Discipline and Time Management
Priorities and discipline go hand in hand with planning. They are also the antidote to procrastination. Setting priorities with one guiding principle, “If it isn’t an absolute yes, then it’s an absolute no,” can help determine not only where time is spent, but also what to buy, where to go, and who to be with. Once priorities are set and a plan is made, discipline is needed to follow through.
For many, the word discipline may conjure up flashbacks of abusive parents, overly critical teachers, strict coaches, or self-criticism in an attempt to produce results. This imagery should be replaced with seeing discipline as a method to love oneself into the right direction and of giving up short-term impulses for long-term goals.
- Starting small is key. Begin with one hour a day dedicated to any productive activity from a pre-determined list. As this one hour becomes a habit, it can be progressively increased to two, then three, then four hours, until it fills most of the day. The same principles of calendaring and showing up, no matter what, can be applied to both work and personal life. Free time is still allowed, but it becomes intentional.
- Setting a calendar reminder can be helpful. For example, a reminder labeled “Productivity Hour” can go off every night at 8 pm. When first learning how to calendar, there may be a lot of trial and error. Sometimes too much is put on the calendar, and other days too little. Some days the schedule works, and other days not as well. But one truth remains: the work still needs to get done. It can either be scheduled and done when it is scheduled, or life can be spent whining, stressing, procrastinating, avoiding, complaining, and putting it off until a last-minute rush is necessary. Last-minute work will never be as high quality as planned, well-laid-out work.
- Defining parameters is important. Make a list of what is defined as “productive.” This list can include activities such as exercise, watching a documentary, reading a book, doing a home improvement project, working, etc.
- Allow for freedom. It is not necessary to complete the task right at 8 pm when the alarm goes off. It is just a reminder that if nothing productive has been done by then, it is time for action. Sometimes, by the time the alarm goes off, a workout or extra hour of work has already been completed, so the task is considered done and the alarm can be ignored. Other nights, after binging too much Netflix, the alarm signals it is time for action.
- Do not make it too hard. If the alarm goes off at 5 pm and there is a forced requirement to be “productive” every single minute until bedtime, it will not only lead to failure but also to misery.
- Plan for obstacles. Tie what needs to be accomplished to the strongest why and emotion possible. This way, on days when giving up seems tempting, the why can be revisited.
- Predetermine exceptions. These are very different from making excuses in the moment. Exceptions can include being too sick to function, a family emergency, or something genuinely more important coming up. This last one is the sneakiest and should not be confused with procrastination or excuses.
- Have a Plan B, and it should hurt a bit. When exceptions arise, having given enough lead time to reschedule and still meet deadlines with time to spare is beneficial. However, this also means having a Plan B. Plan B should hurt a bit so that it is only defaulted to for true exceptions. For example, Plan B could mean giving up highly valued free time on the weekends.
Before learning these tools, one might have said they work best under deadlines. Many might raise the same argument. However, consider a counter-argument. What is actually happening is you are finding excuse after excuse to avoid something you don’t want to do, not knowing how to do something, or not knowing where to start. It is put off until it cannot be avoided anymore, but then fear kicks in, so it gets done. Maybe afterward, there is self-criticism about how it could have been done better and what was wrong. The truth is, if procrastination had not occurred, it could have been done better.
Another guess might be that other projects had to be pushed to meet the self-created last-minute deadline, so now the next item is also a last-minute disaster. This leads to the belief that calendaring is impossible because there is no control over the schedule, and it is always a disaster and one fire after another. What if calendaring was done, things got caught up, and the calendar was adhered to? Trust in oneself could develop. Flexible time could still be left in the schedule. Rescheduling for the unexpected would still be necessary, but now it would be an hour or two a day, not six, and there would be time to make up for it. Not only would there no longer be a feeling of being out of control, but goals would also be accomplished.