The Time Audit: Save 10+ Hours/Week With This Time Management Framework

The average person loses 21.8 hours per week on low-value activities that do nothing for their life or career. So in this video, I'm sharing my minimalist time management tips to help you cut more than 10 hours from your week of that extra stuff that's just not doing anything for you. And if you think effective time management means having complicated systems in place, you are going to love the simplicity of this approach. Starting with the time audit. All goals feel very far away when we just don't take inventory of what the situation actually is. Things can seem better than they actually are. Things can seem worse than they actually are. But have you figured out what it actually is? That's what the time audit is all about. In order to cut the fat, time that's not well-spent, we have to know where to find it. So auditing where you spend your time is the first step. We don't have to make big sweeping changes yet. It's about what is the case right now. No need to judge, just figure it out. Track it, see it, understand it, wrap your mind around it and go, hmm, I don't really like that about my life and I can make a change. I want you to commit to doing this for at least seven days. You got five solid weekdays in there, two weekend days, whatever those days are for you. Get a good idea of what an average week looks like. Not just an average day, because they all can vary for lots of reasons. And when you start tracking, literally track everything. Maybe even just pull out a note in your phone or a note card in your pocket to write down the time, how much time you're spending on what you're doing and just leave it at that. Put it away like it's a little diary. You don't have to get hyper-focused on it. You don't have to shift and move around and try something else, something better that you would rather write down. Be honest with yourself about where you're spending your time. Whether you spent 30 minutes on your side hustle this week or three hours. Whether you spent 30 minutes watching Netflix on a Wednesday night or three hours. Write them down, no judgment, no in your feels, just get a state of what it is. Once you've reached the end of your week and you've been really honest with yourself, you've just proceeded like all is normal, go back and look at everything. I like to put everything in three categories, essential, growth and waste. I want you to hear this from me right now. There are going to be things in waste that are not that bad. It's just about moderation. How much time are we wasting? Because you gotta think that we can't be down to the minute about everything in life. The more freedom you have, the better you are. So that's why we're doing this. Not so you can lock down every hour and feel most productive no matter what time it is or how much you care. A little bit of time to enjoy life might look wasteful in a category, but it all depends on where you are in this season, how you're feeling about your success level and what changes you want to see. So let's unpack these categories. Essential, this includes work, family responsibilities, maybe anything that you need to maintain your health. The have tos, like yes, this is a part of my life and it is not going anywhere. Growth, this is learning, self care, relationship development, personal development, anything that's helping to grow you. And then there's waste. Maybe a little bit of social media scrolling, some TV watching. Perhaps you've clocked some unnecessary meetings you didn't need to attend to. And if they weren't meetings, maybe they were events that were not essential to your relationships, but something you felt you had to do because of social norms. I will let you define what goes into each of your categories based on how you feel about your life, but just give them a place so that you know where the easiest opportunity to cut things out will appear. The reality is that people underestimate their waste time by 40%. You just don't think you're spending that much wasteful time. We don't like to think that about ourselves. We think we are going about it with the best possible foot forward. It doesn't mean that you're not. You just might not be asking better questions about where that time's being spent by looking at it here and highlighting it a certain color and seeing how much of it that you do. You've probably got a new conversation to have with yourself that makes you realize, okay, we have not been fully objective about this. Once you have an understanding of how your time audit is looking, this is your homework. Look for at least one to two hours of your week that you can cut out from waste. This makes it possible for you to continue enjoying your favorite TV shows or still check out what's happening on social media so you don't fall behind, but by finding one to two hours that you can take out of that equation and maybe put it into growth and say, oh, I'm actually going to commit to going to fitness classes during those times, or I'm going to commit to reading that book I've been meaning to get to for at least one to two hours next week. Recover any hours that you can start to shift. Small steps make big moves, and put them towards something that would make you feel like you're actually taking control of your life. It will become so addictive. You're going to keep trying to reduce waste as much as you can. Pro tip, I watch reality shows when I am at the gym on the Stairmaster. Love it. Just makes it so much easier to not feel bad about that time. Let's talk about the calendar block system. If you're new here, then wow, you're going to love this. We are big fans of