No Time Tara

Let’s call my client Tara, so we protect her real name. She feels she has no time to do the things she really wants to do in life. She actually hired me to coach her to become more productive and I had to shift her thinking before I agreed to coach her that it really isn’t about greater productivity, it is about creating more space.

Tara has been so busy in her executive career that she has missed out on so much of her life. She has all the books and tapes on time management and has taken seminar after seminar on this, but she says she still can’t manage time.

I say time is something you don’t manage. So today, we began exploring concepts around time, in her coaching session. She read me lists of to do’s she needed to get done and I did tell her something I say to audiences when I speak to them… “When all your to do’s are done that is because you will be to-done… in the grave”. We never finish.

After I heard the list of tasks I shared a coaching tip to have her schedule all her personal to do’s for one block of time. She picked Saturdays. Then, I had her pick a fun thing to do to reward herself when the tasks were done. Tara picked getting some water ice (which she adores!) and sitting outside on the bench enjoying it.

Next, as we looked at the tasks there were so many. Instead we paired them down to “If I were leaving the planet in the morning, what would HAVE to be done?” The list got smaller and she felt better.

Then we had some real fun. I challenged her to see what she could delegate from the list. She came up with hiring someone to cook meals, having groceries delivered, the lawn being mowed by a neighbor’s daughter, shopping on the Internet more, paying her bills on line, getting someone to clean her house and hiring an organizer to help her straighten up her office at work. She also decided to use the dry cleaner who comes to her office at work vs. stopping to drop off and pick up her clothes.

And then we made a list of 100 things she wanted to do before she left the planet and she is going to do at least 1-2 a week.

She changed her focus from getting stuff done to living her life now, as tomorrow we may not be on this planet.

She left the call lighter, freer and happier.

I just love coaching others and seeing how they learn a new dance that creates more joy in their life.

If you want to coach folks, like I do, I invite you to join a great free call. You can register at:
http://www.coachinstitute.com/coachinginstituteorientation.htm