Time Management Strategies for Success

I had the great pleasure to record a podcast with the AMAZING Lisa Mallis of Impactive Strategies. I’ve known Lisa for several years through the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO). I instantly liked her! She has an incredible personality and an infectious laugh. When you speak with her, she looks directly at you — engaged in every word. Truthfully, she makes me feel like I’m the most important person in the room when we’re hanging out. But what I really love about her is her ability to “dig deeper” (as she calls it) when you’re talking about time management issues and how to solve them. She really gets to the heart of the matter in just a few questions.

Seek Lisa out if you’re struggling with time management issues or if you need to tweak what you’re currently doing. She is a time strategist, certified coach, trainer, and facilitator; and is nationally recognized for providing practical solutions to everyday productivity challenges. To put it in blunt terms…  she’s damn good at what she does!!

Did my time management strategies work efficiently?

In February 2021 I did Lisa’s Guess Your Productivity Bottleneck in 3 questions or less. It’s recorded here: https://youtu.be/8IyMx3aVEY. It’s amazing how one little tweak from that conversation became the catalyst for so much more. It started with us talking about managing conflicting priorities, which I thought was the issue. In actuality it ended up being something different and the solution was easy to implement. Watch and you’ll see what I mean.

This is what laid the groundwork for this podcast, and in it we talk about time management, productivity, and organizational tips and hacks to help create what Lisa calls the 25th hour. We also discuss the perks of paper planners (one of my fav things), why you should give yourself grace when you just can’t manage to get EVERYTHING done, and how to play to your strengths. You won’t want to miss this episode!

Here’s a preview to what we discuss. Be sure to watch the entire podcast to see the context of the highlights.

•  Grace that not everything will get done – “I think the biggest thing is that I’ve given myself grace that, some days, I’m just going to get the end of the day, and that list is still going to be there.”
• Using Paper Planners – “I have different planners and different sections within each one – and they all serve different purposes. So I know where to focus my time based on planner and priority and type of task.”
• White space for emergencies – “I make sure that there’s space in my calendar so I’m not putting everything on top of each other and checking emails from 8am-8pm. I make sure there’s space for emergencies.”
• Delegating – “I learned through delegating to my VP of business operations that it doesn’t take me as long as I think it does to pass along tasks. I was worried about overburdening them because that’s how mistakes happen, but it turns out they have the bandwidth to do it and they like the new responsibilities.”

How I like to spend my 25th Hour

The time I gained from working with Lisa — my 25th hour — has given me the opportunity to have time to be creative. As I said in the podcast- “I think the most important thing is that having that space allows me the opportunity to choose – but I have been doing a lot more creative things. It allows me to use a side of my brain that I don’t get to use every day because accounting is definitely not creative. So that extra hour has given me more space to create.” My job is primarily analytical. There’s really no opportunity to create when dealing with business operations activities. However, my background is also artistic. My degree is in musical theatre and in my first business I did marketing communications designs, some graphic design (logos), and business graphics for proposals. Now I have time to create using graphics software, watercolors, and markers. I’m LOVING it!!

Check out the video (link is below). I’d love to hear what you think so leave me a comment either below or on the video page. And please subscribe to my channel. I appreciate your support!!

Resources Referenced

• Paper planners: In the podcast I talk about how I use Erin Condren paper planners to stay organized. They are available at https://www.erincondren.com/referral/invite/dianadibble/1. This is my referral link and by creating an account you will receive $10 off your next order.
• NAWBO: Information on NAWBO and the benefits of membership is available at https://www.nawbo.org.​
• The Bottleneck episode that I did with Lisa – https://youtu.be/8IyMx3aVEYk.

Also make sure to subscribe to Lisa’s 25th Hour Podcasts channel for other golden nuggets of wisdom – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqDKi2dg8WMkXRNZ9JyPwgQ. If you’re ready to accomplish more while working less, make sure to check out Lisa’s Delegate Like a Pro Master Series: www.DelegateLikeAPro.com.