Most people admit they could use better time-management skills. But the issue of time management has not been addressed to universal satisfaction, because it really isn’t about managing
time. No one can manage time well enough to turn six minutes into five minutes. If it was just a matter of time, simply using a calendar and a watch would handle it. While a clock or calendar can give you a measure of control, it won’t provide the larger perspective needed for greater success—self management.
The savvy know self management is really an issue of what we do with ourselves during the time we have. Self-management needs to encompass managing our thoughts and emotions, and dealing effectively with our work, family and community relationships. It’s about gaining dynamic balance of control and perspective to achieve more successful outcomes and feel more relaxed along the way.
Self-management is about knowing what to do at any given moment. It’s dealing effectively with the things we have to do to achieve our goals and fulfi ll our purpose. It’s also about deciding the importance of the varied and constant information coming at us.
Dispense with the notion that time is harder to manage because there’s too much information. Many people are so chronically overwhelmed with new information they consider themselves roadkill along the information superhighway. Too much information is not the problem. If it were, we’d walk into a library and faint from the presence of so much data. We would run from the computer having gone just a few clicks into the results of a search, since each hyperlink leads to a seemingly infinite number of other Web pages. Information overload indicates we’re not managing our commitments effectively.
Self-management is about how we manage our commitments to achieve success at various horizons of focus in our lives. Horizons include life purpose, values, long and short-term goals, personal and professional areas of responsibility, projects and specific actions. As the CEO of your life, you’re in charge of the strategy and tactics needed to see your horizons clearly.
Self-management is about collecting, creating and deciding what (if anything) we want to do about each piece of information and organizing the results of that knowledge into a trusted system we can review appropriately. Upon review, we need to make intuitive strategic and tactical choices about our options.
A key aspect of self-management is how we handle all the things we’ve told ourselves we could or should do. People often keep several hundred hours of undone stuff in their minds (consciously or subconsciously) or in stacks on their desk or in the glove compartment of the car or their e-mail inbox. All of that unprocessed stuff may represent many projects and actions.
It’s hard to manage projects and actions unless they show up on your radar in a useful way. Projects need to be defined and reviewed as stakes in the ground to keep us moving toward their respective goal lines. The goal line for each project is the successful result. It could be as simple as “garden gate latch repaired,” or more complex like, “college degree earned.” The steps to move toward the goal line of success need to be defined by answering, “What’s the very next action that will move this project forward?” This is a method of executing elegantly and intuitively when the ball is snapped, instead of continually thinking about what to do next.
I ask people, “What’s the next action?” on big projects they’re procrastinating about. The answer often is, “Find time to….” You won’t ever have time to change your corporate culture,
write a book or lose weight until you define the very next action. If the next action is, “Pick a date and e-mail my assistant to set the senior team meeting about changing our culture,” you
can move forward on a major project in about two minutes. Getting Things Done is my work-life management system that will help you go from personal stress and being overwhelmed to an integrated system of focus and control. Getting Things Done is based on the common sense notion that a complete and current inventory of all your commitments—organized and reviewed in a systematic way—allows you to focus clearly, view your world from optimal angles and make trusted choices about what to do (and not do) at any moment.
The distinct practices include:
• Capture anything and everything that has your attention into a trusted system.
• Define actionable things into outcomes and concrete next steps.
• Organize reminders and information in the most streamlined way, in appropriate categories, based on how and when you need to access them.
• Keep current with frequent reviews of the six horizons of your commitments (purposes,values, goals, areas of responsibility, projects and actions).
This systematic approach to self management has become essential in an age when people have more access to information, producing a sense that there is too little time.
Since one key to your competitive advantage is your ability to deal with surprise, let’s look at how self-management differs from time management in that regard. If you are simply managing your time, you may have blocked out part of the morning to make calls. So far so good. But let’s say that a few minutes before you are going to start making your calls, you hear from one of your best clients. This client wants to introduce you to another client who has the potential to bring you even more business. All you need to do is put together a brief proposal to deliver
that afternoon.
