Time: Prioritize For Successby Kathy Richards Choices, choices, choices -- our lives have been reduced to a series of daily decisions. At each one, we hesitate and ponder, anxious to please everyone from spouse and children, to bosses, editors and agents, neighbors, church leaders, friends and family members, all of whom expect our absolute, unqualified attention to their priorities. But what are YOUR priorities? What's most important to YOU? What do you want to accomplish with your life? Therein lies the key, the secret to making the most of that most elusive commodity -- time. Determine Your Mission The most important thing you can do to help yourself better manage your life is to write a personal mission statement. Ask yourself, "What is most important in my life as a whole? What do I want to be? to accomplish?" Write these answers down and you've taken the first step toward creating a personal mission statement that represents the deepest and best part of you, your unique capacity to contribute. Make sure it addresses the four basic human needs (physical, social/emotional, mental and spiritual) and deals with all the significant roles in your life. Write to inspire yourself not to impress others. Understand Where You Spend Your Time Every activity of every day
can be classified into Quadrants using four criteria: Important, Urgent,
Unimportant or Not Urgent. Where do you spend your time? Are you mired in
Quadrants I and III, putting out fires and dealing with everyone's priorities
but your own, escaping occasionally to Quadrant IV for relief? Traditional
time-management focuses on to-do lists, prioritizing tasks in Quadrants I and
III, while neglecting the important but less urgent activities in Quadrant
II (such as, creating a personal mission statement, identifying long-range
goals, nurturing relationships, and regular physical, spiritual, mental and
social/emotional renewal.) Crises Planning Interruptions Time-wasters You live your life in terms of roles, authentic parts you've chosen
to fill, roles representing responsibilities, relationships, and areas of contribution.
A clear set of roles will help you create order and balance in your life. Your
roles grow out of and contribute to the fulfillment of your personal mission. Feeling a little overwhelmed? Let's break the big picture down into weekly increments -- smaller, manageable sections of time in which you can plan and execute activities -- close enough to be relevant, distant enough to provide perspective. Begin by identifying a goal for the coming week in each role. Ask yourself, "What can I do in this area that will have the most impact on my life? Will this goal move me toward my over-all goals in this area? Does this goal align with my personal mission and values?" These goals do not necessarily have to be an activity, they can be as simple as determining an area on which you want to concentrate, such as exercising more patience with your children. Again, limit yourself; two goals for each role will ensure success. Organize Weekly Plan your week using a page from any calendar which shows a week at a glance, or draw a chart with the hours of the day in a column on the left and the days of the week in columns across the top. (Covey Leadership Center, Inc. offers effective tools - Weekly Compass (to remind you of your goals and keep your QII activities up close where you'll be sure to remember them), Daily Pages and One-Page Weekly Worksheets.) Considering the week ahead, identify blocks of time when you can perform the goals you've identified in each role, your QII activities. By giving priority to these activities as you organize and review your other appointments, commitments and to-dos for the week, you further your mission instead of merely scheduling crises as they come up. Spread these activities out over the week, allowing time around them to "fill in" with Quadrant III activities. Remember to schedule time for personal renewal (exercise, study, meditation, etc.) Be careful to schedule QII activities at times when you can successfully perform them, not during busy periods when the kids are at home, or your spouse/significant other is sure to suddenly need your assistance or attention. Give yourself a gift -- the opportunity to succeed. Most importantly, schedule QII activities -- "First Things" -- first. Because they're important but not urgent and seem to take the biggest blocks of time, it's easy to push them aside thinking, "I'll do it later." Later rarely arrives in time to prevent your neglected First Things from igniting into crises. Keep in mind that flexibility is the watchword when scheduling. Don't feel that you can't deviate one iota at the end of the week from the schedule you set at the beginning. If you plan an activity and something comes up that keeps you from completing it, adjust your schedule and try to fit the activity in elsewhere during the week. If it won't fit without compromising other priorities, make it the first thing you schedule next week. Don't let yourself look at a weekly schedule as a ball and chain. Remember that time spent planning moves you closer to accomplishing the goals and dreams you hold dear. Exercise Integrity In that milli-second, that instant between stimulus and response, lies a yawning chasm that we leap so often most of us don't even remember it's there. That chasm is the "Moment of Choice" -- the flicker of time when we choose whether to proceed as planned or allow ourselves to be distracted by someone else's priority, a phone call, a crisis. Be aware of that instant and, keeping your mission in mind, exercise integrity as you make choices. Don't let yourself be distracted by the mundane or the hysterical. Hold true to your goals and the mission you've identified. Evaluate Your Week By now you may be thinking, "Whew! What a lot of listing and scheduling." Imagine your satisfaction when you review your week to determine what you learned, what goals you accomplished or didn't accomplish and analyze what kept you from accomplishing them. You'll also be able to identify patterns of success or failure, and determine if you're setting realistic goals. You'll be able to hold up your grid at the end of a busy week and say, "Wow! Look what I got done!" Better yet, you'll know you moved closer to achievement of your mission. Enjoy Success No plan, no formula, no grid guarantees success. You are the one and only arbiter of your success. This information will only be as successful as your application. Dedicate thirty minutes each week to following the six-step process: define your mission, review your roles, identify goals, organize weekly, exercise integrity, and evaluate. Close the gap between what is most important to you and the way you use your time. Thirty minutes spent organizing your life will reap immediate benefits -- inner peace, a balanced life and increased productivity. And finally, celebrate your successes. Sources: Kathy Richards, a member of GDRWA for over five years, served as Treasurer in 1995. Mother of five and award-winning unpublished novelist, Kathy works full-time. She was a 1996 Golden Heart Finalist for Time's Captive, a time-travel/historical that plunges a contemporary heroine into the turmoil surrounding the Comanche surrender in 1875. Since attending the two-day Covey Leadership Center's "First Things First" seminar in 1994, Kathy says her life has never been more fulfilling. She welcomes the opportunity to share these life-changing concepts with fellow authors.
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