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Time and
Life Management Lost,
yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, twenty-four golden hours, Time
management is like diets. We hope for the magic pill that will make our time
management struggles magically disappear. But time management is about taking
action. The perception that we don’t have enough time is one of the great
stressors of life. Yet we all have exactly 60 minutes in every hour, 24 hours
in every day, and 168 hours in every week. No one gets more and no one gets
less. So, what time management is really about is managing our self and our
life to have the things that are most important to us. In this chapter you
will learn tools and techniques to reduce your stress by finally getting a
grip on how you use your time. First, three time management techniques will
be explained. Then, tips on how to overcome procrastination and eliminate
time zappers will put you on the path for finding peace and contentment in
your daily life. What is
time? Time is nothing more than the occurrence of events in sequence, one
after another. Getting out of bed is an event; the phone ringing, walking to
pickup the phone, getting into a car and everything else we do in a day are
events. Time is the occurrence of all of the events of our
lives, one after another. Albert Einstein once said that time is what
keeps one thing after another from being everything happening at the same
time. Psychologists
tell us that our stress levels are directly related to how much control we
feel over events and situations in our life. To the extent that we feel like
we have less control, we correspondingly experience more stress. Emotions
associated with feeling out of control include distress and anxiety. When we
feel in control of something, we commonly experience the emotions of
calmness, security, harmony, and inner peace. Time is one of those areas of
life where we often feel like we have lost control. Gaining some control over
how we use our time is crucial to managing stress. Management is the
art or manner of controlling. A working
definition of time management, therefore, is the art or manner of controlling the sequence of events in our lives.
Time management is controlling the events of our life. When we are controlling
the events of our life, we reduce the amount of stress we feel. Planning for Control The way
that we gain control of our lives is by planning. Planning
is the act of bringing future events into the present so appropriate control
can be applied. Planning is what brings control into our lives. Once you
master the skill of planning, you will find it freeing and liberating from
the underlying sense that life is out of control. But why do
people tend to avoid planning? Maybe they feel planning inhibits creativity,
keeps them from going with the flow, takes too much time, or doesn't allow
for interruptions. Some people feel that planning is restricting. Some may
simply have no idea how to plan in a way that makes any sense. Others lack
the discipline to develop and follow a plan. There are
many good and useful planning and time management methods. Most of them begin
by asking these four crucial questions: 1.
What are my highest
priorities? (What is most important to me?) 2.
Of my priorities, which do I value
the most? 3.
What can I do about my highest
priorities in the days and weeks to come? 4.
When, during today or this
week, will I do these things? Time Management Methods This
chapter introduces you to these three simple and effective methods to
immediately take control of the events in your life: Ÿ
ABC123 Prioritized Planning Ÿ
Quadrant Planning Ÿ
Lifebalance Since we are all different, no time
management system works equally well for everyone. As you will observe, these
three methods have similarities and differences. They have been found to have
wide appeal in our society. As you read them, you may find yourself attracted
to one method more than the others. You might also find ways to modify the
methods according to your own circumstances and preferences. Each has been
found to be effective in helping people gain control over their lives and as
a result significantly reduce their stress. ABC123
Prioritized Planning A simple,
yet powerful method of managing the events of our lives involves moving beyond
the traditional to-do list. It is called the ABC123 Prioritized Planning
method introduced by Alan Lakein. The focus of this method is to move from
crisis management and putting out fires, toward doing, on a daily basis,
those things that are most important to us. The first
part of this process is deciding to dedicate 15 minutes each day to the
process of thoughtful planning. This could happen either at the beginning of
the day or the evening prior to the next day. During the 15 minute daily
planning, follow this procedure that has three phases: Phase I - Make a
List: First make a list of everything you want to accomplish today.
Don't give any value to anything on the list at this point. Simply unload
onto a piece of paper or planner the things that you want and need to do
today. At this point, it looks much like a traditional to-do list. This may
be a long list. That is okay. Phase II -
Give a value to each item on the list using ABC: Put an “A”
next to each item on your list that must be done today. These are the
vital things that have the highest amount of importance to you. Important is
not the same as urgent and it is necessary to clarify the difference. The
urgent item shouts for immediate action. Many times these urgent things are
not necessarily important, but they have the appearance of needing to be
handled right now. Answering a telephone or checking an e-mail may
appear urgent, but oftentimes lacks relative importance. We have a
tendency to do the urgent things at the expense of the highly important
things. For example, most people would agree that spending time developing a
relationship is very important. Spending quality time with a friend or family
member is critical and vital to the development of the relationship. Yet, the
amount of time that parents spend talking to each other or their children is
very small in relation to the time they spend doing more seemingly urgent,
but far less important, items of the day such as watching television or
surfing on the internet. Charles Hummel, President of Barrington University,
had this to say about the difference between the urgent and the important
task: The
important or vital task rarely must be done today or even this week. The
urgent task calls for instant action. The momentary appeal of these tasks
seems irresistible and they devour our energy. But in the light of times
perspective, their deceptive prominence fades. With a sense of loss, we
recall the vital task we have pushed aside; we realize we have become slaves
to the tyranny of the urgent. Examples of
“A” priority items would include activities like studying for a test that
will take place in 2 or 3 days; shopping for food, when there is none on the
shelf or in the refrigerator; putting some gasoline in the car if your
running on empty; going to the gym to workout; having lunch with your best
friend; taking your daughter to a movie; spending some quiet time meditating;
deciding on a topic and begin researching for a paper that is due in 3 weeks.
