At the last week’s Time Strategies webinar, I made a recommendation to define your values, purpose, and goals in order to achieve what you need to accomplish in the time that you have in a given day.
There are relationship, career, personal interest, family and social demands… all screaming for attention in our lives. Each of us has the same amount of time available to us as we begin a new day. Twenty four hours to use or abuse as we see fit. There never seems to be enough.
Sometimes we accomplish a great deal, and time just seems to fly by when we notice the lateness of the hour. When we work at challenging and stimulating projects directly related to our goals, our achievement level skyrockets and time flies.
On other days, everything seems to be going in slow motion. When we are bored or doing something we don’t like, time drags and our productivity and our level of accomplishment drops. When we feel under the gun or out of control, time seems to go too fast. We feel out of control, stressed, unable to get done what we need to accomplish in the time allotted, and are continually behind schedule.
The quantity of time doesn’t really change. Only our perception changes and our perception is our reality. Since we cannot increase or manufacture more time, we must get more out of the time we have.
If most of us know how to manage our time and if we realize the value of becoming more effective at managing our time, why don’t we do a better job of it? We all know what we should do. Why don’t we just do it? For most of us, what is easy to say is more difficult to do. So what’s the solution? We must first look at the key factors that influence our behavior.
The first step in changing any habit is to identify the habit you want to change. Therefore, in order to change your time management habits, you must evaluate your present use of time by analyzing your attitudes and behavior in relation to outcomes. An accurate time analysis will help you to pinpoint who and what occupies your time. Look for time wasters and peak performance periods. Pinpoint precise behaviors that are incompatible with your goals.
Define the new habit that you wish to develop and be as specific as possible. Negative habits in our lives are destructive. Positive habits are uplifting and they help us achieve our goals. In order to build better habits, we must define precise behaviors for change and perform them at specific times. As Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit.”
You will get more out of your time when you learn how to get more out of your life. After you determine what you want, what you value, what you believe, and where your priorities lie, determining how to spend a given day or hour becomes easy. In order to get more out of your time, know what you want and what you want to get out of it. That seems very simple and most people overlook the real purpose of their lives. They fail to define their values, purpose, and goals. They become so immersed in their daily activities that they fail to think about what they really like to do.
That brings us back to the webinar’s recommendation as to why it is so critical to define your values, purpose, and goals in order to achieve what you need to accomplish in the time that you have in a given day.
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