Me First

Step 4Reframe

The potential number of hours you can reclaim as identified at the end of step 3 — Analyse — may seem to you to be a little, well, unreal. However, don’t forget that those savings reflect what is up for grabs if you choose to Delegate and Reject every single task you have identified. You may not choose to do so. All we are aiming for at this point in time is to reclaim one lost hour a day (30 hours a month).

You need to trust the process.

What other women say

When I was appointed CEO, I worked with Kate and she helped me reframe my time — it was a game changer for me. In part I think it was just external validation from someone else that it’s okay to be a mum and an executive and that I needed to focus my time where it was most needed at any given time, and if that was with my daughter, then that was okay.

Kelly Grigsby

Step 4 — Reframe — is all about the how: how do you take the data you have collected so far and turn it into reality? Step 4 will show you how to move from a position of doing absolutely everything for the little blood suckers you live with, to not doing everything for them — there are plenty of tasks you can delegate. Step 4 will also show you how to discard your rejects. You will soon see why Delegate and Reject are my favourite time categories.

Historian Will Durant summed up Aristotle’s many musings on habits thus: ‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit’. And who are we to argue with Aristotle? We are ...