These are all important items, though they may not be hollering at you to be
done “right now.” These important, but not necessarily urgent items must
get on your list as “A” items. Next, place
a “B” by each item that should be done today. These are items with some
importance to you. An example of a “B” item might be deciding on a topic
for a paper that is due in 6 weeks; filling your car with gas when it still
has a quarter of a tank left; changing the dirty water in the fish tank. The items
on your list that will get a “C” are those tasks that have very little
importance to you. These items could be done, but won't suffer at all if
they are not. Examples of “C” items might be washing your car; going to a
store to buy a shirt; cleaning the garage. The value
you give items will change as the events in your life change. What was once a
“C” item, such as cleaning the garage, might soon become a “B” item if you
can no longer get your car into the garage and you have nowhere else to park
your car. The level of importance of working on a
research paper changes as the due date for the paper approaches. The key
point is that you are the one who is evaluating the relative importance of
each of the items on your list based on how you currently perceive them. Phase III -
Prioritize again using 123: In this phase of the planning
process, give a numerical value to each item on the list based on its
relative importance to you. First, move through the “A”
items and compare each one. Ask yourself which of these very important items
is the most important of all. That item gets a “1” next to the “A” so
it becomes “A1” on your list. Proceed through each of the A's until you have
given a ranking to each. Then proceed to the B's and then the C's. (See the
example of a prioritized daily planning list below.) Example of
Prioritized Daily Planning
What you have
just done is determine the order you will do the things you want to do based
on their relative value to you. You are determining the sequence of the
events of your day. You have begun to gain control of your day. A word of
warning must be included here if you want to make this work effectively.
There is a very real human tendency to skip the most valuable and important
things (the “A” items on the list) and move to those
items that are easier, more fun, or less demanding (the “B” and “C” items on
the list). There are a couple natural consequences for doing this. First, and
most notably, many of your important items will turn into very urgent items.
If you put off working on the research paper until a couple days before it is
due, then you are in the panic mode and the quality of your paper will
probably go down dramatically. You will probably not enjoy working on it, as
well. This is called “putting out the fires.” It is the urgency mode. Stress
levels definitely increase when we operate in this mode. The other
consequence of doing the “B” and “C” items first and putting off the “A” items is inner chaos. As we discussed in the chapter on
values, when we do the things that are most important to us, we experience
inner peace because what we do and what we value are aligned. When we don't
do those things that are aligned with what we value, we lose our inner peace.
It is a natural consequence. On most
days, you won't finish everything that you put on your list. In fact, you
rarely do. You may have classes, meetings, work obligations, and
interruptions that may drastically reduce the amount of free time that you
can work on the things on your list. The real value of this system happens
when we do have periods of free time where we can choose between several activities.
It is in those parts of the day that we ought to go to the top of our list,
our A1 item, and work from there. This method
of planning can be a very effective way to get some control over the events
of your life, especially if you aren't currently doing anything to plan your
days and feel quite overwhelmed. Wave after wave keeps hitting you and
throwing you to the floor - not a good feeling. By using the ABC123 method,
you can gain some of that control back and ride the waves instead of constantly
feeling like you are being pummeled by them. A simple
adaptation of the ABC123 method is to start each day by making a list of the
six most important things you want to accomplish that day. With careful thought, this one
simple action can help relieve your stress and free your mind to focus on
what is most important to you. Quadrant
Planning Method two,
Quadrant Planning, is one of the most popular time management systems today. This
method was developed by Stephen Covey and explained in his bestselling book, The
7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Quadrant Planning relates to Covey’s
third habit of highly successful people called First Things First. Covey
begins this habit by asking the all-important questions, “What are the things
that matter most to you?” Are these things receiving the time and emphasis
you should be giving them? Covey feels that traditional time management
methods don't bring peace and fulfillment because we don't put the most
important things (first things) first. He compels us to assess what our first
things are with some thoughtful questions: Ÿ
Are the things that are less important in your
life receiving the most attention? Ÿ
Are too many good things getting in the way of
your best? Ÿ
Are you making the tough decision to choose the
best over the good? Ÿ
What activities, if you know you did superbly
and consistently, would have a significant positive impact on your life? Ÿ
“How many people, on their deathbed, wish they
would have spent more time at the office?” Covey uses
the metaphor of the clock and the compass to compare how we manage our life.
The clock is a focus on how we spend our time - what we do. This refers to
such things as commitments, appointments, schedules - this is management. The
compass involves a focus on how we lead our lives. This includes our values,
principles, mission, goals, vision, conscience, and direction - this is
leadership. The struggle comes when what we do (the clock stuff) doesn't
contribute to what's most important (the compass). As you learned in the last
chapter, psychologists tell us that the degree that our daily activities are
out of alignment with what matters most to us is directly related to the
amount of stress that we feel. We see people recklessly climbing the ladder
of success only to realize it is leaning against the wrong wall. We give our
attention to the unimportant things. Covey feels
that we should be putting leadership before management. We should first ask
ourselves, “Am I doing the right things?” After we have answered this
question, we can next ask ourselves, “Am I doing things right?” When we do
this, we begin to put our lives in a direction that is much more fulfilling
and effective. Urgency vs.
Importance Covey also
focuses on the ability to distinguish between the urgent and the important.
