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In this episode, we dive into the fascinating world of time management and how understanding your unique style can drastically improve your productivity. Whether you’re someone who thrives under pressure or loves to meticulously plan, this episode will help you uncover your time management strengths. Plus, we’ve got an exciting quiz that will give you personalized insights into how you work best.
Highlights:
- Why Time Management Matters: We kick things off by exploring why understanding how you manage your time is crucial for success in both personal and professional life.
- Five Key Time Management Styles: Learn about the five different time management styles—The Prioritizer, The Time Blocker, The Spontaneous Creator, The Task Juggler, and The Deadline-Driven.
- Quiz Overview: We break down how the time management quiz works and the types of questions that help identify your specific style.
- Understanding the Prioritizer: This style focuses on doing the most important tasks first, but can struggle with delegation. We discuss how to make the most of this approach.
- Mastering Time Blocking: For those who thrive on structured schedules but struggle with unexpected changes, we offer tips on how to build flexibility into your routine.
- The Power of the Spontaneous Creator: If you prefer to go with the flow and work based on inspiration, we discuss how to stay productive while embracing spontaneity.
- Tackling Task Juggling: This style is all about multitasking, but can lead to unfinished work. We provide strategies to stay focused and complete tasks effectively.
- Deadline-Driven Individuals: We talk about how this style works best under pressure and share tips on creating mini-deadlines to avoid procrastination.
- How to Apply These Styles in Your Business: Practical ways to implement time management strategies that align with your natural strengths and work habits.
- Next Steps: After listening, take our free quiz to discover your time management style and receive tailored tips to enhance your productivity.
Time management is not one-size-fits-all, and finding a style that works for you can be a game changer in reaching your goals. Be sure to take our quiz here and unlock your time management superpower today!
Click Here for the transcript
Welcome to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. My name is Angela Mondor, also known as the Geeky Girl. In this podcast, we’re going to be talking about some amazing things to help you get over overgiving.
Hi and welcome to this episode of the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. My name is Angela Montour. I’m also known as the Geeky Girl. And I have some cool, super exciting things to talk to you about today. I know that you’ll love what I have to share. Okay. So we’re talking about time management, but, or as we like to say around here, finding your personal flow, it doesn’t have to be scary or weird or whatever.
Let me tell you that we created this time management quiz for you because it’s designed specifically for neurodivergent people to Find their flow. So whether you’re someone who loves structure and you thrive in it in that structure, or you thrive in spontaneity. This quiz is going to help you find your own personal rhythm, your personal flow.
It’s going to help you to decide how you can manage your time in a way that works for you. Okay. That’s what’s really important. Because there’s not just one way to manage your time. There’s not one way to time block time management is unique to you. Each individual human is gonna have a little bit of a tweak on that. So the reason why we did this is because I’ve been working with neurodivergent people for a very long time. I myself, of course, you know, I’m neurodivergent too. And sometimes even as a neurodivergent person, you find your flow and then you lose your flow.
And so this quiz you can come back to and retake it and figure out what’s the right way for me. Because sometimes we are a little bit more in desire of having structure and other times we need more flow. So it’s going to help you to kind of get some things together for yourself. All right. So we created this because.
It’s going to help you figure out what works for you. And when you find out what works for you, you actually become way more productive, become very effective and very efficient. You get more done. And it allows you to be able to structure your day in a way that works for you. I learned a few years ago that it was really important for me to organize my days so that it worked best for my brain.
One of the things that I did two years ago during the summertime was that I took off every Friday. And so my husband’s a teacher, so he’s off all summer. And so we decided we would create Freedom Fridays two summers ago. And so that was awesome. I took Fridays off and I had to work differently in those four days to make sure I got everything done, but it was a beautiful experience.
Then I realized that during the work week. time when my husband was back at work. So fall, winter, spring, during that time, it was important for me to keep that Friday still to myself. So I get to do things like record this podcast for you on a Friday or work on projects on a Friday. Things that I can do uninterrupted.
Those are what my Fridays are for now. And then when I take off the Fridays in the summer, which I still do, cause it worked out really, really well, we really enjoy our freedom Fridays. Then I just have to move things differently during the weeks. So remember that. Different cycles, different times, different spaces will change the way you, you work inside your business and the way you find flexibility or rigidity, whatever works for you, you will find those rhythms that work for you inside your business, okay?
So you may have a different time management type than maybe another friend, another entrepreneur that you work with. Maybe you even have a different time management type at different times during the year. Maybe you have a different type when you’re working on a specific kind of project. Maybe when you’re busier or slower or whatever.
