Are you busy right now? Have you already fallen behind your schedule for today? Are you hoping this will be a short blog, so you can return to catching up on things? All right, let me get to the point…
It is a phenomenon how obsessed we all are with time, considering that time does not exist. Let me explain: If you try to get your hands on time, it’s always slipping through your fingers, right? People are convinced time is there, but they can’t get hold of it. My view is that they can’t get hold of it because it doesn’t exist. Even Quantum Theory shows us that our concept of time (a linear passage of events) is totally wide of the mark; in fact there is no mark.
Having said that, the fact that we perceive time as precious and considering that time feels very real to us, we need to stop time from managing us. We need to manage time or should I correctly say, manage ourselves better?
Let’s face it – we all have 24 hours per day, whether we like it or not.
If we’re caught up in busyness and feel stressed even by using sentences like: “I have no time”, “I ran out of time” or “I need more time”, you may want to stop trying to do everything right now. How well you use your 24 hours per day mainly depends on your skills, planning, strategies, evaluation and self-control.
Be aware that not everything we do truly matters. Too many little tasks are blaring at us every single day, attempting to distract us from what is more important in life. Therefore we must learn toprioritise and let go of things that we can’t control and invest that time in the things we can control. As singer John Lennon said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
In business, I believe, you can always make more money, but you can never get your time back. Your time must be an investment in your goals and future, so choose wisely how you spend your time.
I trust you got some value and I leave you with the following quote from Harvey Mac Kay: “Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.”
BOX:
Time wasters
q Changing your mind and decisions often
q Meetings occurring without an established objective
q Producing documents in lieu of action
q Living in the past and forgetting the moment
q Micro-managing your staff
Time savers
q Focus on solutions rather than problems
q Educate yourself — Learn from your mistakes
q Prioritize – Work on things that are urgent and important, forget the rest
q Stop trying to be perfect – Consider the 80/20 rule (A massive 80% of your outcome is generated by only 20% of your actions. And the remaining 20% of your outcome unfortunately takes the other staggering 80%)
q Your time is not free – Free up your time working in the business, so you can work on the business
q Make decisions based on how you will feel once the outcome is achieved, rather on how you feel before the task
The writer is the Managing Director of PROfound Coaching and provides expert advice on Career Coaching | Professional Mentoring andTeam Building. He is also the author of “The 5 Steps to Leapfrogging Your Career”.
Published in The Indian Sun (Indian Newspaper in Melbourne)
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