calendar blocking and time batching here at AmyTV. The core belief system around calendar blocking is just agreeing to focus and having the intention of focus on whatever it is you do. So for instance, calendar block the time you spend with your family in the evenings. That block of time, let's say it's from five until eight o'clock, is all about them. It's focusing on the kids, asking them about their day. Maybe we're making up some dinner. Maybe we're not making up some dinner. We're going to go out and about and do something. When you look at it as a block and not an afterthought, not a, okay, let's hurry up and end the day. And also what else can I get done while we're doing this? You're more intentional. It's better time spent for everyone involved. The alternative is looking at it like, how can we multitask during that time? I still have some emails I need to get done and the kids are fine. So maybe I'll just tidy up the playroom upstairs. You're doing all the things. But if the block is to spend time with family, tidying and emails and all of that stuff does not make the cut. That's a simple example. Now look at that and do that with everything else. If you need time to work on that project, block out the time. And block is the active word. You might reserve two to three hours on your calendar to block and nothing else is allowed to enter that time. No meetings can interrupt. You can't also be doing admin. It's focus on the project and get it through the finish line if you can or further along so that you've actually made real focused progress on it. Time batching while also calendar blocking is the best. Time batching is when you take a like task and you add all of them to the same calendar block. So for instance, I'm sitting here and I'm shooting this video right now. And I have time batched a lot of content for a couple reasons. First of all, I just went and got my hair done today. How's it look? I got my makeup done. I've got the neon lights on. Everything is up and running. So it makes sense to do one, two, three, maybe four videos if I've got it in me which these days I don't get that high. I used to be able to shoot that many videos in one sitting. I don't these days. I'm tired. But I can do two. And I'm going to if we've flexed all of these resources in order to be able to get here. So what are the things that you can do, the like tasks that you can do in a time batch and block out that moment on the calendar? Another way to think of this is meetings. I usually do my team sync up and then I will do a leadership training with them and maybe even some one-on-ones. If any of those are circulating on the calendar, it's time for that. We try to batch them. Maybe not back to back to back to back to back, but certainly during the same half day or full day. Whenever I do podcast interviews, same thing. I'm going to set up my microphone. I'm going to set up my devices. I'm going to do all the stuff, put the lights on again. So I want to do multiple podcast interviews in one setting. The more you block, the more efficient that you are. But also the more you see where some stuff's just not going to fit in. It doesn't make the cut and you're able to prioritize more and notice where you have said yes to things that should not exist. Your homework for calendar blocking is go back to that time audit and look to all the things that were similar that stretched out over the week. Maybe you went to go get the dry cleaning on Monday and you also did grocery shopping, but you didn't do that until Wednesday. Could you have run those errands in the same trip? So you're not having to do all of these things across the week, taking that commute time to a multiplicative that is unnecessary. We don't have to drive here and there and everywhere if we're already out and about. That might be something that's already occurred to you before. But if you can find other things on your calendar that you've audited and you say, wow, I could have done both of those in the same time block and instead it took more time because it was spread out over the week, that's where the opportunity lies. The really great 30, 40, 50 minutes that is wasted across the week because of how it got done flippantly rather than trying to package it together in a time block. Find those like tasks, look at them as a batch and then block them together. All of this gets even easier with the decision framework. The biggest challenge people have in their time management every day is they just allow themselves to be professional decision makers. But here's the crazy thing, you're not getting better at it. Here's what I mean. Instead of making a decision and sticking to it, you just trust that when the next day rolls around, you're going to be able to make the decision in the moment and you just trust it. You're like, oh, I'll just make that decision later. Then the moment comes, you wake up in the morning, hmm, am I gonna do my morning routine? First decision of the day, probably not gonna go well if you haven't been set up for success. Then comes time for the gym, hmm, am I gonna go to the gym? You see how it's going. When you plan to just let yourself make rolling decisions about the same things day after day after day, you get decision fatigue. You've probably heard the famous example of Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg always wearing the same outfit every day. The same shirt, the same pants, the uniform that they came to be known for. This is an example of removing an obstacle toward decision fatigue. They didn't want to have to think about what they were going to wear. They wanted to focus on the bigger decisions of the things that they were building