Amy is a self-proclaimed people pleaser. She says YES whenever someone needs something from her. "It feels good to be needed", she told me.
And yet she also feels like she doesn’t have enough time.
She often takes work home with her to "finish up" which then cuts into family time, marriage time or sleep.
She knows this is a problem but feels helpless on how to solve it, as many of my clients do.
Controlling your time comes from how you think about your time, not how you spend it.
Amy had regular "protected times" on her calendar that were meant for strategic thinking and bigger projects but she rarely protected them.
When I asked her why she said that the protected time wasn’t as important as someone else’s need. As a manager she needs to be available.
Do you see how her thoughts about the "protected time" were causing a problem? She didn’t see them as important. And if they are not important then of course her brain wasn’t going to protect them!
I asked her, why might your protected time be the most important time on your calendar – above client meetings, above employee requests, above even your bosses time?
Here are a few of the juicy answers she came up with:
My clients don’t just pay me to meet with them, they pay me to think strategically on their behalf and to drive their brand forward through innovation – I need protected time to innovate.
My boss is paying me to create a cohesive and effective team and I need protected time to think of how to best create that.
I enable my employees by being too available. I am not helping them to foster their own strategic mind or allowing them to work on problem solving.
When I don’t keep to my protected time, I don’t get my work done during the day and I take it home at night which means my family loses time with me.
By the end, she was in tears. Her brain saw, for the first time, how important those protected times really were.
It wasn’t "selfish" time. It wasn’t "if I happen to be available" time. It was the most important commitment on her calendar.
Fueled with new belief, Amy is committed to following through with her "protected time" and feeling in control of her schedule.
Are you?
