And we’ve touched on this with maybe you do it at the end of the day and look at what you’re going to do the next day. Or maybe that’s the first thing you do with your morning coffee. You sit there and you work out, how’s my day looking? What do I need to shuffle around? What is important now? What’s on my A list? Or what’s on my must do list?
Donna 22:34
And that might change from six o’clock last night to nine this morning. So you do have to actually check in and go, ‘right, ues, I’m gonna tackle that first’ or whatever. But usually, if you’ve got really clear boundaries, it’s minimal shuffling once you’ve set your list, but you’ve got to be open to it. Because business is fluid and organic. So a morning checking is really imperative.
Kris 23:00
All right, so the next thing we wanted to talk about is blocking your time, which is not to be confused with batching your time, it’s a bit different,
Donna 23:07
It’s definitely different. This is the time that you allocate, when you sit down to do a task. So you’ve already worked it out, it’s already been scheduled, you’ve worked out that this is the most important task for the day, and you’re about to launch into it. So what we recommend is that you block the time for whatever project it is, or whatever task you’re about to do, it makes a hell of a lot of sense to actually look at your cost estimate and work out how much time you’ve allocated to a task so that you are really productive and really efficient.
Kris 23:40
Let’s just say you’ve got an approval to start working on a design and you estimate it would take 90 minutes to do the research and maybe some concepts. So 90 minutes. So you schedule it in and you set the timer and you go, and it’s with this intention, you will have a productive session, because you’ll be watching the time. You’ll go, okay, it’s gonna be up in 90 minutes and after that I’m not allowed to have any more time.
Donna 24:04
It’s like the timer makes you accountable. And I really like that it’s like, Okay, I know, I’ve quoted for this. This is how long I said it would take me and this is the amount of time that the client is prepared to pay me and this is what I’m going to give and so you really do step up and giving that timeframe. It’s really good.
Kris 24:23
Yeah, I think a lot of designers, they get a bit floaty throughout their day and they’re not focused and it’s just like, ah, I’ll just work on this until I crack it. And then all of a sudden hours and hours have gone by and you’re actually haven’t been productive and you’re not really getting anywhere. But it’s with that intention. It’s all about intention.
Donna 24:42
Absolutely. That’s right
Kris 24:43
Setting the time. Let’s go. I’m gonna get this done.
Donna 24:47
I’m gonna get this done. You could also try the Pomodoro Technique with this as well.
Kris 24:51
Yeah, I love the Pomodoro Technique.
Donna 24:53
Yeah, Kris introduced me to the Pomodoro Technique because I like the idea of blocking time, but this whole Pomodoro idea, which is basically work, set your timer (could just be on your phone). There’s lots of apps out there. But you work for 25 minutes, and then you have a break for five minutes. And then you repeat that until you’ve reached your fourth break, then you take a longer break. So 15 to 30 minutes.
Kris 25:18
So it ends up being about a 90 minute or an hour and a half of productive work time. But you get these juicy little breaks, these little pauses, where you can do what feels right for you at the time. Like take a stretch, go and get a glass of water, go and put your face in the sun. It’s just a little regrouping time. To clear your head, and then get back into it.
Donna 25:41
Or stare off into space, you know, for five minutes, while you’re stretching and really just look out the window and you know, pat your fur baby. Or cuddle your children if you work from home, or just do something that really is a real break. It really takes your brain away from the task, but be strict about the five minutes. And definitely don’t do any other jobs. Don’t be tempted to check Instagram, don’t be tempted to check emails, things like that. Because that will be you just working completely and fully for the 90 minutes hour and a half. And you’re not resetting
Kris 26:15
Yeah, so those things like petting the dog, or maybe doing a few sun salutations… roll out the mat. There’s so many things you could do here, you could even do a really quick mindfulness meditation, you know, just close your eyes and just listen to the sounds What can you hear far away? What can you hear close? How do you feet feel on the floor? You know, it’s just checking in.
Donna 26:37
Yeah, that’s really, really great tool. It’s something that’s quite new to me, I’ve not been doing this for a very long time. And, and I’ve found it really beneficial. And I resisted for a little while because I’m the type of designer that says ‘I’m going to be in the zone, I don’t want to stop myself from being in the zone’. But what I’m finding is the time is making me accountable. It’s like having an accountability, buddy. And the fact is you get into the zone really quickly, and you are really efficient, especially if you’ve allocated 90 minutes to a task or whatever it is, then you know, you’ve got a good idea that you’d be able to achieve it in that time anyway. So it’s just efficient. You don’t drag it over for another hour and a half and doubling up the time and sort of going ‘oh, well, you know, I was in the zone’. So yeah, it’s definitely worth trying guys, check it out.