At that point you can choose to stick with time management, holding to the schedule you previously set for yourself. Or you can choose to look from a higher perspective, realizing that this new opportunity is more aligned with your long-term goals. With a list of your calls at hand, you can quickly scan to determine that none of them has to be done
today. You can shift your priority to the new client opportunity, knowing that it is the most appropriate place for you to focus your time. Self-management goes beyond time management, in that it allows you to respond at your best to surprises.
Most people say they have far more to do than time and energy allow. This outcomes-and-actions approach will help you get things done that are most meaningful to you. That’s the best way to manage yourself and your valuable time.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Four Seasons of Life
What will happen to you next month or next year? Whatever happens, you should follow certain overriding principles and predictable patterns.
As you enter this world, receive parental instruction, classroom instruction, and gain experience, you may set ambitious goals and dream lofty dreams. However, as the wheel of life turns, you are subject to human emotions and vicissitudes. You must learn to experience changing of lifecycles without being changed by them; to make a constant and conscious effort to improve yourself in the face of changing circumstances.
That is why I believe in the power and value of attitude. As I read about people, their deeds and their destiny, I become more convinced that it is our natural destiny to grow, succeed, prosper, and find happiness here and now in every season of life.
y your attitude, you decide to read, or not to read; try or give up; blame yourself for your failure or blame others; tell the truth or lie; act or procrastinate; advance or recede; and succeed or fail. The God-given gift of free choice enables you to select your own development and achievement—or your own destruction.
You are placed here on earth to develop yourself and enhance your environment. How fascinating that God would leave both projects—earth and people—unfinished! Across the rivers and streams, He built no bridges; He left the pictures unpainted, songs unsung, books unwritten, and space unexplored. To do those things, God created you and gave you the capacity to do some of these things. But it’s your choice. Attitude determines choice, and choice determines results. All that you are and all that you can become has been left to you. For as long as you live, you have the chance to work, and in the cycles and seasons of life, attitude is everything!
Life is like the changing seasons. You can't change the seasons, but you can change yourself.
Winter
The first lesson in life is to learn how to handle the winters. They come regularly. Some are long, some are short, some are difficult, some are easy, but they always come right after autumn. There are many kinds of winters: financial winters, social winters, emotional winters, and physical winters—the winter when you can’t figure things out, the winter when everything seems to go wrong, the winter of sickness or disappointment. So you must learn how to handle the winters—the difficulty that always comes after opportunity, the recession that comes after expansion. What can you do about winters? You can get stronger, wiser, and better. The winters won’t change, but you can.
Before I understood this truth, I used to wish it was summer when it was winter. When things were difficult, I used to wish they were easy. Now I don’t wish winter were shorter or easier, I wish to be wiser and better. I don’t wish to have fewer problems, I wish to gain more skills. I don’t wish for less challenge; I wish for more wisdom.
"Life is like the changing seasons. You can't change the seasons, but you can change yourself."
Spring
Fortunately, following winter comes a season of activity and opportunity called springtime. It is the season for entering the fertile fields of life with seed, knowledge, commitment, and a determined effort. The mere arrival of spring is no sign that things will look great in the fall. You must do something with the spring. Either plant in the spring or go begging in the fall. Take advantage of the opportunity that spring brings. Believe in the promise of spring: as you sow, so shall you also reap. Faith provides you with an irrevocable law: for every disciplined effort you make, you will receive a multiple reward. For each cup you plant, you reap a bushel; for every good you give to another, you shall receive many in return. For every act of faith, you receive many rewards; and for every act of love you show, you receive a life of love in return.
Remember that springtime presents itself ever so briefly. You can be lulled into inactivity by its bounteous beauty. Pause long enough to soak in the aroma of the blossoming flowers, but then get to work, lest you awaken to find springtime gone with your seed still in your sack. With the intelligence, wisdom, and freedom of choice, you can exercise the discipline to plant seeds—in spite of the rocks, weeds, or other obstacles. These won’t destroy all your seeds if you plant intelligently enough. So choose action, not rest. Choose truth, not fantasy; a smile, not a frown; love, not animosity. Choose to work when springtime smiles on your life and to enjoy the good in life in all things.
