<p>In this episode of SHRM’s Career Compass, host Kevin Abbed discuss time management, its importance in your professional life and how to do it well. He’s joined by guest Jazzmine Woodard. Jazzmine manages a number of employee resource groups focused on diversity and inclusion for the energy provider Embridge. She’s also got high standards for time management, noting that “You have the same 24 hours in a day as Beyonce…so I look at time management as trying to be more like Beyonce.” Listen to hear her show you the ins and outs of effective time management by helping you define your priorities and then learn the strategies of time blocking and savvy calendar management. Jazzmine also reflects on how effective time management has allowed her to have a richer personal life. </p><p> Subscribe to Career Compass on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn or wherever you listen to podcasts. Check out <a href="https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/Pages/Podcasts.aspx">SHRM.org/podcasts</a> to listen on your desktop. And be sure to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or on your podcatcher of choice.<br /> <br /> Keep up with SHRM by visiting the <a href="https://www.shrm.org/">website</a>, liking our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/societyforhumanresourcemanagement">Facebook</a> page, checking us out on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/shrm/">LinkedIn</a>, and following us on <a href="https://twitter.com/SHRM">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/shrmofficial/?hl=en">Instagram</a>.</p>
In this episode of SHRM’s Career Compass, host Kevin Abbed discuss time management, its importance in your professional life and how to do it well. He’s joined by guest Jazzmine Woodard. Jazzmine manages a number of employee resource groups focused on diversity and inclusion for the energy provider Embridge. She’s also got high standards for time management, noting that “You have the same 24 hours in a day as Beyonce…so I look at time management as trying to be more like Beyonce.” Listen to hear her show you the ins and outs of effective time management by helping you define your priorities and then learn the strategies of time blocking and savvy calendar management. Jazzmine also reflects on how effective time management has allowed her to have a richer personal life.
Subscribe to Career Compass on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn or wherever you listen to podcasts. Check out SHRM.org/podcasts to listen on your desktop. And be sure to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or on your podcatcher of choice.
Keep up with SHRM by visiting the website, liking our Facebook page, checking us out on LinkedIn, and following us on Twitter and Instagram.
Misha Adams:
I'm Misha Adams.
Kevin Abbed:
And I'm Kevin Abbed. And welcome to Career Compass, the podcast from the Society for Human Resource Management, where we provide you with the guidance on getting that first job and what to do when you have.
Misha Adams:
We're doing that by bringing you conversations we've recorded with HR professionals on a number of career oriented topics that are applicable to every stage of your career journey, so get excited because we're about to dive into this week's episode. Hi, everyone. I'm Misha.
Kevin Abbed:
And I'm Kevin.
Misha Adams:
And welcome to another episode of Career Compass. Today's episode is about time management. Time management is important at any job. You'll have work to do, and it's kind of meta, but making sure you've got the time to do it is, well, part of the work. Kevin, how good would you say you are at time management?
Kevin Abbed:
Misha, I'm going to say I'm pretty good. I have definitely come a long way from where I started with time management. College helped a lot, maturing, I feel like helped a lot in me managing my time. And I guess, being on my own where I had to manage my own time played a big role in that. What about yourself?
Misha Adams:
Got it. So you're a pro now. I would honestly say that I am somewhere in the space of pretty good, still developing and a lot better than where I started from. So I'm really excited about today's conversation because I can think back to times where I was writing a paper really late at night, and not sleeping when I knew I had a few weeks to do it beforehand or just times where I've said, "Yes, I'll absolutely have that to you by close of business," and that time came and went. So I'm really excited to jump in and talk a little bit more about it.
Kevin Abbed:
Okay. Misha, do you have any time management hacks that you would suggest to our listeners or that you use in your day to day life?
Misha Adams:
Ooh, time management hacks. That's very exciting that you ask that because I do. So I have one in particular that I stand by for, I guess I would say, that leans a little bit more towards my personal time. And that's not to say that my personal time and my work time are exclusive of each other. They're actually quite intertwined, but I actually start first thing in the morning with my Panda Planner, so that's a hard copy resource. It's a literal planner, so it's divided up into month, week and day. So it's really helpful for goal setting, and then there's also a section for tasks, so I think about it in terms of, there's sections for, what are you grateful for? What have you learned? And then it breaks down into some of the things that you need to do during the day.
But then when I go to the office, the first thing I do is, I break out my Todoist, so you can access that online. You can access that via the app. That's really helpful for me because I can categorize things by subject, project, I can add labels. And then there's that really satisfying element of being able to check the box and be like, boom, I did it. It's done, and so I really use that. And then I think my last hack would be I live by my calendar, and I used to actually laugh when people said that in a former life, but if there's somewhere I need to be or something I need to do, no matter what area of my life it's coming from, it lives in my calendar. My calendar is essential for basically telling me where to go, and even if it's a situation where I don't have a meeting, but I need time to get there or something like, that goes in the calendar. I pretty much live by it. What about you, Kevin?