Okay, talking about time and how much time we’ve said to our clients that we would take, it’s imperative that we track our time. So that’s the next one on our list.
Kris 27:40
Yeah, now this next one’s a bit tricky….and not easy for everybody
Donna 27:49
I really don’t like it!
Kris 27:50
But I really like it, I think it’s a really good idea. You can try it just for two weeks, you’ll be very surprised at exactly how much you’re working and where your time goes. It’s amazing. And there’s apps for this, there’s free software, I will list a few in our show notes. You could even use an Excel spreadsheet. Or you could use numbers because we know a lot of you will be using numbers, you lovely designers. And I think that it is so revealing. And you can categorise it. You can create categories. So you could split it up into admin, social media, you could split up the design process as well. It could be concepts, how much time you’re spending on concepts, how much time you’re doing on production. How much time are you doing with client liaison? So think about all those categories, but in a really important one, is time bandits. So looking at those weird interruptions and where you thought you’re gonna have a really productive day, and then all of a sudden, you feel like you’ve just been flattened by this thing. So put those in there as well and see, see what’s going on. I’ll be very revealing. And you’ll see from that information, what is working and what’s not in your business as well.
Donna 29:00
Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, I resist tracking my time…to say the least. But it’s something it’s a skill that you do get better at and you get good at it. And from a business perspective, it’s imperative for you to be able to understand exactly where your time is, and therefore, where your efficiencies are, and allowing you to understand how you can earn more money.
Kris 29:25
Yeah, and you don’t have to do it ongoing. You could just do it for a set period of time as an assessment, as a business assessment to see what’s going on. But if you do enjoy it, and you think I need to be accountable, I need to see what’s going on. There maybe do track for longer. It really doesn’t take very much time to track, you think it might be a really big pain, you might be feeling a lot of resistance about it. But at the end of the day, you’re probably only spending about five to 10 minutes all up for the whole day to track.
Donna 29:54
It is. Coming from somebody who did resist it, it doesn’t take that long. It really does. Doesn’t and it’s fascinating with the Time Bandits are, it really is… like working from home, one of their biggest problems, is that family and friends think because we are home, we are at home. And we can call you and we can drop in and we’re available. So that is one of the biggest thing is setting boundaries with family and friends on the fact that we are actually at work and we work from home and Mums and Dads and Auntie’s wouldn’t pop any to your office and say, ‘Hi! Let’s put the kettle on’ or whatever. It’s really fascinating to see where those Time Bandits are. Setting boundaries.
Kris 30:37
Yeah, that leads right into setting boundaries with clients…
Donna 30:40
I thought it was a nice segue Kris….
Kris 30:44
So maybe you need to have a look at your contract. And what that states in terms of your times and availability, because if you’re getting, you know, SMS messages or text messages, like you know, 8.45 in the evening…. that’s just not going to be working for you, it’s just going to infiltrate into your personal life, and you’re going to start resenting a business.
Donna 31:07
Absolutely. And it’s really important for you to do the same. So if you have a brainwave or whatever and decide ‘I’ve just got to put that up’, and email it to the client. And it’s after your trading hours, do not send it until the morning. You could schedule it to be sent first thing in the morning, so that is done for you. But if you have been seen as being available after hours, or if you respond to a text after hours, you are then being seen as being available.
Kris 31:35
Yeah. So what are you communicating? Be really clear. So maybe you could, if you have a client welcome pack, maybe that could have your hours that you’re available there. And going back to that other point of batching. You could even say there, which days that you focus on design work. If you don’t have a contract, if you don’t have a clear contract and a welcome package… well, that is something that we can help you with. And I think, really you need to implement that as soon as possible. For your sake, and for your clients sake. We go into boundaries with clients in another episode—we’ll put a link to that as well in the show notes.
So another one is to turn off all notifications. So we’re just getting pinged and the phone’s vibrating away so much through the day, and too often, we are constantly available.
Donna 32:31
Absolutely. And to whatever appears…. to anything that appears and everybody wants to send us notifications. We’re asked by every app, can I send you notifications? Every way of contacting us wants to notify us. And it’s really important to say no, no, no, no to all of those things. And you just put it as a part of your plan to check in on those things. Or if you really want the notifications, then you have to be disciplined in turning them off when you are setting your time and you’re blocking your time for certain work.
