You have probably already slept through several time management courses. So have I. Here are some ideas to help time management work for you, and hopefully be more fun.
First, make life easier by keeping track of the paper and information that comes into your life. See “How to Use a Planner” and “Finding Your Desk” in my book Recession or Recovery: 7 Steps to Success in Business & in Life. When you can see past your desktop and locate the time of today’s meeting, you are out of survival mode and can begin thinking about self-actualization.
I keep a saying on my wall, “Nothing should be more highly prized than the value of each day” by Goethe. None of us knows how much time we have left, or under what condition tomorrow will find ourselves or our environment.
Going through life unconsciously may mean looking up one day and wondering where the last 20 years went. If I’ve gotten up each day for 20 years and decided not to plan and just let life happen, then okay. If I’ve let other people decide for me what is important in my life and how I should use my time and I wake up 20 years later, that is not so okay.
Consciously managing my time is a way of taking control of my own life. Starting from awareness of my values gives me power to control the direction of my life toward what matters to me, and what makes me happy.
Identifying Values
How do I know what my values are? I asked Nathaniel Branden that question, and he gave me some sentence completion exercises. You can find his entire program in the appendix of The Art of Living Consciously. I suggest you use the following questions to help you develop a list of values you would like to live by over the next year:
One of the traits I look for in people is …
One of the rules I try to live by is …
I respect people most when they …
I do not respect people when they …
Sometimes I am drawn to people who …
Right now it seems to me that …
One of the principles that guides me is …
One of the things I want out of life is …
One of the things I want from people is …
One of the things I want from work is …
One of the things I expect of myself is …
I am becoming aware …
Life seems most fulfilling when …
Life seems most painful when …
When people speak of life as tragic …
When people speak of life as exciting …
I feel most alive when …
I am beginning to suspect …
What to Do Next
Ranking
Now that you have your list of values, rank them in order of importance to you.
Start with your most important value. Think about how the outcome of that value could manifest in your life by this time next year. Write a description of this, and include how you feel as you experience this positive outcome of what matters most to you. Make it about you and your experience, not about someone else’s life.
• When you have the description, think about when, realistically, this might actually happen.
• Now make a list of the practical steps it would take to bring this about.
• Break them down into what has to happen monthly and weekly to make this happen.
Put Them Where You Can Find Them
Pull out your planner:
• Put these goals into your planner by month and week as appropriate.
• Now think about some task you can do every day to get closer to this goal.
• Put this task, or these tasks, on your daily pages, or a master task list that you look at every day.
• Put the description you wrote in Step 1 above in the “Focus” section of your planner so you can refer to it regularly.
Looking Deeper
Do this for each of your values, in order of priority.
Read “How to Use a Planner” to learn how to do a Focus Session (pg 186).
For more information:
The Art of Living Consciously by Nathaniel Branden
Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 978-0-684-81084-3
Best wishes,
Marilyn McLeod
Marilyn@PersonalizedHealthCoach.com
Visit Marilyn McLeod's Amazon Author Page
http://www.bit.ly/drWaBB
Blog: http://www.PersonalizedHealthCoach.com
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