Episode description

Hey there friend, today I want to talk to you about a simple tool that will help you take action and avoid procrastination, not to mention also reduce overwhelm…. And it is called time stamp.

What is a time stamp. 

In this case time stamping, as it relates to time management, is when you estimate how much time you believe it’ll take you to do something. Let’s say you’ve written your to-do list ( I’ll share more about in a later episode why I don’t keep a running to-do list rather I use calendar blocking) but when you first write your to-do list and you see all the things you need to get done it can be overwhelming and sometimes your brain thinks that a task will take much longer than it actual will which causes you to procrastinate and not take action. You avoid doing it and say “I’ll get to that later.”

The benefit? By estimating how much time it will take you to do a specific task helps in a couple of different ways. 

• It helps reduce overwhelm
• Inspires action

It helps reduce overwhelm because instead of your brain’s default thinking “it’ll take all day to do something” you ask yourself, “how much time will this actually take? One hour, two hours?” When you actually provide a time stamp it allows for your brain to calm down and not go into overwhelm. There may be things you procrastinate doing because you think it’ll take much longer than it actually will. 

When you estimate the time it’ll take to do something you want to avoid giving yourself too much time because when you have too much time it can allow for your focus to drift and find distractions but you always want to allow yourself just enough time to not feel rushed doing the said task.

I remember one year I kept procrastinating doing my taxes because in my mind if I didn’t have an entire day uninterrupted there was no way I’d be able to get them done. When in reality I asked myself “How much time do I really need to do taxes?”

Time stamps inspire action. 

When you’re not in a state of overwhelm and you can see a path forward, you’re more likely to get into action. 

If you’re not already in the habit of using time stamps, I encourage you to practice using the tool for the next week. Take a picture and tag me over on Instagram @attentionaudit. I’d love to see you use it in action!

Until next week, take care my friend!