10Dec/093
BIG ROCKS
This story was told to me in a time management seminar. It really stuck with me, and I looked around for a good video or summary, but I couldn't find one. So I drew it out really quickly (and I mean REALLY quickly, like over my lunch break kinda thing, so I apologize for that). It's kind of a third-hand story, and it originally belongs to the Highly Effective Stephen R. Covey.
12Sep/090
Get Boring Stuff Done Faster
Parksville, Vancouver Island
Time management is not a silver bullet for life, but it is one of the most important foundation skills that one must master.
It's not about becoming your own slave driver, trying to work as much as you possibly can during the day. Quite the opposite. Time management is about making sure you get all the things you NEED to do done in a reasonable amount of time - so you have time left over for the FUN stuff.
Everyone SHOULD try to manage their time to some degree, because otherwise time will become "lost". Before you know it, hours days and weeks will have slipped away. Life is short, and time management will help you get the MOST out of your moments, by helping you get the not-fun things done as efficiently as possible, and making sure you're free to take advantage of spontaneous opportunities that may come up. Not everyone needs to be compulsive and rigid about time management; it depends on the type of person you are, how much you're trying to accomplish, and how your days usually flow.
I've come up with these four "levels" to describe how different people approach time management. So where do you fit on the Time Management spectrum?
8Sep/091
Prioritizing: Five Questions You Should Ask Yourself
Car Garden in Toronto, Ontario
The flip-side of creating Awesome Actions Lists and getting really good at finding your working groove is you can sometimes lose yourself in the details. You get obsessed with the trees, and lose sight of the forest.
It's easy to get so swept-up in something that it overwhelms your mind. When you immerse yourself in an activity, or an event, or a group, the internal drama and internal "priorities" can seem SO IMPORTANT. In hindsight, however, you can often look at how much time and emotional energy you invested in that single activity and wonder if it was really worth it.
If you're feeling overwhelmed by your action list and everything seems urgent, take a moment to step back and look at the big picture. Ask yourself these five key questions of every task on your list:
1) If I DON'T do this right now, what is the worst thing that could happen?
- Really step out of your current situation and look at your tasks as if you were an outsider. If you don't get enough money to pay the rent on time, you'll get evicted. If you don't finish your essay on time, you'll lose some credit towards a grade. If you don't submit a piece to an online contest, some person on the internet might be a bit disappointed. Now, in hindsight, getting evicted because you skipped work to finish that piece for the online contest would seem pretty silly. When you're emotionally wrapped up in the contest, it can seem like a really tough choice to make, but really boil things down to THE WORST thing that will happen. If you finish your shift at work, then your essay, you might still have time to submit something to the contest (bonus)! But if you did things in the opposite order, the consequences are much more severe.