Priorities. What will you do with your hours?
“I can’t come to your ball game, I don’t have time.”
It really isn’t that you don’t have time it is just that you haven’t allowed time in your other schedules to make a slot for your son’s ball game. You knew the game was going to be on Thursday night but you did not make sure other things were done in order to give yourself time to relax and enjoy the time with your family. This is another example but you can feel free to replace my example with whatever appointment you “Don’t have time for.”
Now, I know what you’re saying: That’s just not true. I really don’t have time.
Yes, it is probably true that with today’s busy schedules and the effort we go to, to make sure that we never have time to rest; you probably have a full week. But the answer is still the same, Priorities. I’m not trying to say that there are never any exceptions. Yes, occasionally something will pop up and you will have to decide which task gets completed.
So, what makes people who get things done different from those who just can’t seem to make it on time to anything? You have to manage your time. Most people are instinctively lazy. Why else would the world need a snooze button? An extra nine minutes? Does anyone wake up after that and say: “Wow that was just enough to make me feel completely rested.” I’m’ not saying I am foreign to the snooze button. I know full well how it works and what it can do. What I am saying is that if you are trying to find out where all of your time goes you will need to examine every part of your day.
Do you have a favorite TV program that you never miss? Let’s make the time to watch that show. I’m sure all of us have noticed that there is nothing on the TV that we want to watch, but we still seem to sit there and watch for the next three hours. You can find time in your day that you may not even know is there. What do you do in the car on your way to work or on your way home? Try recapturing that time by listening to a book on tape or CD. Listen to talk radio and keep up on current events. You could even just turn the radio off and use the uninterrupted silence as an opportunity to get your thoughts in order. Let yourself evaluate the day and find some areas where you might have done something differently or give yourself credit for doing something right.
Nobody ever has time to exercise. I know no one really thinks they will make time. Some people make exercising a priority. Where do they find the time? I know a guy that gets up at 5am so he can go to the gym and still be home in time to wake his kids up to go to school. That is a dedicated person who has made staying fit a priority in their life. Let’s retreat to the goals list. What things on the list are urgent? Which items need your attention right away?
Let’s focus on those. Let’s look at the time you may have found in your day and let’s estimate how long some of these items might take to complete. Do some of the sections of time correspond to the time need to complete an item? Which items can be broken up into small segments? You have to make the tough decisions to become more efficient.
Am I trying to say that all you need is belief in order to succeed? No, I’m’ just saying that if you waste time dwelling on the things you think you can’t do, then you are wasting time that you could be using to improve you and your image until you have the confidence to believe that you can do anything you set your mind to. All it takes is some discipline and the motivation to make decisions about you priorities. Do you think that everyone you know is just perfectly happy with where they are in life? You know that is not true because you hear the talking around the water cooler. Most of the discussions we have during the day are negative.
Negative thoughts lead to negative decisions. Let’s make sure that the things we put into our head are positive and lifting. Things that will give us the light that we need to shine on our path so we can continue in a world that is filled with negatives and problems. Keep moving and keep making choices that will lead you to completing the things that are important to you.
“Just setting your alarm 30 minutes earlier on weekdays will give you an extra 125 hours per year. That is 15 additional eight hour days.”