We may be busy working as hard as we can only to find that at the end of the
day we feel unfulfilled. This is because we put the urgent, those things
demanding our attention in the moment, before the important — the things that
would make a difference long-term. Urgency seems to control our lives. The
only way to truly master our time is to organize our schedule each day to
spend the majority of our time doing things that are important rather than
urgent. This is the key to doing first things first. If urgency is what is
driving you, you are not paying attention to the important things. Quadrant 2
activities in the Activity Matrix are the important activities. These should
be our first things. Activity
Matrix
In our
planning time, rather than first listing all of the “things to do,” Covey
suggests that we should first ask ourselves the more important
questions. As we do this, we find ourselves doing more things that are in
quadrant two and as a result, we live according to those most important
things. When you
plan your days and weeks, you can ask yourself some additional questions: Ÿ
What do I want to be and do
and contribute in my life? Ÿ
What 3 or 4 things are most
important to me? Ÿ
What are my long range goals? Ÿ
Who are my relationships that
are most important? Ÿ
What are my main
responsibilities? Ÿ
What contributions would I
like to make? Ÿ
What are the principles that I
value? Ÿ
What feelings do I want to
experience in life? (Peace, confidence, happiness, meaning.) Ÿ
How would I spend the coming
week if I only had 6 months to live? The answers
to these questions determine the more appropriate activities on which to
spend our time during the day. These are Quadrant 2 questions. Identify
Roles Another way
to increase our feeling of order and balance involves focusing on our roles
in life. Much pain comes from the realization that we are succeeding in one
role at the expense of another. Too often we hear of people who are very
successful in their business life but they encounter problems with their
family life or their spiritual life. A holistic view of life involves a
balance between the various dimensions of life including the physical, the
social, the mental/emotional, and the spiritual. Our roles tend to help us
fulfill the needs of these dimensions. Our roles give us a sense of wholeness
of a quality of life. These roles may include family, personal, business,
relationships, and community. When we determine our roles, we can ask
ourselves the quadrant 2 questions for each of our roles. Sharpening
the Saw Covey
recommends that we include in our planning, an important area on which we
must focus which he calls “sharpening the saw.” A story exemplifies what it
means to “sharpen the saw.” A man is feverishly sawing away at a tree with
his hand saw. A friend walks by and asks the man working so hard on the tree
why he doesn't stop for a little while and sharpen his saw so that he can cut
the tree more easily. The man cutting the tree replies that he can't stop to
sharpen the saw, he is too busy sawing. Have you ever felt like you are
continually busy, yet you are not accomplishing anything important? Taking
time to sharpen your saw can dramatically affect the level of accomplishment
you feel in your life. Instead of just being busy sawing with a dull saw, you
are cutting down the trees. There are
things in life that we can do that, if we did them on a regular basis, would
help us to sharpen our saw and in so doing, allow us to do all the other
things that we do with greater ease and effectiveness. As we plan, consider
some of those saw sharpening activities for each of our dimensions. For
example, for the physical dimension, we might focus on such activities as
getting regular aerobic and anaerobic exercise. We might focus on eating more
healthy food. We might also work to get more sleep at night, go to bed at an
earlier time in the evening, and awaken earlier to get off to a good start.
In the mental/emotional dimension, we might do such things as practice
regular meditation, spend quality time with family and friends, or exercise
our minds by doing puzzles. In the spiritual dimension, we might read more
inspiring literature, participate in service oriented projects, attend
religious services, or pray more frequently. These examples have value of
themselves, but they also help us to do all the other things that we want or
need to do more easily and effectively. In our
planning time, select Quadrant 2 Goals for each role. Do this by asking the
question: What is the most important thing I can do in this role today or
this week to have the greatest positive impact in my life? For example, a mom
might decide the most important thing she can do in her relationship with one
of her kids is to spend 30 minutes each night reading to him before he goes
to bed. As we answer this question, it is important to keep a few things in
mind to help us make the best decisions about what we should do. Ÿ
Use our conscience. Our conscience is our
connection to the more intuitive part of our being. Some say it is our
connection to the divine that is in all of us. Ÿ
Focus on importance rather than urgency. Ÿ
Perhaps only 1 goal per week is all that is
necessary. Your conscience decides. Ÿ
Focus on the wholeness of a quality life. Keep
the bigger picture in mind. Creating a
Decision Making Framework for the Week Metaphor of the Rocks Imagine a
big jar sitting on a table and to the side of this table is a pile of rocks
of varying sizes, including a few cups of sand signifying very small rocks.
We want to put the rocks in the jar. If we put the sand in first and then
proceed to try to put the bigger rocks in after the sand has filled the jar,
we will not have any room for the big rocks. But if we put the big rocks into
the jar first, we can then add the smaller rocks and even the sand. Quadrant
2 activities are the big rocks. If we don't plan those first (putting first
things first) they will not make it into our daily activities because
we get so busy doing the less important, but oftentimes urgent things. When
we plan the quadrant 2 activities into our weeks and days, we then find
ourselves doing the most important things first. As a result, we enjoy inner
peace, our self-esteem goes up and we find ourselves being more productive. Exercise
Integrity in the Moment of Choice Integrity is
the ability to carry out a worthy decision after the moment of making the decision
has passed. It is very easy, when we are in the silence of our planning
sessions to design our days and weeks according to our conscience and
according to the things that we feel are most important. The real challenge
happens when we get to a moment of real decision, a choice point. As we are
proceeding through our day according to our plan, someone comes up to us and
encourages us to do something that is of far less importance, though it may
seem very enticing. The challenge is to keep the first things first in this
moment of choice. Are we going to sacrifice the best for the good in that
moment? Or will we remain true to our plan and continue focusing on the best.
