1. Your Time: Steering Your Direction
2. Your Schedule: Prioritizing Your Priorities
3. Your Productivity: Organizing Your Day
4. Your Green Time Zone (GTZ): Focus Time
5. Your Yellow Time Zone (YTZ): Flex Time
6. Your Red Time Zone (RTZ): Fill Time
7. Your Design: Applying Your Strengths
8. Your Calendar: Merging Your Time Zones
9. Your Goals: Signaling Your Intention
Acknowledgments
This book is a dream come true. I want to extend my deepest gratitude to the following:
My husbandDavid, for encouraging and supporting me, and most of all, for believing in me. I am beyond grateful that I get to do life with you.
My childrenAinsley, for being one of my best friends, always cheering me on, and gifting me my green tassel earrings; Connor, for your sweet compliments, timely advice, and serving as my go-to tech guy; and Berkley, for reminding me that life is meant to be full and fun and for sending me a life-giving text right when I needed it.
My parentsSteve and Janet, for your endless support and providing me with a firm foundation of faith, security, and love. You have both modeled to me how to prioritize and live life well.
My sistersHaley, for all you do behind the scenes for MWM (I couldnt keep pace without you); and Harmony, for inspiring me with your entrepreneurial spirit.
My friendsJulie, Jenny, Jill, Cristina, and Jena, for allowing me to share your stories and touching my life with your incredible kindness.
My editorAndrea Doering, for believing in me as a writer and giving me the opportunity to share my tips and tools.
My agentBlythe Daniel, for your advice, support, and most of all, for seeing my potential.
She Speaks (Proverbs 31 Ministries), Hope Writers, and The Open Door Sisterhood, for helping me realize my dream of becoming an author.
Introduction
The only reason for time is so that everything doesnt happen at once.
Albert Einstein
Are you blazing the corporate trail, feeling like you cant keep pace with the demands of both your career and your life? Are you attempting to balance home and work while also serving as an unpaid Uber driver for your children? Are you settling into a new season as an empty nester or a recent retiree, realizing you have more time than you ever dreamed of yet unsure how to best utilize this newfound freedom?
No matter your season, no matter your walk of life, no matter what time is requiring of youthis book is for you! If your desire is to maximize time and minimize stress , you are in the right place. Within the pages of this book, through stories and simple tools, youll learn how to make successful time management your reality. Its time to take back your time!
Take Back Your Time was born from my own personal and profound experiences of living through five unique seasons. When I refer to seasons, I am referring not to the seasons of the calendar year but to the various and significant chapters of my life: from working full-time as a businesswoman, to being a stay-at-home mom (three kids in five yearshello stress!), to homeschooling my three elementary-age children, to living abroad, and most recently to working as an entrepreneur and navigating the ever-changing road of parenting teenagers.
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.
Ecclesiastes 3:1
In each of these seasons, I have experienced in a variety of ways the crushing reality of how complicated it can be to manage time well. Additionally, as a professional organizer, I observe firsthand the daily struggles my clients experience as they attempt to organize, plan, and schedule their time.
Time management can seem like a complicated concept, which it is and it isnt. Time managements nickname is choices . And how you choose to spend your time is a reflection of your priorities. Your choices are the fabric of your life. The way you carefully or haphazardly navigate your daily decisions will, intentionally or unintentionally, ultimately define your life. What you do within your seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years will determine your ability to accomplish your goals, realize your dreams, and live out your purpose. Bottom line, how you approach your choices is the deciding factor between your days being either peace-filled or panic-filled.