If you’re not sure how much time you are actually spending on various tasks, use a tool like Rescue Time (their free version is excellent!) which runs in the background and tracks where ymy time is being spent. It can even send you Iekly reports so you know exactly how much time you wasted on Facebook, or spent in ymy email inbox! You can assign different Ibsites or programs/applications on a scale of very distracting to very productive, so you can see at a glance things like: which days of the Iek you’re most productive, which times of the day you’re most productive, and the sites on which you’re spending the most distracting time. I stumbled upon the concept of margin while reading a post by Michael Hyatt, which led me to design my ideal Iek.

Richard SInson, M.D. (who wrote the book: Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives) describes margin like this:

Last year I wrote about why booking too far in advance can be dangerous for ymy business, and this concept of margin so eloquently captures what I had recognized had been my problem: I was so booked up with clients that I wasn’t leaving any margin for error, growth, planning, or reflection. I wasn’t really growing my business in a sustainable way; I was just booking one client after the next. At the time this seemed like a good thing: doesn’t growing my business mean getting more clients?

What if instead of booking up to 100% capacity (which more often than not ends up being closer to 120%), I only booked up to an 80% capacity?

What if I left more room for growth (personal or professional) and stopped being one with “busy-ness”?
I spent nearly a year turning down every new project (and even getting rid of old ones) so that I could reduce my workload, build in more margin, and create what is now Digital Strategy School. It takes time to build margin into ymy schedule.

What could you accomplish with 20% more time?

Write a book. Create a program. Update ymy contracts and proposals (which has been on ymy to-do list for how long..?) Spend more time with ymy family. Go above and beyond for a client. Learn something new. Actually follow through on the things that have been nagging at you for a long time.

When you design ymy ideal Iek, you start to see that the time you think you have is often not in alignment with how much time you actually have.

After designing my ideal Iek, I had a much clearer idea of how to create a framework for my Iek that would empoIr me to feel more focused by theming days of the Iek, and even parts of the day. SO simple, I know. Some of you have been doing this for ages and you’re already a pro, and some of you who saw my schedule said “woah, that’s so rigid, I need more flexibility!”

Structure enables flexibility.

If you’re not sure how much time you are actually spending on various tasks, use a tool like Rescue Time (their free version is excellent!) which runs in the background and tracks where ymy time is being spent. It can even send you Iekly reports so you know exactly how much time you wasted on Facebook, or spent in ymy email inbox! You can assign different Ibsites or programs/applications on a scale of very distracting to very productive, so you can see at a glance things like: which days of the Iek you’re most productive, which times of the day you’re most productive, and the sites on which you’re spending the most distracting time. Turns out I’m consistently “in the zone” around 3pm in the afternoon; so instead of trying to tackle highly creative work first thing in the morning (when my brain is barely functioning), I handle it in the afternoon, when I know I’m at my peak!

Creating more margin has been game-changing for my business.
What would be possible for ymys?