Goethe said, “Things
that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.” Author’s
Anecdote - I once worked at a health and fitness center as a yoga
instructor. I worked there for about 2 years. During that time, I noticed a
very interesting occurrence that I have seen elsewhere, but in this fitness
center it was glaringly obvious. During the month of January, and especially
the first couple weeks in January, this fitness center was so packed with
people that there was not an open machine to exercise on throughout the
entire day. Every treadmill, every exercise bike, every rowing machine had
people lined up waiting for their allotted time to work out. All of the
aerobics classes were filled, as were the racquetball courts and the swimming
pool. The place was alive with activity all day long. About one month later,
I noticed that probably half of the people who were coming those first two
weeks were no longer coming. By the end of February, you could usually find
an empty machine or racquetball court during most parts of the day. By the
end of March and for the rest of the spring and summer the place seemed like
a ghost town except for a few rare times during the week. This strange occurrence plays out commonly in our culture
in the form of New Year's resolutions. A moment of planning and solitude
turns to resolve that this year is the one that she will lose those extra 20
pounds, or this year is the one he will be less angry at his family. But as
life seems to happen to us, and we have lost the emotion that we had when we
made that initial decision, we give up the best for the good and lose the
goal that we set for ourselves. Regular daily and weekly planning around
those “first things” invites us to remain true to our resolve. MO Evaluation
- How did I do? At the end of
the day, part of our movement toward developing ourselves, reducing stress,
and reaching our goals involves assessing what we have done to help us move
toward each of these. Evaluation is the art of looking back and seeing what
we did, how we did it, and did it work to produce the results that we
intended. If it did, great! We can add to this pat on the back the question
of how can we use that success to continue learning and growing? If we did
not see the results that we had intended, what adjustments can we make so we
do in the future? Here are a
few questions we can ask ourselves as we are evaluating our days and weeks: Ÿ
What have I learned about myself? Ÿ
What goals did I achieve and what empowered me
to accomplish them? Ÿ
What goals did I not achieve and what kept me
from accomplishing them? Ÿ
What patterns of success or failure do I see in
setting and achieving goals? Ÿ
Am I setting goals that are realistic but
challenging? Ÿ
Am I dedicating sufficient time to the 3 or 4
things that matter most in my life? Ÿ
What challenges did I encounter and what was my
response? Ÿ
Did I take time for keeping my saw sharp in the
different dimensions of my life? In
conclusion, review the five aspects of Quadrant Planning: 1.) Differentiating
between what is urgent and what is important, 2.) Identifying roles in each
dimension of life, 3.) Creating a decision making framework, 4.) Exercising
integrity in the moment of choice, and 5.) Evaluating what is working. Lifebalance:
A more flowing approach to time and life management The third
method for time management is called Lifebalance. While this approach appears
significantly different than the previous two approaches, it can be equally
as effective in helping you organize your time in a manner that is
stress-relieving for you. Critics of
traditional time management approaches contend that more rigid planning tends
to focus too much on doing and having, and not enough on being. They do not
take into consideration our natural rhythms of life. It is as if we can only
stop to smell the roses as we are running quickly by them to do something
apparently much more urgent. In the meantime, we miss life's important
moments that are given to us and for which we could not have possibly
planned. If we have planned every minute of our day and if we do not cross
off every planned action from our “list” we feel like we have failed. These
approaches don't appear to allow for spontaneity, for freedom, and for “going
with the flow.” To some, there is emptiness to the traditional approaches. Lifebalance is an
approach to time and life management that promotes a balance of purposeful
planning and a healthy mix of going with the flow. Richard & Linda Eyre
write about this in their book, Lifebalance:
Bringing Harmony to Your Everyday
Life. The Eyre's contend that we live too much of our lives out of
balance. The result of this imbalance is what Thoreau called “lives of quiet
desperation.” The search for simpler, slower, more flexible and more
meaningful lives has vanished with our culture toward the constant search for
more, better, and different. Contentedness has been replaced by
competition. Serenity has been replaced by speed. Balance implies a healthy
combination of all that is important to us and letting our inner nature,
rather than our environment and culture, dictate our speed and direction. The Eyre's
describe the current frustration and dilemma that many feel with time
management planners. Here is what they found: Ÿ
Ninety-five percent of what is written in planners
has to do with work, career, or finance creating an imbalance between work
and family and personal needs. Ÿ
Planners cause us to live by lists, to act
rather than respond. If we're not careful, our lists control us rather than
the other way around. We begin to view things that are not on our lists as
irritations or distractions rather than as opportunities, and we begin to
lose the critical balance between structure and spontaneity. Ÿ
Because they are accomplishment-oriented, most
planners focus our attention on things, on getting, and on doing, sometimes
at the expense of people and giving and thinking. Thus they can be
destructive to the balance between achievements and relationships. (p. 105) Some people
are more comfortable with a lifestyle that simply takes things as they come
and simply “show up” with whatever seems to unfold in their daily experience.
To those who are vigorous planners, this approach seems frivolous and
unproductive. How could anyone ever accomplish anything if he doesn't know where
he is going? It follows the old adage, “If you fail to plan, then you plan to
fail.” “Let's consider a typical businessman who
uses a typical schedule book or time organizer. If we analyze the contents,
we will find three things: First, we find that more than 95 percent of his
entries (lists, plans, appointments, reminders) have to do with work.
It is hard to find anything relating to his family or to his own personal
growth. Second, his planning leaves no time for spontaneity or flexibility.
