It’s About “TIME!”
I was thinking about how fast time goes! July 4th seemed a few days ago! It seems we cannot finish doing our work! The hours seem not long enough to accomplish the tasks!
However, the time in any given day is one of the few things that are given to us equally. Yet, it feels totally different when we are using time in a way we choose for ourselves, than it feels when our time seems to loom out of our control. We must ask the larger question of what is valuable in our lives, integrating personal and professional goals. Without a strong desire to live out certain values, time management goes unused. A strong motivation to use one’s time to accomplish what one truly wants is necessary to bring about behavioral changes.
A study of a thousand people reported that 89% take work home, 65% work more than one weekend per month and 53% spend less than two hours per week looking after their children. Many people spend their days in a frenzy of activity, but achieve very little because they are not concentrating on the right things. The Pareto Principle or 80/20 rule states that 80% of unfocussed effort generates only 20% of results and that the remaining 80% of results are achieved with only 20% of the effort. It is important to know how to plan and to ensure that we achieve the greatest payoff possible with our investment of time.
It is not likely that people are happy with their choices. Time management is a process of constantly asking what is more important and arranging priorities to reflect each choice.
Yes, it is summertime now but it gives us that time to think about the urgent things going on right now at work or home; it gives us thoughts of planning before the heart of fall and winter seasons work approaches! What would you do if you had an index card with a question on it and how you would answer:
Index cards says:
What would you do if you had a free day off from work?
What do you spend the most time on at work?
What do you spend the most time on at home?
What would you do if you had a month off from work?
What would you do if tomorrow was the last day of your life?
What would you do if you were told you had one year to live?
If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be and what would you be doing?
How does what you do reflect what is important to you?
What is the most important thing you did yesterday?
What is the most important thing you will do tomorrow?
When you look at these index card questions,”What questions stood out for you and why? Where there any surprise answers? Are there questions that you would explore further? Remember those questions are answered which indicates what you want to do with your time that you are currently not doing.