Time Management Ninja. Craig Jarrow

Live Your Life or You Won’t Have One

      Closing

      Manage Your Time, Manage Your Life

      Sources

      About the Author

Foreword

      Throughout my many years in the time management world, I have been fortunate to meet many productivity authors who have helped others reclaim their time and lives. However, few have been as passionate about living a simple and purposeful life as Craig.

      This book is about taking control of your life by better managing the time you have. It is about using the right tools to get the job done while reducing effort and stress. It is about using the right tools to find peace in life.

      Time Management Ninja draws from Craig’s platform of the same name, where for over ten years he has written about time management. His international readership appreciates his straightforward strategies and simple, laser focused, ninja-like solutions.

      This book teaches twenty-one tips which are designed to help you in your daily activities and planning. In many ways, this is the “missing” time management class that people wish they were taught in school. It also contains lessons to help guide you to achieve your goals and in living a purposeful life.

      Craig and I connected online many years ago, after I had seen his time management blog. Once we started corresponding, I learned that I had been a mentor to his efforts. He had been an avid follower of my time management teachings, and a big user of Franklin DayPlanners back in the day.

      I am honored to have been the source of much of his inspiration and have watched as Craig has grown his online brand and become a well-known expert in the productivity field.

      If you apply what you learn in Time Management Ninja, I promise you that Craig’s twenty-one tips will help you be better at managing your time and life. Whether that is to accomplish your life’s dreams or simply be more organized in your daily planning, this guide will allow you to get more done with less effort.

      Time is the only resource we don’t get more. I hope you follow Craig’s advice and spend yours wisely!

      Hyrum Smith

      Author of The 10 Natural Laws of

      Successful Time and Life Management

      and Purposeful Retirement

Introduction

      “I don’t have enough time.”

      “I am so tired from trying to catch up, I’ll never get ahead.”

      “I don’t get to the important things in my life because I am too busy.”

      Sound familiar? No, it’s not telepathy. As a time management ninja, I’ve heard this all before. But your fears are going to be conquered! Your training begins now.

      These days, our lives appear to be endless marathons of busyness. It feels like there is never enough time to get to what’s important, which means we have even less time to do what we actually enjoy!

      On top of that, you probably spend more time scrolling through dozens of perfect #beachday posts or “chilling with your phone” than getting work done with it. And even when you do finally try to get work done, it interrupts you many times an hour. (Or minute!) It’s sneaky1 when it does it, too, so when you innocently open up your screen time report, you’re taken aback. Yes, you actually did spend five hours on Facebook. What?!

      But you know this already. More than likely, you have already tried to better manage your time. You’ve scoured the app store, bookstore, and online for any semblance of hope, but instead found that most time management systems are way too complicated or simply don’t fit in with your routine and workload. So, you stopped using them almost as quickly as you picked them up. Delete, and then move on. It’s a vicious cycle. Meanwhile, your time is ticking away.

      If you are tired of always rushing, letting technology dominate your time, and procrastinating when you should be working…then this book is for you!

      The Time Crisis

      You are not alone in feeling that you don’t have enough time in your day.

      Everyone is too busy. In fact, our society is busier than ever.

      A recent study found that the average adult has just over four hours per week of free time. That is not much time at all to spend on personal tasks and goals. Yet, your whole life is made up of personal tasks and goals! Those are your dreams. How much time are you spending on them, on average? Four. Hours.

      It’s a dreary reality. No, we can’t deny it—there is a growing time crisis. Quite frankly, the lack of time in people’s personal lives has become an epidemic. People have less time to themselves. That means less time to do what’s important, whether that is to work on life goals or spend precious time with family and loved ones.

      Our modern daily lives consist of constant interruptions, notifications, and calls for our attention. We spend more of our days “plugged in” to streams of requests, information, and news than we do on the tasks that make us feel alive.

      If you are like most, you spend your entire day reacting to the stimuli around you. And when you do finally reach the end of your day, it often seems like you have accomplished nothing of consequence. No kidding. You have spent the whole day reacting instead of acting.

      It seems there is never any time to just think. Or to actually do what is important to you. Ultimately, it feels as though the world is in an ongoing battle for our attention. Our devices distract us dozens of times per hour, telling us about things that “just can’t wait.” Most people can’t go more than a minute or two without being interrupted.

      If you doubt this, I dare you to try the following experiment. What is the experiment, you ask? Paying attention. Right, seems easy enough. Well, what if I told you that most people will not make it to the end before their attention wanders or they receive an interruption? Not fazed? Feeling testy? Try it. I dare you.

      Take this seriously and concentrate.

      Slowly and deliberately count to ten. Take a breath between each number. And do nothing else. You only have to reach ten.

      How did it go? Most importantly, how far did you get before you got distracted? Before you remembered a task you urgently have to do? Someone you have to call? Felt the itch to be doing something?

      Chances are, you didn’t make it.

      Perhaps, your mind wandered to that task (really should get my dog washed before algae grows). Or your phone buzzed with a news notification (another escaped sea lion?). Or your email dinged to let you know of a new message (50% off all SALE items! Buy now! Please!).

      Doesn’t matter what specifically distracted you…the fact that you were is the point. We live in a world of endless diversions that keep us from being productive.

      It is truly a scary way to live. Yet…

      Technology Was Supposed to Make Things Easier!

      The searing irony of the time crisis is that we were supposed to have more time by now. The future was supposed to bring technology that would make our lives carefree and effortless. Technology was supposed to make us more productive. It was supposed to do the work for us. Gadgets, apps,