Time Management Strategies - Using A Simple Visualization To Set Boundaries To Protect Your Time

Time management tips truly give you new power over your life, if you are willing to take risks to set new boundaries. Maintaining time boundaries reinforces your time management strategies. Remember that without successful boundaries, you simply cannot protect even the best schedule.

When you successfully maintain your time boundaries you may feel like you are saying "no" more often than "yes." But the reality is that each time your "no" supports a time boundary, you are actually saying "yes" to the things that are most important to you!

If you say yes to everything, your day will be overflowing - but what's most important to you may be lost in the shuffle. It will be filled with a mishmash of crisis demands, interruptions, distractions, and other people's needs. Your own goals might be pushed out of reach. And no matter how desperately you push to catch up, you may fail to retrieve what matters most to you. What happens to your time and your temper when this occurs? And what happens to your relationships with coworkers, friends, and family?

On the other hand, when you exercise your power to choose and maintain your time boundaries, you let go of needless stress and frustration. Your "no" in the moment creates the possibility of many "yesses" as you apply your energies toward the things you value and the dreams you want to achieve!

To create a supportive environment to set boundaries for your upcoming day, try this short visualization:

How to Cultivate Your Garden of Time: A Short Visualization

Picture yourself tending your garden. As any gardener knows, if the weeds are left to their own devices they will choke out the plants that you are trying to nurture. Now envision the day ahead of you as a landscape you are cultivating.

Where are the activities that create meaning and flow in your life? Those are the gardens of intentionality. They provide color, clear pathways, and refreshing shade.

Where are the weeds and thickets that interfere with your progress? These are the areas where you must do your spadework.

Creating and maintaining time boundaries is a lot like weeding. It gives your dreams a chance to flourish! Same as you leave breathing room around your prized flowers to help them thrive, you do everything possible to leave open space in your day to make sure that you find time for your top priorities.

Establishing new boundaries, like weeding, can begin anywhere, and needs to be maintained. You might choose to start with the "time weeds" that threaten to take over your favorite times of day, or with those that are easiest to omit from your schedule. Follow your intuition, and take a few moments to appreciate how helpful each new boundary is. Every success will help you reclaim more territory.

The very act of creating and maintaining boundaries generates a dramatic shift of power in your life. You will be able to feel it. The more you look to yourself to make your day work, the more confidence you feel. Looking to yourself, not others to safeguard your plans gives you independence to say to to others' unwanted demands. You create an upward spiral of personal effectiveness!

Your relationships also benefit. The more you rely on yourself, the less other people will frustrate you, and the less you will attempt to control others. You enjoy more ease and appreciation, and others respond to your new openness. The more pleasure you find in the garden of your day, the deeper your enjoyment when you can invite others in.

So, what additional time tools do you need to cultivate your dreams and make the most of your time?

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