Guest Blog by Don Campbell
Each of us is blessed with 86,400 seconds every day. How we choose to spend our time will have a huge impact on our degree of success. Managing our time is really not the issue. A better way of looking at it might be to discipline ourselves so that we spend our time wisely and in line with our holistic goal. A properly written holistic goal based on your values and expressing what you really desire is a huge benefit when it comes to spending our time wisely. Our holistic goal helps us know what to say “yes” to and what to say “no” to. Remember that it is often necessary to say no to the “good” so that we can say yes to the “best.” A clear goal allows us to choose wisely and to choose with a clear conscience.
I think it is impossible to be short of time. We all have the same amount of time each day. There are no special allowances made for anyone. Unfortunately, it is easy to spend our time unwisely (not in alignment with our goal). Consider the comparing options guideline (also known as marginal reaction). When we spend our time unwisely, we feel we are short of time. The reality is that we are not short of time but we are spending our time unwisely.
The following table is from Stephen Covey. He divides time into 4 quadrants. Quadrant 1 is important and urgent. Quadrant 2 is important and not urgent. Quadrant 3 is not important and urgent. Quadrant 4 is not important and not urgent. Fortunately, we can choose which quadrant we want to work in. Covey’s idea is that as we choose any quadrant that quadrant will enlarge and the other quadrants will shrink. Quadrant 2 which is important and not urgent is the best place to spend our time. We will still have a few crises, but they will not be difficult to deal with. It takes discipline to work in Quadrant 2 but the results are impressive.
I encourage you to think about which quadrant you are working in. Remember we can choose our quadrant. Quadrant 2 is a great place to work and to live. My experience has been that if we spend our time wisely we will have time for everything that is most important to us. What is your experience?
Don Campbell is a Holistic Management practitioner and Certified Educator in Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada and can be reached at: doncampbell@sasktel.net