Video Transcript: Time Management

Again, my name is Steve Elzinga. This is the coaching class. And I want to talk about time  management. This is one of those subjects that is sort of outside of the coaching, it might be  a skill that that you have to take time to teach. So if you have a client who's struggling with  actually getting anything done, or the excuses are, and I just didn't have time this week, or  this, these other things came up, and I had to do these things that were urgent, and it's  constantly the client is not getting to his action steps not doing them, he might be struggling  with the whole time management issue. And so to do a little timeout, you might suggest to  your client, like, it seems like you're having trouble getting things done and sticking with the  plan and so on. And there might be a time management issue. Would you like me to take off  my coaching hat and put on a teaching hat, and just teach you some of the basics of time  management, I mean, that might help. And if your client is open to that, then you would sort  of take a timeout, and teach them just some of the fundamentals. I mean, there are whole  courses you can take on time management. And I've taken some of those. But what I got out  of those time management courses are a lot of different things, how to set priorities, how to  write a life, vision, and all these big broad things that does affect time management. But a  few practical little things that I learned that made a huge difference in my ability to sort of  manage my own time. So it wouldn't take a long time wouldn't take very long to teach your  clients some of these things. So remember, coaching is about getting your client to some  form of action. That's what coaching is all about. Action is accomplished over time. So time is  involved. The time is in God's hands. I took a time management class that was just a secular  course. And they didn't really deal with what time is. And the impression that I got from taking this class was that time meant Time management is in your hand. That time is a thing that  you own. And from the biblical perspective, time is not something you own. It's something  that God has allowed you to be a steward of the body that you have, the time that you have  to use it. These are all gifts that God has given you for a period of time. We're stewards of this time is in God's hands. Psalm 31:15, my times the psalmist is saying My time is in your hands. Okay, so how do you how do you get a client to practically think this way? I mean,  theologically, okay. Yeah, my times are in God's hands. But but how do I practically make that  a reality? I, Henry Reyenga and I, years ago, before we worked for the Bible League, we  started our own company. And we came up with a planner, a Christian planner, that could be  used by business people, we came up with a Christian planner for Christian schools. And our  whole goal. How it happened was, I had taken a secular time management class, and I was  starting to use that whole system to manage my time. And then at the same time, Henry and  I started a nonprofit trying to get people to own their own walk with God. So talking, listening  repeatedly, prayer and Bible every single day. And we had prayer sheets and things to read  from the Bible every day. And I was doing my time management. And I remember, I  remember writing. I remember doing in my time management planner. There was a to do list  and I was writing all the things that I wanted to do that day. And then I had my prayer sheet  from the prayer and Bible thing that Henry and I were trying to do. So doing these two  systems, and so I would write all the things that I was going to do that day in my secular To  Do List planner, and then I would go to my prayer sheets. And on that prayer sheet was  adoration, confession Thanksgiving and supplication, your needs, and I started writing my  prayer needs. And after a couple of weeks, I realized I'm writing the same things twice. I have  all these things I put it on my secular To Do lists, and then I have the same thing that I write  down on my, on my prayer sheet. And I will, why am I writing this twice. So I finally figured  out the, the connection between the secular planner, and my devotional life. And it was this  phrase, I, you know, when I was doing my secular planner, what I was doing is, I had all these  lines on my planner, and I could put in the things that I want to do, I could put in a schedule  at 10 o'clock, I'll do this at noon, I'll do this, and I can fit my stuff. These lines are all mine, this is my time. And I decide what I want to do with each line of my time. And on one of the lines I  would put do devotions. So I was taking the infinite God and reducing him to one line in my  planner, one line in my plan for the day, my to do list, I reduced God to one line. That just  seemed wrong. God is bigger than one line of my planner. He's, he's there on every single line before I write anything. So then Henry and I, we came up with this phrase, don't fit God into  your schedule, as if God is a small thing, God is just one item on your to do list. don't fit God 

into your schedule, fit your schedule, into God, your whole schedule, everything that you want to do, you stick that into God's planner. And so then we made up this devotional planner,  where the to do list was also your prayer list. So that's one way to do it. One way to start  getting your client to think about time management. And remember, the whole goal of  Christian coaching, is to get a client to figure out God's will for their life. It's not your will for  your life, it's God's will for your life. And one way to do that is to get him to start doing a  planning system, where somehow is part of your prayer list, not your to do list, whether  someone has a sheet of paper that they just put their to do list on whether they do that in an  electronic planner, where you have things that you want to do today and tomorrow, etc, or a  big monthly calendar, I would just write on the monthly calendar that, you know, it's God's  month. And instead of writing a to do list, put over the top saying my prayer list. And then  that means