Kris 33:04
Yeah, see, I am a person who is very easily distracted. I can’t have any notifications. It’s like a little little shining light. Oh, what is that thing I need to see! I don’t have text message notifications (to the annoyance of all the people in my life). I don’t see a little mail alert on my desktop. I just, I just can’t have these things. It’s too distracting for me. Another thing that can be very distracting for me personally is having too many tabs open. I’ve had situations I think Donna has seen my computer when this has happened where you can’t even see the icons anymore. There’s so many tabs open that you can’t see any icons. So I’ve really embodied OneTab, which is such a great extension for Chrome. I don’t know if it’s available on any other browser windows. But for Chrome, OneTab. It’s amazing.
Donna 34:01
We love it. Check it out. Yeah.
Kris 34:03
And you can just click on OneTab, and then it just pulls all your tabs into a lovely list that you can access later. It’s brilliant.
Donna 34:12
Yes, it’s so good. Check it out. It is so good.
Kris 34:15
And with all these notifications, just imagine… No—don’t imagine—You are the managing director of this organisation. And in any other organisation, the managing director is going to have an office manager who is going to be stationed outside the door safeguarding you from Time Bandits. Your office manager is not going to allow a single call through because you’re working on a design brief for 90 minutes. And you need constant focus. When you don’t have a big team. You need to be your own office manager and make sure that nothing is getting through. So turning off the notifications is going to really help with that.
Donna 34:52
Yes, it’s absolutely necessary for sanity, I think.
Kris 34:58
Yeah, even if you think on your phone how many just popping up if you allow them all? So you’d have Instagram, you’d have Facebook Messenger, you would have regular text messages. There is so many. It’s so distracting.
Donna 35:09
Everybody wants a peice of us, really and yeah, it’s so distracting. So off they go.
Kris 35:14
Off they go!
Donna 35:15
Yeah. Okay, next one on our list….this is a biggie. I think is probably going to be the biggest one for most graphic designers out there just as a generalisation, because I think a lot of us will be able to resonate with this, but it’s letting go of being a perfectionist. Because we just keep going and going and going and going. And we leave no stone unturned and often blowing out time and often blowing out budget for every single project.
Kris 35:45
Yes, is one of the things that has been the biggest challenge for me being a business owner, just being a human, really. Yes, letting go of being a perfectionist, we talk about this quite a bit, the whole ‘done is better than perfect’ thing. But this is going to be a bit of a crucial one for your time management. So if you’re just going down so many rabbit holes with every brief and never getting to a solution, because there might be another better solution just around the corner. ‘If I just try this, if I just try this colour, if I just try this font’, it is going to be your undoing. So we need to let go of being a perfectionist and make ‘done is better than perfect’ your mantra. We’re not saying to do dodgy design, we’re not saying to do half hearted design. But designers have a tendency to push things to this next level, which really doesn’t have a return on investment for the client or for yourself.
Donna 36:48
Absolutely. And it’s the things that we push on that could be personal. I think we chatted about this literally in our last podcast. And so I like having this kind of thing on repeat, I think, because for us, ‘Done is better than perfect’ really should be a mantra. It’s the things that graphic designers will really push on that other people don’t understand the difference, they won’t see it. So that really sort of ultra perfectionistic approach can be can compromise the outcome of your day, not project, but your day, because it’s literally been a time bandit.
Kris 37:29
And being a perfectionist will pretty much guarantee that you’ll be working 60 hour weeks. And you’ll be not really achieving as much as others.
Donna 37:40
You’ll be exhausted. Yeah, you will absolutely be exhausted. Which really takes us to our last point, it’s imperative that everybody’s scheduling some self care time.
Kris 37:49
Yes, this is the foundation for everything else working properly. Yeah. So you’ve got your meditation, your body movement, or whatever it is for you. That equals self care. It could be getting your nails done. It needs to be a priority, even throughout the working week. You know, this is going to sound like a lot. But we recommend you schedule a minimum three hour block. So this is this is also something we gleaned from the 12 week book…it’s such a good book. Because there’s just nothing more delicious and invigorating than having three hours scheduled just for you, at a time when everyone else is working. And you are free to not think about work during that time. That’s the one rule, actually, with the three hour block for self care, you’re not allowed to think about work.
Donna 38:38
Yeah, you can do anything you like, as long as it’s not work related. This might seem a little counterintuitive. And it’s a total paradox.
Kris 38:46
It is a total paradox.
