There’s Never Enough Time In A Day
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Happy almost Fourth of July! I’m on vacation in hot and humid Texas enjoying quality time with my family including all of my siblings, their spouses and their children. It’s crazy, but fun. I know many of you are probably on vacation too or preparing for the long weekend, but when Sunday rolls around you’ll be thinking (or worrying) about all you have to get done next week. Today, I have a guest post from a wonderful counselor and life coach, Kyna Moore. She shares her insights on the difference between time management and priority management. Hopefully you’ll pick-up some helpful tips to make the transition from the long weekend to the long week after a long weekend a little easier.
There’s Never Enough Time
What is it about TIME that makes us want to manage it? We say things like: “Time just got away from me!” or “What happened to the time?” and “Where does the time go?” (Actually, I’d really like to know that one!) Perhaps it’s the elusive nature of time that makes us want to manage it. I’ve heard scientists much smarter than I am talk about time as a fourth dimension. They say it isn’t a constant like we tend to think, but that it actually changes…over time! How confusing is that?
The bottom line from where I sit is this: time is outside of our control. It passes whether we want it to or not. It can seem like an eternity, or it can blaze past us like a rocket headed into outer space. Time, then, isn’t really something we can manage. It quite literally has a life of it’s own. So, when I’m life coaching, I prefer to talk about PRIORITIES management.
What are your priorities? What are the things that “take priority” in your life that you fill the time with? I recently heard a woman in a Women in Small Business meeting talk about how every night before bed she lists the 6 things she needs to do the next day, “in order of priority.” Then she awakens and starts moving through the list. That’s a great idea! What doesn’t get done that day, gets moved to the top of the list the next day. She has found a system that brings peace of mind to her day and it works for her.
Which brings me to an important point about priorities. Things that are priority to you are quite literally your priorities. Priorities are extremely individual. No one can prioritize for you. Stephen Covey in his book Putting First Things First says that people’s “to do” lists generally are filled with the urgent but not genuinely important. What he means is that when we don’t consider what we truly value, we just waste time doing things that eat up our time and my not actually be fulfilling to us. That can create for us a greater sense of stress and a lack of movement toward true life passions or goals. So, here’s what I recommend as a starting point:
- Look over your “to do” list and pull out what genuinely feels happy, exciting, good, fulfilling to you. Place those things in one column.
- Next look over the list and pull out all of the things that have a deadline to them. Put them in another column with the deadline next to it. Arrange them in order of the deadline. Highlight the deadline some how. (The deadline may just be that it has to happen before you can move on to something else – so give it an actual deadline.)
- Look at what is left. Are these things actually important? If not, scratch them off entirely. Whatever is left is your “left over list.” These are things that if it’s convenient, or you’re bored, or they just come up and are easily done…then you actually do them.
- Each evening or morning, make a new list of priorities for your day. Pull one from the first column and two from the next column in order of deadline. Once those three things are done, it’s up to you what you do with the rest of your day.
- You may want to include an item each day of spiritual value to you. This can be any thing that creates a sense of inner connectedness to your Creator.
Think about how to prioritize instead of control time. You will see that not everything there is to do needs to be done for you to live a life that you enjoy more! Feel free to visit me on the web at www.coachkyna.com to learn more about Life Coaching.
