Your $86,400 Bank Account

Imagine you have a bank account that deposits $86,400 each morning. The account carries over no balance from day to day and every night cancels whatever part of the amount you had failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every dollar each day!

We all have such a bank. Its name is Time.

Every morning, you have 86,400 seconds. Every night, you lose whatever you don’t use. You can’t keep a balance on your account. It starts fresh every day and destroys any time that is unused at the end of the day. If you do not use up what you made in minutes at the end of the day, you can’t get it back.

There is never any borrowing time. You can’t take a loan out on your time or against someone else’s. The time you have is the time you have and that is that. Time management is yours to decide how you spend the time, just as with money you decide how you spend the money. It is never the case of us not having enough time to do things, but the case of whether we want to do them and where they fall in our priorities.

What’s the strategy here Once something is measured, it becomes much easier to manage. The challenge is that most people don’t know how to accurately measure their current time management skills. Here are methods to help you capture your time more effectively.

3 ways to take control of your time again.

• The Pomodoro technique
• Eat That Frog
• The Two Minute Rule

The Pomodoro Technique
The following time management method can be used to accurately measure your productivity. Once you know where you are, it’s easier to have a productive day!

The Pomodoro technique is a time management method developed in the late 1980s by Francesco Cirillo. It uses a timer to break down your work into intervals (called “pomodoros”) separated by short breaks. These pomodoros are used as the building block of time for completing tasks, rather than hours or days.

Pomodoro Technique Steps:

Step 1: Decide on the task you want to accomplish

Step 2: Set a timer for 25 minutes. Make sure it is visible.

Step 3: Repeat 4 to 6 times depending on how many Pomodoros

Keep doing only the task at hand until the timer rings, signaling a change in tasks.

Eat That Frog
Mark Twain said, “Eat a live frog the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” What does this mean for productivity?

Make your frog your most difficult and important task — the one you’re going to procrastinate on unless you do something about it. Doing this task first and getting it out of the way will make the rest seem easy by comparison.

Finishing this item on your to-do list is a huge accomplishment and will give you the momentum you need for completing other tasks.

The Two Minute Rule
This rule is a quick way to overcome procrastination. The philosophy behind it is “we can do anything for two minutes”. By setting a timer for two-minute increments, you are making small manageable steps towards the long-term goal you have set for yourself.

This rule will also help you quickly work through all the simple, short tasks and get them off your list so you can focus on the most important. If it takes two minutes or less, do it. Then move on.

Just like in business ownership, time management requires a unique combination of skills, intuition, and persistence. I think you’ll find you’re already using some of these techniques and many others but when you are more intentional with your time, those 86,400 seconds seem a lot more valuable.