Introduction

Spinning Plates Methodology | 7-Steps Perfect Time Management System.

I have never found time management at all easy. I have struggled a lot over the years to manage my time and achieve my goals.

I’ve used most of the well-known time management tools: ‘To Do’ Lists, paper, and electronic calendars, schedulers, Filofaxes (remember those!), and even a pocket organizer that I used to record my deadlines, tasks and add reminders. But nothing worked well until I read Steven Covey’s book ‘First Things First.’

In it, he presented the magical concept for time management: the time management matrix (which originally based on Eisenhower Matrix).

Actually, at first, it was great for me. I started to achieve my top goals on time, but over time, I had more and more things that I needed to get done in different aspects of my life.

When I tried to prioritize them, I realized that they were all of similar importance to me, so the time management matrix didn’t really help me.

Over time, I began to find that I could not distinguish the level of priority of tasks in different areas of my life.

How is a person supposed to choose between either working on a multi-million dollar a work project or building a relationship with their child, given that the work project provides

the home for that child, but there is no point working for your family if you don’t build relationships with them?.

I asked myself one question, “what is important?”.

It was not easy to figure out the answer; however, it leads me to use negative risk in the new concept I built, SPM, so the right question, I suppose, what is the impact on my life if I failed in (…) task?, Where (…) sands for work, family, or any other activity in your life.

Form this question it starts to find out more questions and more answers, the main answer was the 7-Steps time management system, which worked with me perfectly in work and life.

I brief it here below, and I am happy to receive your questions, concerns, and critics in the comments below to clarify them all.

Spinning Plates Methodology: 7-Steps Perfect Time Management System

Step 1 “Count and Name”:

Work out how many key plates (tasks) you have in your life, What you want to do with each one, and give each of them a clear label, such as: Family, Work, Hobbies, etc. These are your current and future spin plates.

Step 2: “Size”:

How big is each plate? This depends on how many activities (or kernels) are related to this task. In other words, how many kernels (activities) will this plate need to carry?

Step 3 “Rate YOUR Plate”:

Determine how much of a negative impact on your life would it have if this plate fell to the floor.

Categorize them as high, medium, or low impact.

Now that you know how big each plate is and how much it could impact your life, you will want to make your list of current spin plates… It will be impossible to keep them all spinning so, you will want to create a future spin pile.

Step 4 “Set Up Your Sticks”:

Decide which sticks you will place your ‘Current Spin’ plates on. Consider the extent to which you want to keep them close to one another – or further apart (so they don’t affect one another if one falls).

Typically, you will want to place the higher impact plates together at the center and lower impact plates out on the periphery. This will make it easier for you to reach across to give the high impact plates a quick spin whenever your focus is on any of the lower impact plates.

Once you think through the configuration of your plates, you need to choose then a unit of time that suits your rhythm for plate spin management (minutes, hours, weeks, months, etc.).

 Step 5 “Take Up and Spin”:

Since you are new to SPM, you should start spinning the lowest impact plates (if you are an experienced user of SPM, you may start with the highest impact plate or any plate you want). Place your plates on the tips of the sticks and spin them. If you can comfortably manage, you can take up the next highest impact plate from your ‘Current Spins’ list and spin it. Redo this until you spin all the plates in your “current spin” list.

For example, take up hobbies (the lowest impact plate) and place it on top of a stick far out on the periphery until you feel more experienced spinning your plates. Then pick the friends’ plate (a higher impact plate) and place it on top of the stick and spin it. Redo this until you place all your “current spin” plates up on sticks, and they are spinning.

Step 6 “Focus and Decide”:

Focus on keeping all your ‘Current Spin’ plates spinning (with no more wobble than you can comfortably handle) until you have completed the task(s) that a plate represents and are ready to take that plate off the stick (Step 7).

If you feel you have the capacity to spin more plates comfortably, then you can go back to Step 5 and start spinning a new plate from your ‘Future Spin’ pile.

If, on the other hand, you find you cannot spin all your ‘Current Spin’ plates at once, then take down the plate with the lowest impact to free up more time to spin your more important plates. And, you can place this plate in your ‘Future Spin’ pile.

Step 7 “Take Down and Decide”:

As each plate is completed, take it off its stick and celebrate your achievement by placing it in your ‘Completed Spin’ pile. You can then add another plate from your existing ‘Future Spin’ pile. In this case, go back to Step 5 (Take Up and Spin).

If you think your priorities have changed significantly, you may want to go back to Step 1( Count and Name) and re-start the cycle. Or… you can make it easier on yourself (because you now have fewer spinning plates) and go back to (Step 6: Focus and Decide) and intently focus on your “Current Spin” plates since moving between them at a more leisurely pace.

For example,

If one of your plates is a crafts project, you may decide to add a new plate from your ‘Future Spin’ pile (go to step 5: Take Up and Spin).

If, for example, you lose your job through redundancy or firing, then a key part of your life has been disrupted, and a high impact plate has fallen to the floor in pieces. Now you are forced to re-evaluate your priorities and move back to step 1 (Count & Name).

Sometimes you may not be able to spin all your plates at a time., For some work, emergencies or family, issues arise, and you must reduce your ‘spin’ load by taking down the lowest impact plates (like hobbies). You can then focus on higher impact plates (work or family). In those cases, you return to Step 6 ( Focus and Decide).

Hoping this mythology helps you to achieve the work-life balance that you looking for, if it does not help please keep looking to find the way that correctly fits your requirements, certainly is there somewhere close to you.