
From here
Imagine that you had won the following prize in a contest: each day at midnight, your bank would deposit $86,400.00 in a private account for your use.
However, this prize has rules:
– you may not transfer money into another account nor withdraw it for further use – you may only spend it;
– everything that you don’t spend during each day does not accumulate for the next.
Furthermore, the bank can terminate the account without warning – at any time it can call the prize off, close the account, and you will not receive a new one.
What would you do?
You would buy anything and everything you wanted, right?
Not only for yourself, but for all people you love, right?
Even for people you don’t know, because you couldn’t possibly spend it all on yourself, right?
You would try to spend every cent, and use it all, right?
ACTUALLY, this PRIZE exists!
Each of us is in possession of such an amazing prize – we just can’t seem to see it.
The PRIZE is TIME!
Each day we receive 86,400 seconds (=24 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds) as a gift of life, and when the day ends, any remaining time is NOT credited to us.
What we haven’t lived up that day is forever lost. Yesterday is forever gone.
Each day the account is refilled, but the bank can dissolve your account at any time….WITHOUT WARNING – nobody knows forsure when they’re dying…
SO, what will YOU do with your 86,400 seconds?
Aren’t they worth so much more than the same amount in dollars?
Think about that, and always think of this: enjoy every second of your life, because time races by so much quicker than you think.
As we have seen in the TIME article, time is relative, and how we use it makes a difference in our perception of time.
In spite of us all having the same amount of seconds in a day, how we work with them is totally different:
– some people get up early and work as much for as long as they can to use the most amount of seconds they have at their disposal;
– some people get up early and have as much fun for as long as they can to use the most amount of seconds they have at their disposal;
– some people realize they have a certain amount of time and use it as needed: doing what they need to provide for their necessities (survive), what makes them happy (thrive), and also what helps them serve their community best (live).

From here
It’s more or less like in the movie Groundhog Day, where Phil (the main character) is stuck in a loop, always reliving a specific day, and the loop only breaks when he uses his time to serve and have fun, at the same time winning the heart of the girl he falls in love with.
And how can we manage to fit so many things in our day(s)?
ESTABLISHING PRIORITIES
Another parable comes to mind:
A University professor wanted to illustrate how each of us can better prioritize and manage our time.
He brought several items with him to class – a jar, rocks, pebbles, sand, and a glass of water.
The professor filled the jar with the rocks and asked the students whether the jar was full? They answered “yes, it’s full.”
But he then proceeded to fill the jar with the pebbles. He shook the jar until the pebbles neatly arranged themselves in between the crevices left by the larger rocks.
“Is it full now?”
This time, his students were sure the jar was full.
The professor then filled the jar with sand, which filled the remaining space left by the rocks and the pebbles.
Without skipping a beat, he also poured the glass of water into the jar as everything neatly settled inside.
The class was astonished.

From here
If you want to manage your day well, you need to figure out your elements, so you can schedule them in the proper order, and then use your time accordingly:
- Rocks = those things that are essential to your survival, what you need to have to keep sane of body and mind (at least), from your basic necessities (e.g.: rest, food, …), to devoting time to those who need you – as a mom, that includes feeding and tending them, as well as at least a meal together per day. What are your rocks?
- Pebbles = those important things that help you live, which includes securing the means to provide for yourself and those dependent on you, other forms of service to others, and also activities that reenergize you – creative work and dealing with my plants work for me. What are your pebbles?
- Sand = everything and everyone else in your life that you deal with, meeting new people, experimenting new things, whatever is not significant in your life to merit being a pebble, let alone a rock. What is your sand?
- Water = everything and everyone else that is “thrown at you” unexpectedly, that needs some attention and consumes time, just because the Universe/God/whatever higher power you acknowledge is testing your flexibility and your resolve. Today, what is/was your water?

From here
DEFINING PRIORITIES
So, how do you decide what is truly important and fulfilling without having to try different combinations of the same day over and over and over again?
One of the best and easiest methods is using the Eisenhower Matrix:

From here
You basically need to divide all things (activities and tasks) into:
- IMPORTANT + URGENT -> to do as soon as possible
- IMPORTANT + not-urgent -> schedule those for later
- URGENT + not-important -> delegate them to someone to whom they are important
- not-urgent + not-important -> if you have a “someday I’ll…” list, put them there; otherwise delete/scratch/obliterate those.
It’s like sorting stuff for recycling, only you’re working towards keeping your schedule free of pollution, saving your energy and guaranteeing more mental space for what is truly important.

