As a working mum you probably have a to do list that you plan to tackle on a daily basis.  However life gets in the way with one emergency or the other, so you abandon your important stuff to go put out the fire.

Most of what constitute as an emergency or urgencies are stuff that could either be:

• avoided (by making better choices upfront)
• deferred (by putting them off until it makes more sense to do them),
• or refused (by saying “No, this just doesn’t fit in with what I want from my life right now”).

Most of us mums complain about how there is so much to do yet so little time. Stuff like the day just went by…usually in most cases we let that happen.

How often have you started your day armed with your to do list only to find out at the end of the day that you only tackled maybe two things on it. I know that happens to me sometimes.

Well the issue is that we cave in to distractions and interruptions and then wondered where all the time went.

It is one thing to set a big goal for our lives; it is another thing to note on a daily basis if we are on or off track

So how can we stay on track?

Well, first figure out what your priorities are.

Priorities are the activities you do to make your goals happen.

We dream of goals, but we act on our priorities.

Your true priorities are the goals that get done first, and nothing should get in their way.

For example you may say as a mother family is your priority, but when faced with a choice between working overtime (for a promotion) or working sane hours so you can spend time with your kids, you would end up choosing one over the other depending on your value system.

On the other side, we may find out that we end up doing other things that are not on our priority list. We react to ‘things” rather than make a conscious decision on what we are doing on a daily basis.

These “things” we react to could be a phone call, an email, a person, a text message.

It’s as if we have been conditioned to respond to urgency with reaction rather than decisiveness.  Suddenly giving tasks that come in a sense of priority over what we were doing before.

Reaction vs Decisiveness

Reaction says- “answer the phone, someone needs something now”; even if you are in the middle of something important.

Decisiveness says “it’s important for me to stay on track with what I’m doing – I’ll call the person back in 15 minutes.”

For example, just this week while I was working on getting some work done, a text came in from a client who was having issues with some work I did for them.

My phone is usually on silent when I am working but somehow I forgot this time.

As soon as the text came in my very first reaction was to drop what I was doing and go solve it…but I took a deep breath, accessed the situation and knew it wasn’t critical.

I then told myself I would deal with it after I reached the time limit I set for myself to finish my work. That way I was able to stay on track.

Not to be harsh or anything, but the truth is the client won’t suddenly go into cardiac arrest because I didn’t attend to their text urgently. Neither would I.

Decisiveness is about telling incoming tasks to wait their turn unless they are so critically important they deserve your full, immediate attention.

A big time stealer

The mobile phone is one of the biggest time stealers of our time. The phone rings we rush to pick it up, a text comes in we rush to address it, an alert from Facebook comes in we get on Facebook and then get sidelined with what we were busy doing before. We all do it.

Would it cause much harm to attend to missed phone calls later so you can stay on track? Will it harm you if you put your phone ringer on silent? Ok if your business involves the use of the phone a lot then this won’t apply to  you.

Also you have to do this with caution and not start ignoring people who need you but you get the point. When you need to get your work done, put your phone away for that duration where appropriate.

Will it be so life threatening to tell a co-worker or child or neighbour “Can I get back to you in 15 minutes? I need to finish this up?” It may make you – and them – a little uncomfortable at first, but it will definitely help you stay on track.

At the very least, it will condition other people to respect your time and ask “Is this a good time?” when they need you to deal with a situation.

The key point I want you to get from here is that you need to develop the habit of resisting reaction so you can stick to your original priorities – you change them only by conscious decision, when it is the right thing to do.

Please note that I am not advocating being inflexible or set in your ways.

I for one know as a mother, life happens, interruptions will come in different shapes and sizes.

When they do, ask yourself, Is this new thing worth getting off track from my current priorities?

This will help you make a judgment call as to what to do and also allows you to be flexible in case you need to go deal with the new task at hand.

Out of mind is out of sight

Always have a list of your priorities in front of you on a daily basis. They say out of sight is out of mind.

Get a small note book or even an index card and write out the top 5 things you want to achieve for that day.  Keep it with you. Check the list 3 to 5 times a day and ask yourself “am I still on track?”

By simply doing this you will begin to make more conscious decisions during the day. Even if urgent interruptions come, you are able to get back to staying on track once you have dealt with them.

So how do you manage to stay on track on a daily basis? Please share in the comment section below.