everything you write in this calendar is in your prayer list. A gentle reminder that  everything fits into who God is. You don't take God and fit him into your schedule, you are not  God God is God. make you do to. So that's my point, make your to do list your prayer list,  there's one simple little thing that you can do with your by the way, what that will do is not  only remind your client that everything is related to God, but your client will be more aware  that God is involved in all these things. I'm not just trying to make these things happen on my own God is in there to God is helping me. So so the the goals that you come up with in your  coaching sessions, as your as your client leaves your office and goes out in the world and  tries to make these things happen. He's not making these things happen on his own, he's  more likely to succeed with God, with an awareness of God being in the middle of it, then then without, okay. Second little thing to teach your client is to prioritize the to do list. So first of  all, every day, a person should sit down and go, What am I going to do today? What's my to  do list today? What do I think I can reasonably get done? What would I like to get done? What  should I get done? There's a lot of things that go into it. a to do list things you want to do  things that you should do things that you haven't done, things that other people want you to  do expectation it all goes in there see you write all these things down there. And the problem  is most of us never get to everything on our to do list. And so where do you begin? And  people fall in the habit of avoiding certain things, always doing the easy thing or they do the  one hard thing and it takes all day long and they never get anything else done. So people  have a default setting or a way of dealing with a huge list. And usually it's a dysfunctional  way. So you have to teach your clients how to prioritize. So what's the first if you only did one  thing today? What what would it be? What's the priority? What are the things that you  absolutely need to do or want to do this day? And it could be need, and it could be want. So  prioritize each to do with A, B, C. So A is this is something I got to do today, I want to do it  today, it's going to be done today. That's an A, B is, well, I hope I can get to it today. But  maybe I will, maybe I won't C is who knows, it's something I should do, but I might not get get it today. So you, you look at things in you just quickly, A, A, B, B, C, C, there's certain things  you should get done. And you look at it, yeah, I should get that done just quickly, you have to  take a lot of time to do this is A, A, A, B, B, C, C. Okay. So now you generally prioritize, but  now you have four A's. And maybe you have five B's, and you have three C's. So where do  you start with these. So number two, you further refine your prioritization with 1, 2, 3. So A1  is the first thing you're going to get done today. A2 is the second A3 is the third, A4 is the  fourth, B1 is next. So now the whole thing your whole to do list is prioritize. And this is what  you're going to do. And by the way, just doing this relieves a lot of stress. Because what  happens is you have this to do list and there's 20 things on it, and you don't know what to do  and you spend, you know, a while just trying to figure out what to do. And then you go do it.  And then you go back to your big list. And it's like, what should I do next. And again, you  waste a lot of time, and then you add something else and you get distracted. When you have  a prioritize everything has an A, a B, or C. A one, two and three, you get done one thing, you  go to your list, you just go to the next thing you do, there's no wasting, there's no second  guessing, there's no thinking about it, there's no going oh, I really don't want to make that  phone call, well, it's next on the list, that's what I'm going to do. And you pick up the phone  and you do it. A lot of times, we just we were procrastinating, we have all these things we  want to do. But some things we don't like to do. And so we look at that thing we don't like to 

do, and then we hem and haw, then we go to something else, and we're going to get back to  it. And it's just, you know, it's stress all day long. Whereas when it just comes to you, You  know, you go to the next thing, make the call, okay, I didn't realize that was the next thing I  wasn't worried about. But okay, here we go. I don't want to do it. It's stressful for me to do,  but I'm going to just do it because it's the next on the list, it takes the decision making out of  it, you make a decision once, and then the rest of your day is just following through with what  you already decided. makes things a lot easier. Alright, next lessen, the weight of your to do  list, okay, your to do list is a weight that you put upon your shoulders, you have these 20  things that you have to do today. And some of them are urgent, some of them you were  supposed to get done a week ago. Some of them were expectations of your spouse, your  family or your employer, whatever it might be. And every one of these things is like a brick on your back. And until you get these things finished, accomplished. There's weight weighing you down. Well, how do you lessen the load, it's a lot of bricks to be carrying, right? You got 20  things to do today, there's no way you're going to get them all done today. And yet you're  carrying around these 20 bricks. So you get five of the things done, you carry 15 bricks over  to the next day. And then you add 10 More bricks for tomorrow. Now you have 25 bricks on  your back, and you get 10 things done, you carry 15 bricks over and you keep carrying the  same bricks from day to day to day to day, sometimes months at a time. We have these to do lists, things that we never get to. And yet they're they on our list and they're just weighing us  down. How do you lessen the weight of your to do list? Number one, move to dos to a more  reasonable date. Okay, I look at my list. I've got 15 things on here. But I realize I'm not going  to get to half of these. Okay, I should go through and move some of them off of today. I look  at