So in this quiz, we have some time management types. We have the Prioritizer, the Time Blocker, the Spontaneous Creator, the Task Juggler, and the Deadline Driven.
So there’s lots of different ways that you can find your rhythm in something. But by doing the quiz, it gives you an idea of where you fit inside this type. And it’ll give you some ideas on how you can then plan out your work so that it works for you. Now remember when we’re talking about time management, it isn’t just about what can I put into my day, but it’s also about where in the day I’m gonna put it.
So, for example, you want to make sure that you are putting things into your day in the best possible order so that it supports you in the way that you think. So let’s be honest, some of us neurodivergent people have this wait thing that happens.
So if you have an appointment at two o’clock in the afternoon, the entire day might as well be dead to you because you’re waiting for two o’clock when you have that appointment. So. I suffer with that quite a bit. So most of my client calls, I take first thing in the morning. I front load my day with those appointments so that I’m not waiting for those things to happen.
And then my afternoons are clear for me to be able to do some focus stuff. Trouble comes in when I have an appointment that’s not business related. It’s maybe for a doctor’s appointment or dentist appointment. I try to push those as high up as I can that’s close to those other appointments. And sometimes you just can’t get in on time, and your appointments are later in the day, and there’s some struggle bus time inside there.
So I make sure that I can have tasks available during that time that are not going to require a My brain to be like in hyper focus mode or we call them a low spoon tasks. It’s not going to require a lot of effort to get the things done. And I can kind of, you know, go through the, much like a rabbit would jump through a field.
I can squirrel through them. Let’s just say, so whatever works for you, that’s, what’s really important. And I get it. Things that change. are difficult to handle and for us as neurodivergents, unfortunately, when something works for a long period of time, sometimes it stops working. So you can come back to this quiz.
The quiz is free. We did this specifically because I want to make sure it’s available to you to take as many times as you like to be able to understand where you’re at today and test and adjust. So when you get this quiz and you go through it, and you find out which one, which style you have, and you start to make some changes to your schedule, then it’s important for you to revisit everything.
Is this still working for me? Are there things I need to change? How do I need to look at what I’m doing inside my time management? Just because you time block a certain way doesn’t mean to say you’re not going to change it. Essentially me saying that I’m putting My client calls in the morning, that’s time blocking.
That’s, this is the space for time for, for client calls. This is the space for doing other work. Fridays are a space for a totally different thing, right? So that’s technically a version of time blocking. Whatever works for you is what’s important, but what’s really valuable to you is to track it. So use something that you’re going to be able to see whether or not it’s working for you.
So inside the Rockstar Planner, we have weekly planning pages so that you can actually plan out your week. And then you can revise and revisit. You can say this worked for me or that didn’t work for me. And you can go back and make changes. So you don’t have to have the Rockstar Planner to make this happen.
You can use any planner you like. You can write it down on a piece of paper, use an Excel sheet, whatever works for you, but find something that you can use repetitively in the exact same way so that you can see what’s working for you and what’s not working for you as you create your own personal time management style.
And then when things go sideways, as sometimes they do. You can go back and retake the quiz again and see if you’re still in line. Maybe things have changed. Maybe there’s something different that you need to do. Ultimately, what’s really important is making sure that you are looking after what you need and that your brain is satisfied with The little nuggets you give it.
Knowing what works best for your brain is important, not just about which day, but what time, right? When are you best able to do this task? If you do manage to track it in the Rockstar Planner, there’s 15 minute increments for you to block it so you can actually see. I thought this was going to take me 30 minutes.
Oh, it took me an hour. But then when I did it this week, I did it at this time. And instead of it taking me an hour, it took me 30 minutes. Whatever the case may be, you can actually see where you are finding the time and when the time is working better for you. Those are some tidbits to take away. I hope that you take the time to go look at this quiz and to go do it for yourself.
Like I said, it’s a free quiz. Give you some insight and how you think and how you do things. And then from there, you get some tips and see how you can change what’s working or not working for you. As the case may be, make some tweaks. And hopefully when you do that, you’ll find out that yes, it is in fact awesome.
You can become way more efficient, way more effective. You can get way more done and you’ll be less overwhelmed because you’re working in a time that works best for you. You’re not constantly worried about what. Other people’s schedules are you’ve created one that works for you and everything falls in place that way.
I have to tell you that it has taken away a lot of stress out of my life. I have been less overwhelmed by scheduling because I know what works for my brain, because I know what works for the rhythm inside my business. And I hope that you are able to create that for yourself as well. I hope you have a fantastic week and I’ll talk to you next week.