He prides himself on using every hour of the day, and he gets his kicks from
checking off everything on his list. His motto is “act,
don't react,” and he likes to say that people who are good planners hate
surprises and avoid them by only allowing things to happen if they are
on the list. Third, just as there is no room on his schedules for spontaneity
and surprises, there is precious little space for relationships. Planning and
lists seem to deal much more with things than with people.” Unbalance, the
Eyre's contend, results from bad habits - habits that emphasize work at the
expense of family and personal growth, structure at the expense of
spontaneity, or accomplishments at the expense of relationships (or vice
versa on any of these). The Eyre's found,
as they traveled around the country, that people list their priorities in
this order: 1.
Family 2.
Personal character, including beliefs,
education, inner growth 3.
Work or career 4.
Other interests, including recreation, TV, etc.
Compare
this with how people actually spend their time: 1.
Other interests, including recreation, TV, etc. 2.
Work or career 3.
Personal character 4.
Family A clear discrepancy exists between what is
most important to people and how they spend their time. Creating Balance Simplify In theory, knowing
what we value most and acting on those things we value is an obvious way to
live. In practice, it is something very different. We are always wishing that
we had more time for the really important things in life. In this type of
balancing, when we sit down to plan, rather than asking, “What do I have to
do?” we ask different questions, such as, “What do I choose to do? or “What do I want to do?” Unfortunately,
day-to-day concerns occupy so much of our time and tend to keep us from
making time for these more important things. The essence of priority
balancing is to simplify. The ability to simplify our days, and our lives,
can be developed by regularly asking these four questions: Ÿ
Will it matter in 10 years? Ÿ
What do I need more of
in my life? Ÿ
What do I need less of? Ÿ
How can I make this simpler? When we
begin to ask these questions, we learn to say “no” more frequently to those
things that simply aren't worth doing. Continually adding more things to our
life frequently complicates and speeds up the pace of our life. Removing
things from our lives creates simplicity and freedom. The first step to
balance our priorities is to simplify. Author’s Anecdote - I love
the story about a lone fisherman who sat on the beach. His fishing pole was planted in the
sand. Along came a businessman on vacation. “Why don’t you have two poles so
you can catch more fish?” the businessman asked. “Then what would I do?”
asked the fisherman. “Then you could take the extra money, buy a boat, get
nets and a crew, and catch even more fish.” “Then what would I do?” asked the
fisherman. “Then,” said the businessman, “you could move up to a fleet of
large ships, go wholesale, and become very rich.” “Then what would I do?”
asked the fisherman. “Then you could do whatever you want!” shouted the
businessman. And the fisherman replied, “That’s precisely what I am doing
right now.” I use this story to guide me in making decisions about what
really matters in life. We work longer hours to pay for an expensive vacation
so we can collapse. What if we just worked less so we didn’t so desperately
need to rest? We frantically work to increase our income so we can buy that
big, expensive house, only to find we have to work even harder to maintain
it. We can choose to simplify. Doing what
Really Matters The second
aspect of balance, and related to simplification, is to focus our priorities
on three specific areas, then work to balance these areas. The three
priorities common to everyone include: 1)
Family: This area includes our relationships
with family and friends. 2)
3)
Self: This area includes not only development
with our inner self, but the way we function serving others, activity with
church and community groups. The first
step in creating more balance in our lives is to spend five minutes each day,
before writing down any other plans or thinking about our schedule, deciding
on the single most important thing you can do that day for your family, your
professional development and yourself. Imagine how much you would accomplish
that is really important in your life if you focused on those things that
really mattered. Don't just
do something, Sit There! Planning
our days involves a commitment to stop everything and spend at least 5
minutes stopping and doing nothing other than thinking. Before planning your
schedule, give yourself some sit-down time each day to ask yourself the key
questions that were mentioned previously. In our
solitude time, rather than asking, “What do I really want?” we can ask
challenging, but perhaps more useful questions like “What do I need?” “What
do I need in my physical life?” What do I need in my social life, my
spiritual life, my mental/emotional life?” Get in the habit of asking
yourself these questions daily - then pick the thing you need to do most and
do it that day. Attitude
Balance - balancing structure with spontaneity Attitude balance
involves considering both the destination and the journey. Our culture
thrives on arriving, on reaching goals and enjoying the good feeling that
comes with accomplishment. We tend to forget, so frequently, about the joy of
the journey, about the footsteps we make on the way to the goal, which are
just as important as the goal itself. The Eyre's
use the comparison of the jets and the hot air balloons. The jets are those
who strive to arrive. People ride in jets to get where they are going as
quickly as possible. People ride in hot air balloons for the sheer pleasure
of riding in them. The hot air balloons are those who stop to smell the
roses, who go with the flow of the wind wherever it might take them. People
who dislike formal planning because of its inflexible structure say the jets
lack spontaneity. The Eyre's contend that we can have both - the balloon and
the jet - on our way to living our days in more fulfilling ways. The Yin and
the Yang of the Taoist symbol implies that we are made up of both the jet and
the hot air balloon. We feel drawn to both ways of being.
Freeing the
Mind When is it
that our best ideas come to us? When we are running around frantically working
through the daily “to do” list, there is usually no room for insights or
ideas to pop through into our awareness. On the other hand, our best ideas
come in those times when our thinking has slowed and we aren't focusing on
anything in particular. Examples of these times are when we are in the
shower, times of daydreaming, when we sleep in, when we take a leisurely
stroll by ourselves, when we are jogging, while driving, or when we are
sitting lazily by the pool. It is during these times that we should have a
pen or a recorder handy to catch these fleeting ideas. Oftentimes, these
insights can completely change an entire day or an entire lifetime toward a
more fulfilling and joy-filled experience. But if we don't let the ideas
through because of the busy-ness of our minds, we miss out on these best
things. Serendipity Inherent
in the Lifebalance approach to time management is the idea of serendipity.