this one and go, am I going to do this today? No, I'm not. So when could I do it? Well, I  probably won't get this till next Monday. All right. Then you flip ahead in your calendar to next Monday. And you take that thing that's on here today. And you move it there. You just write it  on next Monday. You go to this Monday and you cross it off. And now for seven days you don't  think about it. You don't carry the bricks, day after day after day after day after day after day  after day. It's taken care of, you're going to do that next Monday. And you don't even have to  remember that it's next Monday, because you'll just be living your life. And all of a sudden,  you'll get to that day, and you go, here's that thing that I moved there. You don't have to think about it to the next Monday, when I learned this, it was revolutionary, it changed my whole  way of thinking about time. And my to do list, I didn't have to keep carrying the bricks from  day to day, to day, I look at it, I make a decision of when I think I'm really going to do this, and I move it over there, and I forget about it. It's awesome. Move to dos to a more reasonable  date, you take everything that way. And all of a sudden, now you're looking at a to do list for  today that you actually can accomplish. And at the end of the day, when you've accomplished all of them, you feel pretty good about yourself, and you're ready for the next day. Number  two check off to dos accomplished. It's, it's, it's the most fun part of having a to do list, my  wife actually will do something. And if she forgot to write it on her to do list, she will write it  on her to do list and immediately scratch it off. Because it just feels so good to check that  thing off. I accomplish something. Again, if we're talking about motivation, a little bit of  success along the way as motivation to keep working towards a goal. Alright, dealing with  interruptions to your day, okay, that your client has a lot of excuses, their goals, things he's  supposed to do that week, and then he never gets to them. Because there's all these things  things that happen, especially if in the ministry or the owner or business, they have a big  family. There's interruptions to our lives all the time you have a plan. But your plan has always changed because of these things that happen, things that are urgent things that you can't put away. So how do you deal with those things? Number one, decide if you really need to deal  with it. Okay, is this really an interruption? Is this really urgent? Do I really have to take care  of this thing right now? If I do, okay, I just got to do it. I gotta live with this interruption. But  really do I need a lot of times, they're interruptions their expectations of others. But we don't  have to do them this day. So decide if it must be dealt with immediately. Or number three,  move it to a more appropriate date. So someone comes in they say I want this from you? Well, you know, today is not a good day for me. Do you think we could wait until next Tuesday? And the person says yeah, I guess so. So I go into my calendar next Tuesday, I put that thing 

there. And now I forget about it. Again, this is like the thing we talked about before, where you where you take, you know something that you know, you're not going to get today and you  move it to an appropriate time, place. Or let's say someone calls me on the phone. And they  say you know, we'd like you to speak at a retreat next September. And, you know, this is the  topic, this is how many sessions that you want to do. And what I do is in my planner, in my  day planner, the very day I'm getting that call, I read all that information there. Let's say it's  April three, and he's talking about a retreat in September 7. On April three, I'm writing in a  retreat, where it is, how many sessions, all the information this person is giving me, okay,  there it is on today, and then I go to I go forward. I go forward to September seven, and I  write down retreat, see April three. And then I want to think about it. Let's say I want to think  about it sometime in August, because I want to start planning. I don't I don't want to deal with this until August. I want to start planning in August. So on August 14, I go there and I write  start planning for the retreat of September 7. See April three. So now I don't think about it all  summer. I don't have these bricks weighing me down. But all of a sudden, without me  remembering anything. I get to August, and I opened it up. And it says start planning for  retreat on September Seventh. Oh yeah. That's September 7. Okay, was it information on  April three, that's where I wrote it down. So I go back to APRil three. This is what it was, how  many sessions how long the sessions all the information I need. And now I start planning. It  makes things so much easier. You don't forget things. There's two things that kill people on  time. One is forgetting stuff. They have all these things and all these expectations and all  these promises that were made and dates and times and, and and and you end up forgetting  them You ended up dropping the ball. And even if you don't drop the ball, you have all these  dates and obligations and expectations rolling around in your head for months, even though  you're not doing anything about it, even though you don't have to do anything about it until,  you know, maybe a week before, but now you're worried about it for months on end. And  most people live their lives that way. Worried. In fact, sometimes we're worried about things  we're not even sure what we're worried about. We're worried about some of dropping the ball  somewhere. We're worried about forgetting something that we should be remembering. And  how do you worry about stuff like that? So if you just, if you just do these little tiny  techniques, it can change the way you you operate. Alright. There's many more things you  can say about time management. I think these are the basic things that you could give you a  client and if you could just take your hat off, teach him a few things. And you get put the  coaching hat down and now you can continue on with coaching. We'll see you again next  time.