Kevin Abbed:
Well, let me just bounce off what you said. I like what you said about the work life integration, where it's more of maintaining that symbiotic relationship in order to increase performance in all aspects of your life. One thing that I like to do is one, I do also use Todoist, no free ads, but I highly request it to anyone who's looking for a good daily planner. I like to block out certain things on my calendar, so not just if I have appointments or if I have meetings, but I like to block out time to work on certain things where say, if I want to do one project from 2:00 to 3:30.
Once it's 3:31, I'm onto the next thing, no matter where I'm at in the project. If I'm halfway through or if I'm completed, I move on to the next thing, so I'm not just bogged down in the details on one thing, and I can make progress on everything I'm working on. Again, utilizing your calendar. My calendar also controls my life. It's like having a digital assistant sometimes just telling me where I need to be constantly, so that strikes a chord with me.
Misha Adams:
Time management isn't just about work. Time management also applies to what happens after you're done with work, and that involves a little bit of self-awareness. There are definitely times where if you are working tirelessly at something and definitely putting in a lot of hours and effort, you need a break. And being able to really self-assess and know when that's critical to help rejuvenate you and make you ready to go out and conquer, that's also important to know as well. So in a sense, time management is also a critical part of your self care.
Kevin Abbed:
Today's interview was with my good friend, Jazzmine, where I personally learned a ton of new time management hacks I never even thought about from my short conversation with Jazzmine. One thing she talked about that really resonated with me was goal setting and not just goal setting in general, but setting short term and long term goals of things to focus on now, but also things that are coming up ahead. So this was actually an interview I did without Misha, so it was interesting. There were some bumps on the row, but we got through it. So here's Jazzmine.
Misha Adams:
Fantastic.
Kevin Abbed:
What's going on, everyone. We're here with Jazzmine Woodard. Jazzmine comes to us from the great State of Texas, actually from downtown Houston. Today, she's going to be giving us some helpful tips and tricks about time management. Jazzmine, why don't you start by telling us about your current role and then we'll dig into some time management?
Jazzmine Woodard:
Sure. So I'm currently an Advisor in Diversity, Inclusion and Talent Acquisition Strategy at an energy company, so that means that I help manage a portfolio of employee resource group. So that's things based around gender, sexual orientation, disability status and other groups that people might identify with within our company. I help set the strategy for the external organizations that we engage with to help build a diverse and inclusive workplace and ensure that we're representative and helping the communities in which our company operates.
Kevin Abbed:
So today you're talking with us about time management. I know time management is a big problem for a lot of people. There are only 24 hours in a day, and for most of us we have jobs, hobbies or just other extracurriculars. So sometimes it's hard to manage our time well.
Jazzmine Woodard:
Yep. And then there's that saying that you have the same 24 hours a day as Beyonce, but it's a little misleading because Beyonce has a lot more resources than the average person to make all the amazing things she does happen, so I look at time management as trying to be more like Beyonce.
Kevin Abbed:
I think everyone could learn a little bit from being like Beyonce. So just basics, what are some small daily practices like everyday things that a person like me could implement to better manage my time?
Jazzmine Woodard:
So I think the first step in effective time management is defining your priorities, so what's important to you because your schedule should naturally flow from that. A lot of times we get caught up in all the things we feel like we should be doing or maybe that have been externally imposed upon us, and the things that we are really passionate about or really want to get off the ground take a backseat because there's nowhere to fit them into our schedules. So if you take a little bit of time at the beginning of every year, month, week even at the beginning of each day to think about what do I want to get done, what's important for me to do. And then the day to day actions that are going to support that and be in alignment with that.
For example, if it's important to you to get or be physically fit then you're going to want to prioritize time to work out and time to eat well, and so if you start by building the important things to you, into your schedule and then fill in everything else around that, you'll be more satisfied with what you're able to get out of each day, and you'll feel like you're managing your time well as opposed to trying to find time and stay up late and allocate really finite resources to what you want to do after you've already spent it on everything else.
Kevin Abbed:
Right. I think a little bit of it is actually taking the time to manage your time with even if it's a Sunday night before you go to bed before you start the week. Just sitting down and writing the things you have to do that week, prioritizing what you need to do whether that be for your work or your personal life to things that you actually really want to do or the things that you're passionate about. Do you have any of these, people call them today, hacks, I'm doing air quotes here for people who can't see me, that help you know, manage your time?
