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Where Did the Time Go?
With 2020 coming to an end and a new year on the horizon, now is a good time to look at what worked for you and what didn’t. Maybe you found a great way to stop procrastinating, but weren’t able to find a way to tackle your time management. Everyone has something they want to work on. However, I think we can all agree that this year many people found it very hard to focus and get things done.
For many people focusing on what’s important in their business can be a daily chore. That’s even more true under pandemic conditions with other family members working from home, your children trying to navigate online schooling, and all the other daily responsibilities. It can seem impossible, even when it previously didn’t.
That was exactly the case for one of my clients. She is very organized and focused in her business, which she had been running for a couple of years. When the pandemic hit, however, she found herself struggling everyday to get things done and didn’t understand why her business suddenly felt so overwhelming. She said she felt like “her brain was in a swamp all day.”
Do a Time Audit
The first thing we did was to look at how her thoughts and actions had changed over the months. It seemed obvious because of the pandemic, but it was worthwhile to really analyze it. After completing a weekly time audit, she was able to determine that one major change was the amount of time she was spending on her phone.
In the past she was using her phone for checking her text, emails, and social media two to three times a day. She was shocked to discover she was now checking these more than ten times per day! Not only was it taking away a lot of her productive time, it was causing her to feel tired, unfocused, and unmotivated. Once she realized this, we were able to come up with a plan to help her focus and kick the new technology habit.
Here are the steps we took to help her. If you can relate, this process may help you, too.
1. Check your screen time. On your Apple iPhone, you can see this information in Settings>Screen Time, On your Android phone, go to: Settings>Digital Wellbeing & parental control. Here you can see your daily and weekly usage. You can also see where you’re spending most of your time and the times of day you’re on these apps. You can also see what time in the morning you pick it up and what time you put it down at night.
2. Make a plan. Do you want to use a particular app less? Do you want less overall time on your phone? Do you want to make sure you have technology-free time when you wake up and before bedtime? Decide what will work for you.
3. Set limitations. If you want to limit the time you spend on certain apps, go to Settings>Screen Time>Apps Limit on your iPhone. On your Android tap on Dashboard, tap the app, then tap the Hourglass symbol to set limits. In those settings, you can choose the amount of time per day you want to spend on a particular app. For example, you can limit your time on Facebook to 2 hours per day if that works for you.
4. Set quiet time. If you want to make sure you have quiet time in the morning and before bedtime without distractions, you can turn off all apps at a certain time. On your IPhone go to Settings>Screen Time>Downtime. On your Android, go to: Customize>Do Not Disturb. Here you can choose the hours you want your phone to be unavailable. Don’t worry, you can choose apps that you want available at all times, like phone and messages.
Updating the phone settings really worked for my client and allowed her to get back to her pre-pandemic productive self. Technology was the cause of her productivity issues, but it also helped her focus her time.
If your phone is making you less productive, give these suggestions a try.
I’d love to hear if this was helpful and if you have other ideas for using technology to stay focused! Email me: lisa@lisademarcocoaching.com.