In her book, Time Management From the Inside Out, Julie Morgenstern uses the 4Ds as tools for managing your to-do list. I have read many time management books; many have similar advice or strategies but I like her word choices best. They are easy to remember and descriptive. They are delete, delay, diminish and delegate. I wrote about delegation last time as a time management tool parents should use. This time I will cover the rest of the 4Ds.
Yes, I am suggesting (or blatantly tell you) that there are items on your to-do list that you don’t need to do, can put off or can simplify. Go ahead look at your to-do list.
Ask yourself these questions:
Is there anything on here that is redundant? Delete one of them.
Is there anything on there that has been on there for a long time? Why haven’t you done it? If it is truly important make a point to do it first. Doing the hardest task will make the rest of your list easier to do because you will feel well accomplished. But if it isn’t important as I suspect, then it clearly isn’t a priority for you, delete it.
What is the worst thing that would happen if I don’t do______? Can you live with that? If you answered yes, delete it. If you answered no, ask yourself do I need to do this today? No? Great! Delay it! Pull out your calendar and give it a day and time to do it. If it was yes, it needs to be done today then, do it now if it is under two minutes. Over two minutes? Give it a time later in the day.
Need to do something but don’t have time to do it the way you usually would? Diminish it! Your kid needs to bring food to school and told you while he/she was on his/her way to bed. You usually bake something but now don’t have time. It’s okay. Diminish it by buying something. Really the kids at school don’t care, food is food to them. Need to do a report at work but weren’t given adequate time? Diminish it by using a similar report and altering the details to fit this project.
Learn to live with it making these decisions. Often we (um moms) guilty ourselves into doing all kinds of extra, crazy, unbelievable work that we don’t need to do. Deleting something is fine if no one cares about it or no one will notice. Delaying is actually good if a task needs more time to be done well. Diminishing tasks is not cheating or laziness. I wouldn’t suggest diminishing every task but when needed it is fine. Sometime good enough is good enough.
There is loads more besides these 4Ds to good time management but these are a good start to living a little calmer.