in their work. So they just bought the same clothes and wore the same thing every day. And as silly as everyone thought it was, it then went on to become this documented brilliant thing because we're all making too many decisions about what doesn't matter and taking away from that brain power being applied to something insanely beneficial to our lives and careers. So I want you to try this simple three-question framework. Next time you've got a tough decision, ask yourself, number one, does this align with my priorities? Number two, would I do this tomorrow? And number three, can this be automated, delegated, delayed or deleted? So here's one example. Maybe you're asking yourself the question, am I going to work out? Question number one, is this aligned with your priorities? Well, if you have a health goal, the answer is probably yes here. Question number two, would I do this tomorrow? Well, if you know it's a priority, then you probably would do it tomorrow. If let's say somebody said, let's go take a walk or you saw that there was a fitness class scheduled or something like that, you know it's a priority for you and have given the opportunity to fulfill on that goal, you would do that tomorrow. So that's a yes. And number three, can this be automated, delegated, delayed or deleted? Well, the act of working out can't be automated or delegated, but it certainly can be automated and how it's scheduled so that you don't have to ask yourself whether you'll do it. And it can be delegated in terms of asking somebody to hold you accountable. And if it's a priority, it can't be delayed. It could be delayed if you want it to be delayed, but then would it be a priority? And it definitely can't be deleted. So all three of these questions really take you on a journey with something that make you go, yeah, okay, this is a requirement. I've made the decision. I will be working out. And now it's just a definitive that you can move forward with. Another example might be that you get invited to an event. Maybe let's say it's a friend or a family member has invited you to something and you don't really wanna go. But let's say it's an event in like three months. First question, is this on your list of priorities? Sounds like it's probably a no. So you decide, yes or no. Number two is really interesting in this case. Would I do it tomorrow? We usually look at events that are far away and we go, oh, I don't wanna do that, but it's in August. Who cares? Just RSVP, yes. Would you do it tomorrow? If the answer is no, then you actually should not be affecting August like that. August is mad at you for wasting its time. That's why number two is so important. The things that we schedule for the future that we don't wanna do, we're probably still not gonna wanna do. So just be honest about it. And number three, can it be automated, delegated, delayed, or deleted? Well, it could definitely be deleted. So that's the first thing that's top of my mind. It can't be automated. My presence is required and it can't be delegated because my presence is required. And it can't be delayed because it's not my event. I'm already delaying it by seeing its way in the future and definitely not trying to speed it up. Use this framework to help guide you so that you don't have to make the decision fatigue. Get it done in one setting and know that if it's no longer a factor in your life, you don't have to keep going through this framework anymore. It's just an instant no in the future. And when you know what your no's are, it's a great place to be. It makes life so much easier. Next time you get the invitation, you go, that's so nice of them, I'm not going. But I can't wait to send them a gift. You just know where the no's are. Now, just like we time audited for a week, I want you to continue to assess your weeks. Anytime we wanna measure success, we should do it as often as possible so we stay really close to how we feel about something and the results of what's going on. If you haven't seen it, I have a great video to help you plan your week, but it really helps you to assess what you did in the last week and what you need to do going forward to make it the best possible time spent. It's an awesome 45 minute video where I literally walk you through the whole process from reviewing your previous appointments to clearing clutter, both digital and in real life, calendar blocking the week ahead and anything else that might apply for you. The more consistent you are at checking in with yourself, the better you get to know yourself. And I really encourage you to remember something. Don't be a stranger to you, the person that you need to know the deepest and the best because you are the one that's going to walk all the walks and do all the things. So when you realize whether you like something or don't like something, you realize how to do that next thing that could be a half a percent closer to living the life you want. And it may sound like this grand idea, but it ends up showing up in these small moments where you go, what did I do this week? We become better friends with people on TV and social media than we do ourselves. The stranger in our life is us because we haven't checked in. So doing it as simple of a way as analyzing where you're spending your time. Who are the people who are impacting you the most? Where are you being influenced? Spend time on that reset every week, every day if you can, and you will get to know somebody very, very important who's going to take you to the next level, you. This is my do less method, the minimalist approach to time management. If you want to learn more about calendar blocking, click the link below and I'll see you there.