The English writer Hugh Walpole first coined the term serendipity to describe
the quality which, through good fortune and sagacity, allows a person to
discover something good while seeking something else. He developed this word
and definition after reading a Persian fable called the Three Princes of Serendip. The
Three Princes of Serendip The story
tells of three princes who went into the world to seek their fortune. None of
them achieved what they were seeking, but they each got something else,
something better. One found love, one found beauty, and the third found
peace. “These three men, while traveling through the world, rarely found the
treasures they were looking for, but continually ran into other treasures
equally great or even greater which they were not seeking. In looking for one
thing they found something else, and it dawned on them that this was one of
life's sly and wonderful tricks. When they realized this, they got an
entirely new slant on life, and every day resulted in a new and thrilling
experience.” The essence
of this principle is that the happenings that you never expect are actually the
things that are supposed to happen. Other definitions for serendipity
include: Ÿ
The ability to make happy and unexpected
discoveries by accident. Ÿ
The gift of finding valuable or agreeable
things not sought. (Webster's dictionary) Ÿ
An unexpected discovery of something
worthwhile during a search of an expected something worthwhile. Keys
to Serendipity There are
several key parts to serendipity. The first is that we need to be working
toward something. We need to set some goal(s) for ourselves and be moving in
the direction of them. The second feature of serendipity is that we need to
be aware, to be alert, to be observing things in order to realize the
so-called “happy accidents” that occur as we are on the way to our original
goal. If we aren't tuning in to what is happening, we will miss things like
beauty, spontaneous moments, new and even better goals and directions,
opportunities, and needs of others as they arise. With
serendipity, we can have both worlds - the jet and the hot air balloon. We
still set goals and work toward them. But the flexibility of serendipity
allows us to be open to spontaneous events as they occur. We don't treat
interruptions as annoying, but instead, as opportunities to “discover
something good” that might add to our joy and fulfillment. “Too much
planning can make the actual experience of living almost anti-climactic. Too
much thinking about a thing removes us from it — we become observers,
analysts, spectators, or critics rather than participants. If we can approach
life more as an experience which contains vast variety and infinite potential
for surprise — we will find ourselves dealing less with “success” and
“failure” and more with progress and growth. If we have to think about every
detail of our lives, we ought to think about them after they have been lived
(when we can learn from experience) not before and during (when the very
thought may intercept or alter the experience). Approaching
life as an experience makes us, moment-to-moment, more aware of what is
happening and of what we are feeling — and less aware of what we plan to have
happen or wish had happened. Thus we see opportunities we could never have
planned and realize far more serendipity than we otherwise could. Goals can
co-exist with experience — they can shine like beacons and allow us to see
our experiences more clearly in their order and light” Applying Serendipity Knowing
about serendipity and applying the principle in daily life are two very
different things. Serendipity is not a common way of being for most people in
our culture. We tend not to think and act this way. We can learn to move in this more
balanced direction. This activity can help get you started. Start your
planning time by drawing a line down the middle of your daily planning page.
The left side of this page is our traditional scheduling of activities and
planning items to do that day. The right side of the page is left blank. This
side will be filled, during the day or at the end of the day, with those
unanticipated needs, unforeseen opportunities, and the unexpected moments
that come up during the day. These are the items that we could not have
planned for, but turn out to be as valuable, or more valuable, than the
things that we had planned. We have to be in pursuit of something (left side
of the page) and we have to be aware, sensitive, and observant of those
other/better things that we didn't plan for (right side of the page). The
left side of the page contains our plans and schedule. The right side of the
page reminds us to be playful, spontaneous, take risks, and be serendipitous.
With this
type of flexibility automatically worked into our days, we create a new
definition of a perfect day. It used to be that a perfect day was one where
our high priorities, our “A” items were checked off
the list. Now a perfect day will still include that, but additionally, we
jump the line to do the serendipity things as well. Living in this more
flowing and balanced way involves intentionally changing the way we function
throughout the day. From the outside, it may not appear that we are doing
anything differently, but inside, we manage things in vastly different ways. Lifebalance
and awareness of serendipity do not mean no plan and no goals. The guiding
principle is this: Be strong and fixed on the destination, but be creative
and flexible on the route” Cultivating the quality of serendipity Ÿ
Slow down; Hurry
tramples watchfulness and thoughtfulness. Smell the flowers, feel the sun,
pause to breathe. Notice the needs of others and try to feel empathy.
Sometimes relaxing your pace can lengthen your stride. Ÿ
Welcome Surprises and
anticipate them; Look for them. Expect them, relish them. Surprises don't
knock you off course. They reveal new destinations and new directions. Ÿ
Enjoy the Journey — Now; look for and find joy today. Life is not a dress
rehearsal. Ÿ
Simplify and Set Your
Own Standards; the trading of time for things is usually a bad deal. When the
things are the expensive trappings of style, image, and impression, the
trade-off is a disaster. Trying to impress others with the newest and
costliest car, fashion, brand name, address, toy, or trend is the depth of
bad-deal trade-offs and the height of self deceit. Ÿ
Make goals without Plans;
while goals are an indispensable part of serendipity, tight, detailed plans
are not. Spend your Sunday Session and other “thought time” conceptualizing
your goals, and laying out a general road map toward them, but acknowledging
that your actual route will be some combination of the schedule and the
surprise. Ÿ
Split page Scheduling;
Left side gets the lists, right side gets the day's serendipitous after it
happens notes. i.e., a new acquaintance, a fresh idea, a child's question, an
unexpected opportunity, a friend's need, a chance meeting, a beautiful
sunset. These right side things are far more valuable than your listed items.
