All I can say is colour coding is your best friend when it comes to organising your calendar and prioritising your time!

Often I hear a lot of people are complaining about and being stressed by, not being able to manage their time, and this is a fantastic way to get on top of your time. In fact, you can actually create a lot more time for yourself by doing this simple time management exercise.

It is so easy to manage your time with your smartphone or google calendar.

Using your phone, you can actually add in your tasks and appointments, right there on your handheld device, or alternatively, you can go on to your Gmail calendar on the laptop, and you can set up and colour code every daily task so that everything can be set up in an organised way.

I always use colour-coding to schedule.

For example, my children’s activities. When you prioritise things that are important to you, and you actually put down-time for it in an allocated place, now you suddenly have a lot more available time in your day because your time is organised.

• I recommend you print 2 copies of a full week broken into 30min increments.
• Assign colours to every personal and business responsibility.
• On 1 copy, colour in what you are doing at present. Take note of all the time wasted.
• On the 2nd copy, colour code your ‘perfect week’ allowing time for things like self-care, date day and a walk on the beach.
• Now start to work towards that ideal week. Make sure it is colour coded on your calendar and If need be, set a timer to stop and start tasks.

Click here for your free time tracker.

Imagine you worked for someone! They would give you a task and a time frame to implement it. And you would get it done. But as entrepreneurs and business owners, we can procrastinate, fluff about and usually suffer from ‘shiny light syndrome’. I find this activity gives structure and helps to stay on track to get everything done plus still have time to do the things you want to do.

For me, I’ve got different colours that represent different things.

Green is working in my business. This time is so important and should always be scheduled in. It allows you to know that this is the time each week you are going to spend on building your own business, and not just in the everyday running of the business.

Yellow I use for my children. I have my children every other week. So it is important that I schedule the time in to spend with my girls, take them to their activities and allow time for travelling to and from school.

Blue is for my partner. I make sure I set aside time with my partner each week, which for me is non-negotiable. I feel organised and know it’s in my calendar, which makes me feel like I have a handle on my time management.

Purple is for my fitness training. It is important to me and needs to be in my calendar. I personally allocate 5 hours a week to training and I know it wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t in there.

I’ve also got colours for self-development and for social media, and that’s the time that I have to use for my business.

So it’s up to you to decide, what the most important things to you? Your kids, your partner, your personal development, your exercise, working on and in your business, marketing, networking, reading etc but you also need to sign colours and time to walk your dog, clean the house (yuck), grocery shop and prepare meals.

Once you start to use colour coding in your calendar you’ll start to notice that you have a lot more available time slots

So what will you decide to do in those spare time slots? Meal prep, self-care or time for yourself. Make sure you find the time to do the things you want and need to do.  The only way you’re going to do that is to prioritise time for yourself.

If you’re struggling with time management and want some help I’m happy to answer any questions you might have. I want to motivate and inspire you!

Still have questions? Feel free to book a call.