Time Management Tips # 11 - 30 Day Sprints

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Do you have something that you've been wanting to learn, but just don't have the time?  Do you have an area at work that you struggle with?  Do you dabble in too many things at once, and never make real progress?

Enter 30 Day Sprints.

Time management tip # 11 is 30 Day Sprints.  30 Day Sprints let you try something out for 30 days and make progress.  30 Day Sprints also give you a way to cycle through something new each month.   It’s a great way to embrace continuous learning.  Each month you can add something new to your portfolio of skills, so at the end of the day, you can have 12 big changes under your belt.

I adopted 30 Day Improvement Sprints several years ago to deal with a couple of challenges:

  1. I needed a way to really focus.
  2. I needed a way to make significant change.
  3. I needed a consistent way to make space for new things in my life.

What I learned is that committing to 30 days of improvement in a focused area, is easier to swallow than changing for life.  However, improving an area for 30 days, is actually life changing.

With 30 days, persistence and time are on my side.  It's a big enough time box that I can try different techniques, while building proficiency.  Using 30 days makes working through hurdles easier too.  A lot of the hurdles I hit in my first week, are gone by week 2.  Little improvements each day, add up quickly.  I look back on how many things I tried for a week and stopped thinking I hadn't made progress.  The trick was, I didn't get to week 2 or week 3 to see my results.

That last point is a big deal.  When you stick with something for more than two weeks, you get over the humps and hurdles that hold you back.  It's like chipping away at the stone, and sometimes the breakthroughs don't happen until you're a few weeks in.

This is also a powerful way to add habits or change a habit.  Why?  Because you can do something small today.  And tomorrow you can do another small thing.  You can keep little commitments with yourself.  You can glide your way into your habit, versus run out of steam.  If you’ve ever been gung-ho for a week, and then fizzled out, 30 Day Sprints can be your answer.

As we turn the page to a new month, pick a focus for the month, and make it your 30 Day Sprint.

In 30 Days of Getting Results, you can use the time management exercises to get exponential results on a daily and weekly basis.  You can also find more time management tips in my book, Getting Results the Agile Way, and on Getting Results.com

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