Spring shows us that life is truly a constant beginning, a constant opportunity. We need only to learn to look once again at life as we did as children, letting fascination and curiosity give us welcome cause to look for the miraculous hidden among the common. Get busy quickly on your springs, your opportunities. There are just a handful of springs that have been handed to each of us. Life is brief, even at its longest. Whatever you are going to do with your life, get at it. Don’t just let the seasons pass by.
Summer
In this season of life, learn how to nourish and protect your crops. As soon as you plant seeds, the busy bugs and noxious weeds are out to take things over. And they will take it, unless you prevent it. Know that all good will be attacked, and all values must be defended. Don’t ask why. Just know that it’s true. Let reality be your best beginning. Every garden will be invaded. Social values, political values, friendship values, and business values must be defended. Every garden must be tended all summer. If you don’t tend your garden, you’ll never have much of real value. But for those who make diligent efforts to plant, protect, and preserve, there are not enough birds, bugs, or other obstacles to destroy all the efforts of last spring.
Fall
Fall is the time to harvest the fruits of your springtime labor. You can learn how to reap in the fall without apology if you have done well and without complaint if you have not. Nothing is more exciting than bringing in a bounteous crop, and nothing more dreadful than facing a barren field in the fall. In all areas, what you put into this world, you get back from it. It is nature’s way of evening the score. So regardless of the results, take full responsibility for your crop. The highest form of maturity is accepting full responsibility for your life.
Life is constantly recycling itself, and part of your challenge is learning to change with the seasons and balance opposites: day/night, good/evil, life/death, water/land, summer/winter, recession/expansion, joy/sorrow. You face many challenges and changes, but you will continue to have one winter, spring, summer, and fall each year.
Success Each Season
Much of your success will lie in your attitude and ability to plant in the springtime of opportunity, to weed and cultivate in the testing time of summer, to harvest without apology or complaint in the season of fall, and to get stronger, wiser, better in the transition and learning times of winter. It is not what happens to you that determines your future—it is how you respond and what you do about it.
"I realized that the only way to live life and to lead life is actively and as active citizens
As you enter this world, receive parental instruction, classroom instruction, and gain experience, you may set ambitious goals and dream lofty dreams. However, as the wheel of life turns, you are subject to human emotions and vicissitudes. You must learn to experience changing of lifecycles without being changed by them; to make a constant and conscious effort to improve yourself in the face of changing circumstances.
That is why I believe in the power and value of attitude. As I read about people, their deeds and their destiny, I become more convinced that it is our natural destiny to grow, succeed, prosper, and find happiness here and now in every season of life.
y your attitude, you decide to read, or not to read; try or give up; blame yourself for your failure or blame others; tell the truth or lie; act or procrastinate; advance or recede; and succeed or fail. The God-given gift of free choice enables you to select your own development and achievement—or your own destruction.
You are placed here on earth to develop yourself and enhance your environment. How fascinating that God would leave both projects—earth and people—unfinished! Across the rivers and streams, He built no bridges; He left the pictures unpainted, songs unsung, books unwritten, and space unexplored. To do those things, God created you and gave you the capacity to do some of these things. But it’s your choice. Attitude determines choice, and choice determines results. All that you are and all that you can become has been left to you. For as long as you live, you have the chance to work, and in the cycles and seasons of life, attitude is everything!
Life is like the changing seasons. You can't change the seasons, but you can change yourself.
Winter
The first lesson in life is to learn how to handle the winters. They come regularly. Some are long, some are short, some are difficult, some are easy, but they always come right after autumn. There are many kinds of winters: financial winters, social winters, emotional winters, and physical winters—the winter when you can’t figure things out, the winter when everything seems to go wrong, the winter of sickness or disappointment. So you must learn how to handle the winters—the difficulty that always comes after opportunity, the recession that comes after expansion. What can you do about winters? You can get stronger, wiser, and better. The winters won’t change, but you can.
