My Secrets to Managing TIME as a BALLERINA and HARVARD graduate

Transcript

As someone who was a full-time ballerina and student at Harvard University, I’ve always had to look for ways to manage my time more effectively.

Before I was good at this, I would always scramble in between ballet classes or rehearsals, struggle to keep up with lectures or exams, and then by the end of the day, I’d be completely overwhelmed and exhausted… it was so hard to keep up cause I was all over the place.

But then over the years, I realized that in order for us to manage our time, we needed to change the way we think. All the time management books and apps alone don't help us see this transformative change that we´re looking for. It is the mindset that is important.

After 7 years of balancing this world of ballet and academics, I finally found certain mindsets and techniques that have helped me manage my time more effectively and get things done. So if you are someone who finds yourself wasting a lot of time and wants to change that, here are 3 tips that might help you manage your time more effectively.

The Power to Say No

The first and most important mindset you have to develop is the power to say no. You have to be crystal clear on your priorities. 

Life can get so busy sometimes that if you are saying yes to everything, you lack focus and you’re all over the place and obviously you can’t get things done. So you have to learn to say NO. And if you are not going to take control and say no, then other people will make those decisions for you and you will never get the chance to do what you really need to do or want to do. So the most important aspect of being a better time manager is to be selective. Whether it's your friend who wants to go out clubbing with you on a Wednesday night before an exam, or your boss calling you at midnight, just say NO, and set your boundaries. 

I remember this is the first thing that I learned on my first day of class at Harvard. The professor told us that Harvard will give us an unbelievable amount of work in the next years so we should be prepared. But she said, this is intentional. So that with the very limited time available, we learn how to prioritize who and what is important in our lives. And it was true, I would get like 3 or 4 hours of sleep because sometimes I had to read like 900 pages overnight, and at that time I thought, “This is ridiculous! Why so much work?” But now that I’ve graduated, I’m so grateful for this experience because it taught me a valuable lesson in life. As Steve Jobs said, “It’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.” Sometimes no matter what you do, some people are just not going to like you and you have to be okay with that. Time is limited so use it wisely.

Eisenhower Matrix

The second principle that helped me is the Eisenhower Matrix. This is a very easy method that will help you visually understand which tasks you should be focusing more on and which tasks to spend less time on. In case you’re not familiar with this, I’ll give you a brief explanation. There are just two categories:

• Urgent tasks

• Important tasks

Urgent and Important Tasks: You should do them first because these are tasks that need immediate attention and are important. These are your top priorities like crises and emergencies and deadlines. 

Important, but not Urgent: These are tasks that are important but can be scheduled for later. These are important stuff for the long-term like exercising, building quality relationships, or learning a new skill or language, which are all important but we tend to forget since they aren’t urgent so we need to schedule them not to forget.

Urgent, but Not Important Tasks: You should delegate these because these things are pressing but other people can also do that for you. These are like emails, you can have someone else write them for you. 

Not Urgent and Not Important Tasks: You shouldn’t be doing these at all because these tasks don't need immediate action nor contribute to your goals. These are basically time-wasting activities like going on Facebook or watching useless stuff, video games, etc.

Using this matrix, we can very easily understand which tasks to concentrate on (Q2) and which tasks to get rid of (Q4).

Adaptability

The third principle is adaptability. This means, that when things don't go our way; if there is a crisis or emergency or the bus is late, we have to be flexible and handle situations like that without getting upset or anxious.

In order to do that, you should always overschedule as in the “worst-case scenario.” What this means is that if I know a task will take 30 min, I’m not going to schedule it in my calendar as 30 min, I’ll schedule it as 1 hr. So that if something doesn't take as much time as I expected, I’ll feel like I gained some time and I can just go and relax and not be overwhelmed with pressure. This is good because it also helps with your well-being because it gives you the sense that you’re in control, you’re on top of everything.

You should also intentionally schedule a relaxing time for yourself. We tend to put our well-being at stake when we are busy but we need to realize that if our minds are cluttered, we can't work or think well and so we’ll be wasting time by not being as sharp and efficient as we could be. So go ahead and give yourself permission to relax.

Alright, so these are some of the tips and tricks that have helped me manage my time more effectively. I hope you found these tips helpful. And if you liked this video, check out my other video here where I discuss perfectionism, because it is also a very important concept that affects time management. Thanks for watching and I’ll see you in the next video! Bye bye.