Ÿ
Add playfulness and
humor to a part of each day; lighten up and allow yourself to make mistakes,
to enjoy the more humorous parts of life, to laugh like a child. Ÿ
Be spontaneous; balance
planning with flexibility and spontaneity. Ÿ
Take risks and follow
your feelings; the dullness of our comfort zones lulls us into a false sense
of security. Living fully involves taking risks and enjoying the surprises of
what might come with the risks. You can
clearly see that the Lifebalance approach to time management is significantly
different that the ABC123 and Quadrant Planning methods. Yet all 3 methods can
be effective in helping individuals accomplish their goals, manage their
time, and relieve their stress. Next, let’s look at a variety of tips on how
to overcome procrastination and eliminate time zappers. Overcoming Procrastination - Tips for Effective Time Management Procrastination is the
avoidance of doing a task which needs to be accomplished. This can lead to
feelings of guilt, inadequacy, depression and self-doubt. Procrastination has
a high potential for painful consequences. It interferes
with our academic, professional and personal success. The reasons for
procrastination are many, with the basic ones being perfectionism,
fantasizing, fear, crisis making, anger, overdoing, and pleasure seeking. The
following are tips for overcoming procrastination: Turn
Elephants into Hors d’oeuvres - When you just can not seem to
get started on a project, try breaking it down into smaller tasks and do just
one of the smaller tasks or set a timer and work on the big task for just 15
minutes. If you know your 30 page term paper is due in one month, start today
by picking your topic or writing a rough outline. By doing a little at a
time, you won’t feel so overwhelmed and eventually you'll reach a point where
you will want to finish. Research Highlight – Procrastinators Finish Last In studies
with students taking a health psychology course, researchers found that
although procrastinating provided short-term benefits, including periods of
low stress, the tendency to dawdle had long-term costs, including poorer
health and lower grades.
Early in the semester, the procrastinators reported less stress
and fewer health problems than students who scored low on procrastination.
However, by the end of the semester, procrastinators reported more
health-related symptoms, more stress, and more visits to health-care
professionals than nonprocrastinators. They also
received significantly lower grades on term papers and exams.
(Procrastinators Always Finish Last, Even in Health. American Psychological
Monitor, Vol. 20, No. 1, January, 1998 – reported in Hales, 2003) Manage Your Time Zappers – A
significant deterrent to successful time management is time zappers, those
things that take time away from what is more important. According to a
Nielsen Media Research survey done in 1998, televisions are on 7 hours a day
in the typical home. The same study reports that the average American spends
nearly 4 hours per day watching TV. By the age of 65, he or she will have
spent nine years watching TV. Television viewing is an example of
a time zappers because it steals our time away from the precious time that we
could be spending on more important things. Imagine what you could accomplish
if you spent those four hours working on more productive things like learning
a foreign language or how to play a new instrument or even doing homework.
Time zappers include: Ÿ
Driving from place to place Ÿ
Video games Ÿ
Unnecessary meetings Ÿ
Excess socializing Ÿ
Oversleeping Ÿ
Talking on the phone Ÿ
Surfing the net Ÿ
Worrying You can probably think of many other things
that would fall into this category of time zappers. Author's
Anecdote: We don't need to completely eliminate these time wasters, but
frequently they take up so much of our time that little is left for us to do
the important things that have higher priority for us. Here is an example
that illustrated how unimportant things can severely dominate our time. One
day while we were discussing this principle in class, a student in the back
of the room raised his hand and proudly declared that he had played a video
game for 24 hours straight. He only took very brief breaks as needed and then
quickly got back to his video game marathon. When I asked him how he felt
about that, he mentioned that the Time went quickly and it was an enjoyable
experience. He did mention that it was probably not time well spent, however.
The rest of us in the class agreed. MO The best
way to manage time zappers is by planning. This chapter has given you
several excellent ways to do this. When you decide what the order of your
activities will be through the day and follow through with discipline, while
maintaining appropriate flexibility, it is easier to say “no” to those things
that waste so much of your time. Work hardest during your “best times”
of the day: most of us have two or three hours during the day when we are
the most productive. Are you a "morning person," a "night
owl," or do you do your finest work in the late afternoon?" During
these times we usually have the most energy, and are the most creative.
Frequently this is in the morning. Try to schedule your time so that your
most important activities can be done during these "best times" of
the day. Follow Pareto's Law: Pareto's
law says that 80% of the wealth belongs to 20% of the people. Extending this
law to time management we find that a mere 20% of the tasks yield 80% of the
rewards and benefits. In other words, there are certain aspects of most
projects that have a higher degree of leverage for completing the task. For
example, you may be working on a research paper. This involves many steps
from beginning to completion. You may find that the activity with the highest
leverage to complete the paper is the time you spend looking up abstracts and
transferring some of that information to a general outline of your paper.
