Aligning Your Energy with Your Goals (Part 2) – Time Management for Social Entrepreneurs

Part 2 – Aligning Your Energy with Your Goals

The Power of Alignment

Welcome back to our 3-part blog series on time management for social entrepreneurs. In Part 1, we shared the basics of time management and how to conduct a time study so you know exactly where your time is spent. This post focuses on aligning your energy with your goals to optimize your time and impact. This post isn’t just about managing time. Instead, focus on managing your energy and attention to reach your desired outcomes and vision.

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Analyzing Your Time Study Results

Before we dive into aligning your energy, take a minute to review and reflect on the findings from your time study. This reflection doesn’t have to be complex, consider a few key questions that might help you out:

• How did I spend the most time?
• What activities brought the most value to my work and personal life?
• Where did I notice inefficiencies or time wasted?
• What brought me joy and what did not?

Taking time to reflect is the way to connect your actions and intentions after the time study. By identifying times when you can make other choices to use your energy more efficiently, you are taking the first step at altering your future reality towards the outcomes and vision you desire.

Identifying Wasted Time

Don’t be surprised if you find some “wasted time”— or activities that don’t add value to your mission or help you be the best version of yourself. Most people find times in their day when they are doing “busy work” or using their time without intention. Some habits that you might recognize include excessive email checking, prolonged social media browsing, or meetings for the sake of having meetings.

Common Time Wasters to Watch For:

• Unnecessary Meetings: Meetings without clear agendas or objectives can drain your time and energy. Regularly scheduled meetings with a standing agenda can become an unnecessary meeting if they are not partnered with objectives and metrics.
• Multitasking: Trying to do multiple things at once often leads to inefficiencies and decreased productivity. Focused work that results in high-frequency thinking or creativity is not achievable by multitasking. As an entrepreneur, if you’re truly trying to elevate your consciousness to create something new and different, you need dedicated time to be your best.
• Digital Dead Time: Notifications, social media, and unplanned web surfing can quickly eat up valuable time. How long did it take you to scroll for that dinner recipe only to have to look for another that doesn’t have an ingredient your kids don’t like? Yep, take a good look at what you’re really spending your time doing and decide “is this helpful for me or not?”

Reframe, Recycle, and Reuse Wasted Time: Just like trash, your wasted time has a home other than the landfill. This is your opportunity to realign your activities with what you truly value.

Now that you’ve found time to recycle, you can redirect your energy and time toward more impactful and meaningful efforts. The next step is prioritizing your time so you reuse your time to get where you want to be.

The High-Low Matrix

Social entrepreneurs often juggle multiple roles, you might be a caretaker, provider, entrepreneur, and possibly full-time employee. The High-Low Matrix helps you identify the true priorities in your life.

Use the High-low matrix to assess the ways you spend your time throughout the day or week. There are two axes: reward and priority.

What is a Priority?

Anything can be a priority. When using the high-low matrix, priorities are defined in your terms, not in someone else’s. Since you are the one reformatting your time, it’s important to set the priorities yourself. There are only two metrics: high priority and low priority.

Low priority doesn’t mean “unimportant”. Low priority means it’s “not for right now”.

What Reward?

Just as anything can be a priority, anything can be a reward. You define rewarding according to your own metrics. Perhaps the reward is joy, freedom of time, a vacation, or something tangible like money. There are only two metrics, high reward and low reward.

You can determine the value of the ways you spend your time based on whatever you find rewarding.

Aligning Your Energy with Your Priorities

It’s crucial to align your energy with your priorities now that you’ve reviewed how you’re spending your time and rated your tasks using the High-Low Matrix. By reflecting on the tasks that need more attention and the ones that really matter, you can realign your daily activities with the vibe you want to be on. Here’s how you do it…

1. Know Your Energy Peaks: Identify when you are most energetic and focused during the day. Schedule high-priority tasks during these peak times to maximize productivity.
2. Batch Similar Tasks: Group similar tasks together to maintain focus and reduce the cognitive load of switching between different activities. For example, batch all your email responses, finance, or administrative tasks.
3. Set Boundaries: Establish clear boundaries for your work time and personal time. This helps maintain a healthy work-life balance and ensures you have the energy to tackle high-impact tasks.
4. Use Time Blocks: Allocate specific time blocks for different types of tasks. For instance, set aside morning hours for creative work and afternoons for meetings or administrative tasks. Working in time blocks help you stay focused and engaged on the topic rather than switching modes constantly and wasting time in between.
5. Delegate and Automate: Delegate low-priority tasks that don’t require your unique skills. Use automation tools to handle repetitive tasks, freeing up time for more strategic work. (More to come on this in part 3!)

Realigning Your Schedule

It’s time to realign your schedule. Use the insights from your time study and the Hi-Low Matrix to create your ideal daily and weekly schedule. After becoming aware of the changes necessary, the first step towards action is to do something different. Here’s how you can take the next steps.

Steps to Realign Your Schedule:

1. Plan Weekly: At the beginning of each week, review your priorities and schedule tasks that align with your high-impact goals. My weekly planning day is Sunday. Every week I review my schedule, tasks, unfinished business, and weekly goals.
2. Adjust Daily: Be flexible and adjust your daily schedule as needed. Sometimes, unexpected opportunities or challenges may arise that require a shift in priorities. Know that entrepreneurship provides you with ultimate flexibility, but you’re still responsible for getting to outcomes.
3. Reflect Regularly: Take time at the end of each week to reflect on what worked and what didn’t. Use these insights to continuously improve your time management strategies. Check in at the end of the week on the tasks that have become a priority for next week so you can strategize during your planning day.

Books and Resources for Realigning Your Time

We can all do better at making the most of our time. Two resources that will help you with this phase of your journey are…

• Atomic Habits by James Clear is an essential read to reformat the way your habits contribute towards your goals and vision.
• 12-Week Year by Brian Moran shows you how to create manageable goals all year.
• 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris gives real world examples of people who’ve reformated their lives and eliminated busy work.
• Pomodoro Technique practicing Pomodoro sprints are excellent for getting into a flow state during work.
• Dot Focus Pomorodo Timer is a great resource for counting both working and resting periods during Pomodoro sessions.

Conclusion and Stay Tuned for Part 3

Thanks to this blog series you know how to analyze your time, identify wasted activities, and align your energy with your most important tasks. We offer this approach as a way to align your energy with your goals while maintaining your well-being.

In the final part of this series, we’ll explore how to integrate automation and optimize your tech stack to streamline your work even further. You’ll also get a peek into how peer support and coaching can help in keeping you accountable for time management reformatting.

Time management is an ongoing journey. As an adaptable leader, keep your focus on the impact you want to make. See you in Part 3!