Donna 38:47
It is. But you have got to slow down to speed up in life. And in business. We’ve seen it time and time again in our own lives. And like Kris said before, we’ve actually done the 12 week, year a few times. And this three hour block, this complete date with self, is so essential to joy. And joy is one of the things that Kris and I have in our goal setting for our business and whatever yours is for your business. But for us, it’s it’s fun and joy. This allows that because you’re actually filling your own cup up. And it’s really, really important.
Kris 39:24
Yeah, and that whole slow down to speed up thing. It does sound like a total paradox. It does sound like it’s totally nuts. Because you’re like, ‘I’ve got so much work to do…what? How am I going to get my work done if I go and spend three hours…’ but you are going to get downloads and insights and you’re going to work more efficiently because your brain is going to be switched on. You’re going to be strategizing more clearly you’re going to get clarity of thought. There’s so many benefits to it.
Donna 39:53
Absolutely. It’s a refresh and reinvigorate. That is what it is.
Kris 39:57
Yes. So the 12 week year talks about it being a breakout block. But another place I’ve gleaned this idea from is the artists way they have the artist date, which is kind of a similar idea.
Kris
It’s a refresh and reinvigorate. That is what it is. Yes. So the 12 week year talks about it being a breakout block. But another place I’ve gleaned this idea from is the artists way they have the artist date, which is kind of a similar idea.
Donna
I almost said the artist date a little bit ago.
Kris
Yeah, the artist date is a beautiful day where you go out and do something that really feeds your soul. And it was designed for artists so you know, they might be going to an art gallery or something like that. But you would be doing something that just feels so incredible for you.
Donna
It’s a date with self. Yeah,
Kris
So call it what you like.
Donna
Yeah. It’s all yours. And it’s while everybody else is working. That’s important, too.
Kris
Yeah, yeah. The important thing is it needs to be scheduled in. You’ve got to schedule this in otherwise, it won’t happen. And it needs to be scheduled in (we’ll say it again) during business hours, normal business hours.
Donna
And take it seriously, don’t let it be bumped out.
Kris
And this is a benefit of being in business, you guys. It’s like, you’ve got all these people working their nine to five jobs. And they’re the safe secure jobs, apparently. Well, totally not true at all. As we can see…these jobs are not safe. And you’re able to go for a walk in nature, or go to the beach, and everybody else is hustling and doing the daily grind. And they can’t break free like this. So you need to celebrate that you get to do this. You owe it to yourself to do it.
Donna
Yes. So empowering. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that brings us to the end of the key things that we wanted to talk about that we can help you with all of these things. And more in lots more detail, we can take a deep dive. And as we kept saying at the beginning, a lot of these ideas are really flexible, so that they can be tailored to the individual. So that’s something that we can help you with, we can take a deep dive into how you work and what your week looks like.
Kris
Yeah, booking a free discovery call with us, we’ll see if we’re a good fit. And we can absolutely help you navigate this, it’s totally doable. You can get on top of your time management, you really can. But one thing I’d like to just say before we go is that time management is an ongoing process. It’s an evolving process. I’ve had times in my life where I’ve been so in control with my time, I’m all over it. And then I start to slacking off, and the wheels will start to wobble. You have to be consistent with this.
Donna
You need to edit you need to edit your process constantly. Especially as your business grows, you need to check in and edit and allow your time management process to evolve to match and meet where you’re at.
Kris
Yeah, it’s like a lot of things. Staying on top of this, it’s not like you magically are going to be a time management ninja, and you’re going to be just all over it for the rest of your life. It’s just something that you need to keep working on. It’s like eating well, I don’t know if you guys can relate to this. But this happens with me… I’ll be so focused on my well being and I’ll be eating so cleanly and beautifully and feeling amazing. And then I start to feel so amazing that I think I don’t need to do this anymore. In comes the pizza and in comes other things that don’t really serve me. And then I get flattened a bit. And I get sidetracked and I go off track. So this is what happens with me and time management as well. Do you relate to this, Don?
Donna
Yeah, absolutely. Anything that requires you to stick to a plan, you know, you’re going to sort of sway and veer off path occasionally. So you are going to have to check in and I like the idea of thinking…the times that I need to edit are when there has been growth. Not so much with the eating plan…that’s not cool, because yet usually that’s right there too! And we need to check back in. But for this it’s exciting. There’s growth and you need to adapt and really understand what needs to happen next in order for you to be productive and efficient and to be working in joy.
Kris
You’ve got to make it part of your life.
Donna
Yeah, absolutely.
Kris
Time management is something that I work on every day.
Donna
Absolutely. Okay, guys. Well, thank you for listening.
Kris
Yes, thank you so much.
Donna
We’ll be back with lots more goodness next week.
Kris
Okay, bye!
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