Organize your time through color-coding

Maybe you think you have your work-life balance under control. If you color-coded your calendar according to how you divided your time, though, how would it look?

Wayne Cotton, CLU, a 46-year MDRT member from Lake Country, British Columbia, Canada, said he was able to counteract his workaholic tendencies by designing his calendar this way, increasing his focus at work and appreciation of time off. Now, on his color-coded calendar, he breaks time into 90-day intervals, which brings clarity to what can be a chaotic schedule.

Within each interval, this is how he breaks it down:

Mellow Yellow days. “These days are for your personal life. Schedule this time first, rather than trying to fit it in around your work. I made it a standard practice to allocate 180 days off each year since I created this process in the early 1980s.”

Blue Sky days. “These are strategy days used to work on your life and your business. You need some blue days at the beginning of each quarter to fine-tune your calendar, your strategy and your project plans for the next 90 days.”

Red Tape days. “Use these for education, training, industry meetings, cleanup, administrative tasks and minutia that must get done. A red day is not a revenue-generation day, nor is it a day off. I allocate one day a week and a few blocks of additional time each quarter for red days.”

Green Machine days. “Green stands for go and for money. On green days, you must focus on revenue generation. Here’s the scary part: When you balance your time allocations, there are a lot fewer green days than you might think. But take heart: Work expands or contracts to fill the time available for its completion. When you realize how little time you have, you must focus to accomplish your revenue goals in a more condensed period of time.”