Before I understood this truth, I used to wish it was summer when it was winter. When things were difficult, I used to wish they were easy. Now I don’t wish winter were shorter or easier, I wish to be wiser and better. I don’t wish to have fewer problems, I wish to gain more skills. I don’t wish for less challenge; I wish for more wisdom.
"Life is like the changing seasons. You can't change the seasons, but you can change yourself."
Spring
Fortunately, following winter comes a season of activity and opportunity called springtime. It is the season for entering the fertile fields of life with seed, knowledge, commitment, and a determined effort. The mere arrival of spring is no sign that things will look great in the fall. You must do something with the spring. Either plant in the spring or go begging in the fall. Take advantage of the opportunity that spring brings. Believe in the promise of spring: as you sow, so shall you also reap. Faith provides you with an irrevocable law: for every disciplined effort you make, you will receive a multiple reward. For each cup you plant, you reap a bushel; for every good you give to another, you shall receive many in return. For every act of faith, you receive many rewards; and for every act of love you show, you receive a life of love in return.
Remember that springtime presents itself ever so briefly. You can be lulled into inactivity by its bounteous beauty. Pause long enough to soak in the aroma of the blossoming flowers, but then get to work, lest you awaken to find springtime gone with your seed still in your sack. With the intelligence, wisdom, and freedom of choice, you can exercise the discipline to plant seeds—in spite of the rocks, weeds, or other obstacles. These won’t destroy all your seeds if you plant intelligently enough. So choose action, not rest. Choose truth, not fantasy; a smile, not a frown; love, not animosity. Choose to work when springtime smiles on your life and to enjoy the good in life in all things.
Spring shows us that life is truly a constant beginning, a constant opportunity. We need only to learn to look once again at life as we did as children, letting fascination and curiosity give us welcome cause to look for the miraculous hidden among the common. Get busy quickly on your springs, your opportunities. There are just a handful of springs that have been handed to each of us. Life is brief, even at its longest. Whatever you are going to do with your life, get at it. Don’t just let the seasons pass by.
Summer
In this season of life, learn how to nourish and protect your crops. As soon as you plant seeds, the busy bugs and noxious weeds are out to take things over. And they will take it, unless you prevent it. Know that all good will be attacked, and all values must be defended. Don’t ask why. Just know that it’s true. Let reality be your best beginning. Every garden will be invaded. Social values, political values, friendship values, and business values must be defended. Every garden must be tended all summer. If you don’t tend your garden, you’ll never have much of real value. But for those who make diligent efforts to plant, protect, and preserve, there are not enough birds, bugs, or other obstacles to destroy all the efforts of last spring.
Fall
Fall is the time to harvest the fruits of your springtime labor. You can learn how to reap in the fall without apology if you have done well and without complaint if you have not. Nothing is more exciting than bringing in a bounteous crop, and nothing more dreadful than facing a barren field in the fall. In all areas, what you put into this world, you get back from it. It is nature’s way of evening the score. So regardless of the results, take full responsibility for your crop. The highest form of maturity is accepting full responsibility for your life.
Life is constantly recycling itself, and part of your challenge is learning to change with the seasons and balance opposites: day/night, good/evil, life/death, water/land, summer/winter, recession/expansion, joy/sorrow. You face many challenges and changes, but you will continue to have one winter, spring, summer, and fall each year.
Success Each Season
Much of your success will lie in your attitude and ability to plant in the springtime of opportunity, to weed and cultivate in the testing time of summer, to harvest without apology or complaint in the season of fall, and to get stronger, wiser, better in the transition and learning times of winter. It is not what happens to you that determines your future—it is how you respond and what you do about it.
"I realized that the only way to live life and to lead life is actively and as active citizens
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