Forget “slay all day”. You only need an hour!
As you probably know by now, I love a good time management hack. Based on the feedback from the blogs I’ve written on this topic, it seems like you do, too. That’s why I’m happy to share a new one with you (drumroll, please) …
Assassin’s hour! Sounds kind of badass, doesn’t it? That’s because it is. Assassin’s hour is for all those important but little business details you need to get done; responding to an email, checking out a website, looking in on a social post, returning a phone call. Each of these tasks only takes a few minutes and that’s why, for me anyway, they usually don’t even merit the time it would take to write them on my calendar. And because they aren’t on my calendar, they just sit there in my brain waiting for me to remember to do them.
Assassin’s hour is a far superior (dare I say, “killer”?) system and it works like this: Make a list of all that cranial clutter – the multitude of must-dos and little, languishing details – and see how many of them you can delete in a single 60-minute session. It’s called assassin’s hour because you’re going to be ruthless, cutthroat, and laser focused, clearing all those bits off your desk and out of your brain. Whew!
Several of you have reached out to say you’re fans of timeboxing, which is my very favorite time management tool. If you missed that blog, you can find all the details right here. I use timeboxing about once a week and have started designating one of the boxes as an assassin’s hour. You guys, I promise you will get So. Much. Done! No more trying to remember, no more small bits bogging things down, just an hour of crossing things off one after another. Bet you feel lighter just thinking about it, don’t you?
A great tip is to keep a perpetual assassin’s hour list handy. Write down what you don’t want to forget and when your assassin’s hour rolls around you’ve got your marching orders ready to go. Your business will be better for it because you’ll have the time and space to focus on the big picture priorities that matter most. Here’s the best side benefit: If you have an appointment on your calendar called “Assassin’s Hour”, nobody is going to bother you.
Give it a try and let me know how it works for you!
