Time Management: 7 Golden Rules for Golden Hours
We need reminders that everything we hope to do requires time and energy. Time management is the power to manage your schedule and your energy.
You have two or three golden hours every day. You get more done in your golden hours than you get done the rest of the day.
Do priority work when you’re at your best.
I can get lots done other times of the day, but my best hours are before breakfast.
Time management: 7 golden rules for golden hours
#1. Do impactful work.
Do big-rock work during your golden hours.
Fools spend time on busywork. If it’s not useful and meaningful, don’t do it. Better to check off one high-impact task a day than to spend one hour doing busywork.
#2. Organize before.
Choose peak-hour tasks before peak-time begins. Don’t waste peak performance time figuring out what to do.
#3. Narrow focus.
- Multitasking makes you stupid.
- Close your door.
- Don’t surf the Internet.
- Return calls later.
- Turn off email.
#4. Use maximizers.
Does classic rock fuel your jets? Turn up the volume.
I prefer a dark quiet room during my golden hours.
#5. Make time management social.
Everyone on the team needs to know and respect everyone’s golden-hour-time. Hang a do not disturb sign on your door.
Give everyone on your team permission to maximize golden hours.
#6. Schedule playtime.
Playfulness expresses our humanity. “Man only plays when he is in the fullest sense of the word a human being, and he is only fully a human being when he plays.” Friedrich Schiller
Surf the Internet when you feel like taking a nap, not when you’re bright eyed.
#7. Delete stuff.
Delete anything that’s older than two weeks from your to-do list.
How might leaders take time management to new levels?
Still curious:
Saturday Sage: A Playful Life Is a Better Life
sometimes when I go back to my to-do-list from month ago or quarter ago, I find something very interesting that had forgotten to pay the attention it deserves.
Thanks parizp. Interesting observation. It’s true that important work can slip through the cracks while we are taking care of urgent matters.
This is wonderful advice. I am curious about what you would suggest for those that aren’t able to schedule certain tasks at certain times. As a healthcare worker, there are busy and slower times, but it is unknown when each of those happen. In promoting a positive culture and getting the work done, what are some tips to maximize the positive energy?
I love that you asked this Sabrina, it is sometimes hard to keep a schedule in my area as well, scheduling time to be productive during a certain time of day is good in theory but actually working it into a demanding work day is very difficult.
Glad you brought this up, Sabrina. It’s not lost on me that many people can’t control their schedule.
If you are in leadership, it’s still worthwhile to help people identify and leverage their golden hours. It’s a matter of honoring people. When your in healthcare or a firefighter for example, it doesn’t matter when you are called, you answer.
The best I can say is, as much as possible respect your golden hours and leverage them for high priority work.
As a healthcare leader I love hearing we still need to respect the golden hour as much as possible. I think as healthcare leaders we need to be able to set better boundaries on our time and learn to say no or tell others if this is truly urgent then we need to reprioritize our must dos. As healthcare leaders we tend to just take more on and suffer in silence. Thank you for these ideas.
#7. Delete stuff.
Delete anything that’s older than two weeks from your to-do list.
This one kicked me hard in the pants! I have had things on my to-do list for many weeks… I either need to do them, or pass them on to someone else who can!
Thank you Dan!
Thanks Page. Many of us have a tendency to hang on to too many things. The problem is they keep adding up. It’s draining. I wish you well.
2 weeks TODOs – that is a hard bar to meet. Inspiring idea though. Reminds me of “Empty Inbox”.
On my kanban board I have some tasks from a year or more ago. Those do bother me when I look at them. Generally anything that’s not “about to be started or already in progress” bothers me recently – a constant mental weight.
I’ve considered simply moving the sticky notes that are not started to a different whiteboard on a wall that I don’t look at every day – that would remove the noise for sure, and the self-inflicted pressure … . I am having a FOMO moment about this though. To the point where I’m like “there are only 60 of them … hmm let me just make a big push to get them done – and I’ll be at a clear state, my ‘Empty Kanban’ state …”.
Am I just lying to myself? 🙂
You have my respect for your transparency. I’m with you, I can hang on to old todos. Perhaps, seeing it is enough right now. Change in these areas happens slowly. I wish you well.
Sometimes things are on my To-Do list, because I’m ready for them, but the team is not. Keeping them visible, to me, helps me prioritize what can be done today to prepare for that task, and to help the team become ready for it.
Hmm … that is a good point. My kanban is for my personal life. Work tasks are scheduled separately in an online system.
But I do have on my own board things that I track that need to happen, but are done by others (vendors, construction, garden upgrades, etc.). Perhaps those are just noise every day as I don’t control when exactly the work will happen. Yeah, I think I’m going to move those to a different location where I don’t see it as I walk in. A wall inside of the walk-in closet perhaps …
Thanks for this idea Apryle!
Great rules indeed, always a good reminder !
Thanks for the insights, we love this kind of article in our team, we also wrote on the subject and we’d love your feedback:
https://zenkit.com/en/blog/weve-started-checking-things-off-our-to-do-list/