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by Brian Schaeffer, HTWFH Publisher
What do you do with your time?
Do you feel like you don't have enough of it in a day to be REALLY productive?
Do you get upset about not accomplishing your daily goals no matter how hard you worked?
Have you ever used the excuse of not having enough time to justify not finishing an important task?
Have you ever said to your spouse or child, "Honey, I just don't have the time right now!"?
Time is the bounding structure within which we ALL must live our lives. It can be an agent of good, or prison shackles of disappointment and discouragement. What it is to you really depends on your attitude.
Now, I'm guilty of ALL of the things listed above. I can often feel squeezed for time when trying to finish a project. I've been upset when I don't get it done when I think I should. I've often used the excuse of running out of time to justify inaction. And, Lord forgive me, I've frequently told both my beautiful wife, Brenda, and my wonderful children, Megan and James, that I just don't have time for them at a particular moment.
Does this sound familiar to you? I'd bet that we ALL have done most, if not all, of those things in the past.
Before we start feeling sorry for ourselves though, I'd like to trot out one of my favorite quotes...
H. Jackson Brown once said, "Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein."
When put in that perspective, I stop my wailing, pull up my bootstraps, put on a determined attitude and get to work! Yes, I can accomplish just as much, if not more, than those folks! So can you!
When we bring this to the level of running a small business, we need to bear in mind that Time is both our friend and our adversary. A friend if we use it wisely, an adversary if we waste it on trivia. We also need to remember that no matter how hard we might try, we'll never add an extra minute to our day. Kenneth Patton stated it correctly when he said, "By labor we can find food and water, but all of our labor will not find for us another hour."
To the extent of trying to help us all employ Time more judiciously, I've developed some "Most Cherished Time Beliefs" busters...
1.) It's often said that Time is Money...
but in fact, Time is much, much more than just mere money. Time is literally priceless! Money or wealth can always be generated. Time, on the other hand, is irreplaceable and more of it can't be created out of thin air. Once it's gone, it's gone forever; never to be recovered.
Knowing that each moment is special unto itself and never to come again, we need to ask ourselves, "How should it be spent?"
2.) How do you manage your time?
You don't. I don't. Time is not managed, nor controlled. We are not its masters. It runs on consistently, without change in pace or measure despite our best attempts to the contrary. One does not manage the twenty-four hours of the day as if they were merely some raw resource, one must use them. When they're gone, they're gone for good and we face a new set of 24 hours.
The question then is, "How is our time best used as it ticks away into eternity?"
3.) The effective person is one who...
gets more done in less time. NOT. Want proof?
Watch a young child at play on any average day. There is no way we adults can keep up with the doings of that child. They simply out-do us in accomplishing a multitude of tasks during an allotted period of time.
Here the issue is not so much more as it is what.
What does that child's parents accomplish while she is playing? Housekeeping, business projects, checkbook balancing, earning a paycheck, etc. To be sure, not as many tasks as the child, BUT more important tasks for the overall good of the family and its individual members. The child actually does more, but the parent accomplishes more by focusing on fewer things.
How do we prioritize our time for maximum effectiveness?
4.) We often think that the largest Time wasters...
in our lives are things like unexpected visitors, unannounced meetings, phone calls, emails, quick fixes, separating arguing children and other "interruptions," but in fact, we've met the enemy, and they are us!
The truth is that we, ourselves, are our biggest time wasters.
We fret over getting something perfect. We strain ourselves for trivia. We stretch our time looking for misplaced items, interrupting ourselves, putting off unto tomorrow what we don't want to do today, playing when the work isn't finished, and surfing the internet or watching TV (boy, talk about a time waster!).
If we manage ourselves, Time will take care of itself.
5.) We often think that a "To Do" list will help us.
It won't UNLESS we prioritize it.
You've seen me write about this before. To Do lists are nothing more than reminders of what must be done. Inputting your intelligence by creating priorities within the list will actually help you get it all done.
I have often ended up on Fridays with 4-5 To Do lists on my dresser top or desk. Most with only a few things crossed off, and a lot of the time those things were the least important.
(Mmmmmmmm, does that say something about MY intelligence? -- No, DON'T answer that!)
Prioritizing tasks has helped me tremendously with completing them and being as effective as possible.
How do we spend our Time?
6.) Do you think that scheduling your day will help?
It does, but only if you stick to your schedule. Otherwise the Time spent on scheduling is wasted. I know quite a few business owners who've had beautiful planners, yet devastated businesses because they didn't adhere to their planned structure.
Interruptions can't be helped. We must accept interruptions as a fact of life and find a way to accomplish all our tasks in spite of them! Scheduling helps keep us focused by bringing us back to task after the interruption is over.
Is our Time use structured?
By now you've no doubt noticed the common thread running throughout these busters. As business owners, and more importantly as people with loved ones, we must prioritize and construct our time use wisely for maximum effectiveness.
What we accomplish in our allotted time is more important than how much we accomplish. How we choose to spend our time determines the quality of our lives and, in the end, how Time has cooperated with us or slipped through our fingers.
And one last quote before I sign off...
"The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot." -- Michael Altshuler
Isn't that the truth!
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The article copyright is held by the author
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