Jazzmine Woodard:
Yes, absolutely. So time blocking is a really big one for me, especially working in an organization where other people can see your Outlook calendar or your availability and want to capitalize on that and eat up all your time with things that they'd like you to do or what their priorities are. So even if I'm not necessarily engaged in a specific meeting or conference call, for example, I will still block out times of the day that are designated as do not disturb or titled with whatever project I'm focusing on at that moment to ensure that again, I don't get to the end of the day, burnt out and scrambling to find time to do the things that I told myself were important and set an intention to do instead I'm building in time to do those things and work on those things and then letting everything else fill in around it.
Kevin Abbed:
No, I definitely agree. I do like that tip of blocking out your Outlook calendar for things that maybe aren't meetings or general work things, but giving yourself the time to decompress throughout the day and take a look at where you're at in the day and what you've accomplished and things that you need to prioritize. I think that's a good tip.
Jazzmine Woodard:
And even with your own, like my iPhone calendar, I manage that the same way I do my Outlook calendar. No one else can see that, but I have to keep myself accountable too and set up alerts and reminders and times where I know I need to be working on things. At the end of the day, you may not always get everything done, but you'll at least know that you've set yourself up for success to get most things done.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah. And I think if you set yourself up for some of those things that you don't think you have the time for, you're a lot more likely to do it whether it's putting it in your Outlook calendar. One thing that I picked up recently is I was having trouble finding time to work out throughout the day since you're at work all day and you go home and all you want to do is eat and maybe watch some TV and go to bed and restart the day. So I've started going to the gym in the morning, but to get myself to do that, I have to set all my clothes out and shoes by my desk or I know that if I just wake up and I'm like, "Oh, I have to go get all this stuff ready," I'm probably not going to do it.
But if I know that I've already prepared myself and packed all my stuff for work, packed my workout clothes, I'm a lot more likely to do it because I took that time to manage my time and manage my schedule. What resources do you personally think are particularly helpful in learning skills of time management whether that be apps or, I know a lot of YouTube channels do those life hacks and DIY things to streamline your day to day life?
Jazzmine Woodard:
Yeah. So I think there are a ton of resources out there, and it really just depends on again, what you prioritize as being important to you. So workout apps and hacks related to that aren't maybe going to be as important to someone who already has that piece down and that's second nature to them. They're never going to miss a run or a CrossFit session or whatever. However, they might struggle with actually finding or rather making the time to balance their checkbook.
I don't even know if people still do that, but taking care of matters related to finance, for example, so then you'll want to look for those financial resources, automating your savings. We were talking about other podcasts that we listen to earlier like the Suze Orman, Women and Money Podcast, for example, might be something that you want to give a listen if you're trying to figure out how to manage and prioritize your financial health. Wellness, professional success, SHRM is a good one for that. The SHRM website has a wealth of resources that we don't always take the time to tap into and look for, but they're definitely out there.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah. And I think a lot of times, especially when you're still in college and even in high school, you're learning a lot of the technical portions of what you're going to be doing in your career, but you don't take the time to learn the things like you said, of balancing a checkbook or personal finance and health management. I know I took a class on the Math of Money just so I could learn about interest rates, the different types of IRA, savings account. Just things that I personally knew as a weakness and something that I knew that if I took the time to learn about it would be beneficial to my life, in general.
Jazzmine Woodard:
Yeah. And I think many companies too can serve as a resource, so if you look into the benefits provided by your employer, like an employee assistance program, lots of companies have partnerships with financial firms to help their employees become knowledgeable about managing their finances and things like that because those are things that take away from your focus at work if you're stressed about how you're going to pay your bills or X, Y, Z. So of course, companies want to and should be invested in their employee's financial success as well because it all comes back to the workplace. We don't really turn those things off when we walk through the door.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah. And it's SHRM's tagline of, better workplaces, better world, where your day to day life at work will in fact, affect you as a person and affect how you interact with others and it's our thing to make the world a better place, and you have to be in the right mindset yourself to be able to accomplish something that large. One thing I did like, how you talked about prioritizing certain things, maybe that you're not the best at, but your weaknesses because I think it's very easy for people to focus on the things they're good at and say, "Okay, every day I'm going to go and do X, Y, or Z." But it's harder for someone to go, "Oh, you know what? Maybe I don't want fill out this report or this small thing that I'm not really good at, but it's something that is a big decider in my life," so I really liked that connection there. How do you think time management has served you in your professional and personal life so far?
