How to Hack Your Time
“Productivity is less about what you do with your time, and more about how you run your mind.”
Recently in Female Lawyers’ Club, we were fortunate enough to have the wonderful Vikki Yaffe talk to us about “How to hack your time.”
Vikki is the Founder and CEO of Time Hackers. She’s a thought leader in the time and productivity space, and is a top 1% podcast host and public speaker.
I commented at the start of the session that, a lot of the time, we don’t necessarily have a time management issue – we just have too many things to do. I think this is particularly the case in the law where very often we can’t shortcut things: if we bill by the hour, we have to physically spend a fixed amount of time working on things in order for us to achieve our targets or get paid. How very 19th century!
With this in mind, Vikki encouraged us to look at time optimization rather than time management. This is about looking at when and how we are at our most productive, and seeking to proactively recreate those conditions more often in our lives. In that way, we can identify what we REALLY need to get done in a day, and optimise the conditions to make achieving those things far more likely.
When approaching a difficult task, it can help to ask ourselves questions such as:
When am I most productive? How can I recreate those conditions here and now? This may be when you can get on with your work quietly and without interruptions. Turning off notifications and alerts can help with this. I also like listening to white or brown noise to block out distractions.
How can I get this done quickly and easily?
What beliefs are we holding on to that are limiting our progress? For example, constantly repeating to yourself “I don’t have time” is unhelpful. More helpful can be asking yourself: what really needs to happen today?
Are there any skills I could develop that will help me get to where I want to be faster?
Is fear of getting things wrong slowing me down? Find evidence that you can get things done correctly and efficiently. Rewire your beliefs about yourself so that you approach a task without the heavy baggage of fear of failure.
How do I need to feel to get this task done straight away? For example: calm, assured, confident.
What thoughts will lead me to feel this way? For example: “I have done this before. I can get this done now.” “I believe in myself.” “I’ll feel great when I have completed this.” Things don’t always feel great when we’re doing them, so it can help to focus on how good you’ll feel when it’s done. How can you treat yourself when you’ve completed it? Can you watch your favourite programme or have a nice cup of tea?
What does the version of me that has completed the task want me to know? Our future self is often a lot kinder to ourselves than we are to ourselves in the present. For example, Future You may say “It’s really not as bad as you think. You can do this, and it won’t even take you that long!” Self-criticism is not going to lead to productivity! The number one time hack is self-trust. We can build self-trust by conditioning ourselves to believe that we can get things done well, and to find evidence that we have done so many times in the past. We should celebrate our wins regularly, no matter how small, as this rewires our brains to recognize our many successes.
When you join Female Lawyers’ Club, you gain instant access to a vault of incredible training sessions run by master coaches such as Vikki. Each masterclass has been handpicked to help members get the best results in their career without burning out. You can join Female Lawyers’ Club when we open the doors again in a couple of weeks. You can join our waitlist below.
Have a great day.
Rachel