Time Management Is Really Mind Management: The 4 Levels of Mind Before Minutes

You can watch my video by clicking on the graphic below or read my thoughts beneath it:

The time management philosophy that I preach is that time management is all about mind management. Because if you get in touch with how your brain operates, you’ll be able to make far better decisions about your time.

If you’re wondering how this can be done, I came up with a simple concept called Mind Before Minutes. That means pausing and thinking about how you need to use your time before you rush out and go do things.

Level 1 is priority determination. What are the most important things that you need to get done in your personal life and in your professional life?

Level 2 is your overall time distribution. That means making a conscious decision about where you want to put your efforts and how much time you want to put toward them.

Level 3 is overall task efficiency. Is there a way that you can be more efficient, not like a robot, but working with your brain instead of against it? That means batching like tasks together so that way your brain can get into a groove. It also means allowing your brain to become more aware of patterns, patterns of situations that tend to get you off track. That way you know what to avoid.

Level 4 is time estimation. Instead of just doing a random list of everything that you need to get done, also include time estimations, because far too many times we put way too much work on our to-do list when we don’t even have that much time in the day to get it done.

So those are the 4 steps that you can take in practicing Mind Before Minutes.

Want more practical strategies for making better decisions about your time? Check out The Inefficiency Assassin: Time Management Tactics for Working Smarter, Not Longer.