This task will be the one you will focus most of your energy on. As you
approach any task or assignment, isolate the 20% that controls 80% of it's completion. Keep an Activity Log - Just as
a nutrition log measures everything you put in your mouth over a period of
time, usually several days, an activity log allows you to see what you do
with your waking moments of the day and thus, your time. Without modifying
your behavior, make a note of everything that you do, as you do them, from
the moment you awaken until you lie down at night to sleep. Every time that
you move from one activity, like eating breakfast, to the next, like watching
the morning news, to the time you spend getting dressed, make a note of the
time in your time log. After doing this for a few days
carefully look at what your log tells you about how you spend your time. You
will probably be surprised at how much time you spend doing things that might
be considered a waste of time or have little value for you or anyone else. Learn to say "NO" to the
unimportant or less important things. Most of us find it difficult to
say “No” to someone when they ask us to do something or to do unimportant
things. One way to do this is by focusing on your goals. It is important for
you to be convinced that you and your priorities are important to you. Before
you agreed to undertake any additional tasks, you can ask yourself if those
tasks or activities will lead you in the direction of your goals and
priorities. If the answer to this question is that they won't, choose to
refuse to allow these unimportant items to take up your time. Try
Delegating – It might be time to re-think the old saying, “If you want
something done right, you have to do it yourself.” If some things do not
require your personal attention, delegate them to someone else. Establish levels of acceptable
perfection - It is human nature to want to do our best on every task. We
find it difficult sometimes to submit work that may not reflect our best
performance. But frequently, there are things that we do that don't
necessarily require high degrees of perfection. When this is the case,
complete the task at an appropriate level depending upon the importance of
the item. E-mail sent to a friend, for example, does not require perfect
grammar and perfect spelling. There is no point in spending unnecessary extra
time making your letter perfect. Take a realistic look at other similar tasks
and determine which can be your “good” work and which should be your “best.” Do the most difficult or most
unpleasant tasks first - Once you have the tough tasks out of the
way, you are freer to enjoy your other tasks that are more pleasant and fun.
The most unpleasant tasks are usually the ones that rank more highly on our
priorities list. When we do those first, we earn the satisfaction and inner
peace that comes from doing those things. Enjoy the Process - Ask
yourself how you can do the task AND have fun in the process - Maybe
you can do your homework with your best friend or go to a place with an
excellent view of nature and do it there. If you know that something has to
be done, but is unpleasant to even think about, ask yourself how you can add
something enjoyable to the process. Maybe you can somehow make it a game or
competition with someone else. Your mind will usually give you some
constructive ideas. Give yourself
rewards - Even for small successes, celebrate the achievement of goals.
Promise yourself a reward for completing each task, or finishing the entire
task. Then keep your promise to yourself and indulge in your reward. Doing so
will help you maintain the necessary balance in life between work and play.
As Ann McGee-Cooper, author of Time Management for Unmanageable People says,
"If we learn to balance excellence in work with excellence in play, fun,
and relaxation, our lives become happier, healthier, and a great deal more
creative. Let some things go undone - Follow the
advice of Lin Yu Tang who said, “Besides the noble art of getting things
done, there is the more noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of
life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.” Let it be okay to not
finish some things, and not even get to some things that are on your list. An
uncompleted list only has the meaning you give to it. It doesn't mean you are
not being effective and it certainly doesn't mean you are a failure. You
decide what can be left undone and you can choose to be okay with that
decision. A Final perspective on time and choice In the final
analysis, we always do what we want to do. There are no exceptions to this.
How you spend your time, what events you participate in every moment of each
day, is your choice. You may not always enjoy the choices you made, but you
always choose to do what you do, and there are consequences for
everything that you do. These consequences may be favorable or unfavorable,
pleasant or unpleasant. We commonly hear people say, “I have to do this,” or “I
have to be at a certain place at a certain time.” The reality is that we
never have to do anything. There is rarely a gun being held to
anyone's head requiring them to select certain choices. We always have a
choice about how we spend our time. Author's anecdote: Early one Saturday morning my older
brother called me up and asked me to come to his home to help him clean his
garage later that day. He lives about 60 miles away from me. Thinking that
this wouldn't be a very pleasant activity, I told him that I couldn't
come over. I was too busy. I have too many other things that I must
do. A couple weeks later he called again and asked me if I want to spend that
afternoon riding bikes in the mountains near a local ski resort. I had no
fewer things to do on that day than I did two weeks earlier, but as we talked
on the phone, I told him that I would love to go … which I did. As I thought
about this, while I drove to his home that Saturday, I realized that I never have
to do anything. I could have just as easily gone over to his house two
weeks earlier to help him out. MO You say
that you have to be in a class at a specific time, or you must
be at work during a specific time period. There is no life requirement saying
you have to be there. There are consequences for not showing up to
work; you may not continue to work there very much longer if you choose to be
late or not show up at all. Nevertheless, what we do with the 24 hours of our
day or 168 hours of our week is ENTIRELY up to us. Deciding beforehand what
to do and living flexibly as we do them can make those 24 hours much more
pleasurable. Conclusion In this
chapter you learned three time management systems. As you probably noticed,
they have similarities and differences. All are designed to help you gain
more control of your life and thereby, reduce your stress levels. As you
experiment with these systems, determine which has the most appeal to you and
your current circumstances. You have also learned tips for overcoming procrastination
and eliminating time zappers. Don’t mistake activity for achievement. Reduce
your stress by focusing your actions on the things that matter. In the end, time
management is really more about managing yourself and your life than it is
about managing time. Notable Quotes: I am convinced that I have not done one thing that anyone else
could not do if they could get deeply immerse in some mission, some purpose
that transcends self. - Gandhi Nobody, on their deathbed, ever said, “I wish I'd spent more
time at the office.” – Stephen Covey Dost thou love life, then do not
squander time, for that is the stuff that life is made of. - Ben Franklin This time like all times is a very good one if we but know what
to do with it.- Ralph Waldo Emerson Now is the only time there is. Make your
now wow, your minutes miracles, and your days pay. Your life will have been
magnificently lived and invested, and when you die you will have made a
difference. - Mark Victor Hansen Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and
the only thing he can't afford to lose. - Thomas Edison |