Jazzmine Woodard:
So really time management has allowed me to have professional and personal life. I would say outside of my corporate career, I also run a food and lifestyle blog. I'm involved in a number of community organizations. I work out at least three or four times a week and I have family and a social life, and so those are lots of different hats to wear and being able to effectively parcel out my time to things and know when I need to dial back in one area and maybe ramp up in another has been key to me being able to get the most out of each thing I do and be truly successful.
Everyone defines success on their own terms, but I would say that part of that is being able to do the things you enjoy and learn and grow, and time management has definitely empowered me to do that. Calendar blocking whether it's in my Outlook calendar or my personal cell phone calendar allow me to effectively scan my days and weeks and know when I need to be putting more time into one thing over another, and where I might have opportunities to even add something else to the mix.
Kevin Abbed:
Right. And I like going back to what you said earlier about the importance of having a work-life balance. I think a lot of people are workaholics, and that it can take a toll on you physically and mentally. I mean, studies have shown that people who just spend all their time working have managed to lack in other portions of their life which has an overall effect on you and can in fact, affect your career.
Jazzmine Woodard:
Yeah. And if you think about it, where you invest your time is that's truly what you value whether you realize it or not, so you might be unintentionally putting your all into some project that may not be fulfilling to you, but is something that you feel like you're supposed to be doing or you don't know how to effectively push back and guard your time against the expectations of other people, so you are placing that as the number one priority in your life because you're giving it all your time.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah. And it's like the stock market, investing in yourself but where you actually have control of what happens there whether your own stock or your own brand goes up or down, that's determined on how you are in your day to day life, and especially time management attributing to that. Do you think there are any time management mistakes that you see young professionals making every day or just, in general?
Jazzmine Woodard:
Oh, for sure. And I think it's something that maybe not even only young professionals make, but I know within my own experience. In college, I had two majors. I was really active in my sorority and dance, a number of pre-professional associations, and I had two jobs for most of that time. And I thought I was really good at time management, and I wasn't even nearly. One thing that we hear a lot, especially in this current multi hyphenate type of era is that you should multitask and you should be able to do 2, 3, 4 things at once. But multitasking is actually not a good way, not an effective way to manage your time because you can't truly focus on more than one thing at a time. What I found to better serve me and to help me truly excel in multiple areas is to devote time, dedicated time to specific things and focus only on those things within that time, so you're giving it all your attention.
You're less likely to make mistakes. If you're trying to write a paper and watch something on Netflix and babysit, the kids are probably going to get out the front door, you're not going to know what was going on in the television show and your paper's going to be riddled with mistakes. Versus if you have dedicated time to each of those three things, you're going to be able to do each one well if you don't really let your mind wander. Now, everyone has competing priorities and lots of things going on that may crunch their time and they feel like they don't have enough, but again, if you go back to that prioritization piece and start with what's most important, your schedule will figure itself out from there.
Kevin Abbed:
Right. So giving yourself hard stops throughout the day whether you're working on a project and even if you're not completed with it, if you have the opportunity that it's something you can do later, putting a pause on that and going onto something else so you're not just, "Oh, I'm doing this one project, but I'm actually thinking about what I have to do next," and compartmentalizing these each individual portions of our day and focusing on that throughout the time.
Jazzmine Woodard:
Yeah. And it can be difficult because, especially we have our cell phones pretty much like surgically implanted in our hands at almost all times and you're getting nearly constant notifications, so your attention might be on one thing, but then you get an alert that takes it to something else or you get a phone call or someone knocks at your door. So you also have to be really intentional about guarding your own time, not just against people, but against technology really which people are on the other end of that. So putting your phone on do not disturb or silencing certain notifications for a period of time, doing whatever it takes to allow you to truly focus and plug into whatever it is that you're supposed to be doing because everything else will always be there.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah, that's the positives and negatives of technology. We came full circle with calendar apps and timing apps where you're capable of managing your time down to the second to also... I know for me, I mean, my phone has now become an extension of my arm where it's always on me, and I'm always prepared to answer emails or texts. So we're getting to that point in the world where you're always accessible which can be a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing. Well, thank you very much for coming on. It was a pleasure to have you [inaudible 00:21:26]-
Jazzmine Woodard:
Yeah, it's good to be here.
Kevin Abbed:
... some very valuable insight that I think our listeners can attribute to their day to day lives.
Jazzmine Woodard:
Thank you. I hope it was helpful.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah, it really was.
Misha Adams:
And that's going to do it for this episode of Career Compass. Thanks for listening. Before we get out of here, I want to encourage everyone to subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, wherever you listen to podcasts. And while you're at it, be sure to give us a five star rating and leave a review.
Kevin Abbed:
Also, be sure to check out SHRM on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and you can find all of our episodes and more podcasts on our website at shrm.org/podcast. Thanks for listening. And we'll catch you next time on Career Compass.