From here
Once you have your priorities straight, start working on them!
How?!? Where to start?!?
There are many methods, solutions, apps and books out there with a lot of different approaches. Only things is, the same way that only you can figure out what is important to yourself, also only you can figure out what works best for you.
PRODUCTIVITY METHODS AND TIME MANAGEMENT TOOLS
There is an amazingly vast array of different methods and tools out there, so I asked Eden, a very good friend of mine and fellow multipotentialite who is a productivity and time management expert, for some tips, and she shared some great methods and tools regarding time management with me, that I shall in turn share with you – because we’re both very generous souls! 😉
Tip #1: Keep track of your time and how you spend it!
While you’re defining your priorities, when you start working on them, or at any point in your life, keeping track of how you use your time is a great skill – much the same as keeping tabs on your money and how you spend it –, so you can figure out where you’re wasting it, and adjust accordingly.
There are a lot of software/apps to do that if you’re more digitally inclined; keeping a tally on paper works if you want to reduce time using technology.

From here
Tip #2: Block time on your calendar for focused work!
Cal Newport’s books are all great in their own right, still for this tip you’ll have to read Deep Work, or watch lectures and videos Cal did and are all over the web.
Getting your planner and reserving chunks of time for your Rocks and Pebbles in your life will ensure you have time for what matters.
Again using the comparison to money, this is similar to using the Envelope System for budgeting.
Tip #3: Balance your time use!
The same way you need to manage your money throughout the day, week, month and year, you also need to manage the type of activities in each day, week, month and year, so you keep your energy and health.
This goes back to the jar with the rocks, pebbles, sand and water: you have to balance your time so you can survive, live and thrive! And there are many ways to do this.
Until you find the best one for you, why not try the 3:3:3 system? This consists in spending 3 hours on your most important work, then doing 3 shorter tasks, and then doing 3 maintenance activities.
Here the Time Tracking also helps, as does the Time Blocking:
- you block the 3 hours for important work – for example, doing Important+Urgent tasks/activities;
- then keep track of how long it takes you to do the 3 shorter tasks – for example, scheduling Important+not-urgent ones, delegating Urgent+not-important ones, and releasing the non-urgent+non-important ones in your way of choice;
- and also keep track of how long you take doing the 3 maintenance activities – yes, eating, taking a shower and doing the laundry count!
Extra tip
If you’re anything like me, I always try to better myself, especially efficiency wise.
So keeping track of the time it takes me to do something allows me to not only to keep trying to break my own personal record, but also to realize what I can fit in when I have “5 extra minutes” before a meeting or any other appointment.

From here
Tip #4: Use the Pomodoro technique to move!

From here
Of course the infamous tomato-shaped kitchen timer had to make its appearance! 😉
It is great that you can focus on your important work and work straight for the above suggested 3 hours straight – Kudos to you! 🙂
If, however, you’re more like me, a mere mortal with physiological needs and a time limit on how long to sit at the computer, then the Pomodoro Technique is for you/us: divide the 3 hours you’ve blocked out for your important work into half hours sections, using 25 minutes to work and the other 5 minutes to take a break – use it for moving, breathing, drinking, going to the bathroom, folding the laundry. The important thing is to keep the break to 5 minutes, so you can go back for another half hour cycle (25 minutes of work + 5 minutes break), and so on until the 3 hours are done (if you stick to the schedule, you’ll go through 6 cycles of 30 minutes).
CONCLUSION
Of course there are plenty more methods and tools and techniques out there for you to manage your time…
However, by now I believe you have noticed the secret ingredient: you need to do your part of the work by defining what to do, when and how in order for the aforementioned tools and methods to work well.
Because, in order to manage time, you need to use it wisely in the way that truly makes sense to you and makes you feel fulfilled and happy.
And remember, even more than money, Time is precious, so CARPE DIEM [= Seize the Day]! 😀

From here
P.S.: If this article, with all it’s time=money analogies, made you think of Time Banking , know I’ll address that in a future article about Dreams, Goals and Objectives. 😉