Proper Time Management deals with what you do, and when you do it. I sometimes put the word "proper" in front of Time Management because, whether we know it or not, we all practice it. Some of us make the right choices about what to do and when to do it, and end up being successful and happy. Others make bad decisions and end up where they would rather not be.
I want to discuss a part of the process that is sometimes overlooked and because of this, it negatively affects our performance. Part of my personal Time Management journey has finally taken me to a place where I am now making the tough decisions that need to be made in order for me to be as successful and as happy as I should be. I now have just recently been able to make the tough decisions that deal with the ability to know when to let go of priorities that I dearly want to accomplish, for the greater benefit.
I am talking about the ability to let go, or as I say sometimes, to just dump really important things in order for us to have the clear decks we need to get other, even more important tasks and jobs done. This may seem like a simple thing; do what is most important and move on. What's the big deal? The big deal is this; our reach will always extend our ability do what we want to do.
I don't know about you, but my Life List has enough on it to last me about 3 lifetimes, and I hope I have about a half of a lifetime left to add to it. My problem is, and always has been, to pick and choose what to do, then to find time to do it. With so much to choose from, the key to my success has always been in picking the right things to do from all of the choices available to me. I have always said, "Time is the stuff that life is made up of, make the right choices, and your chances of success are massively improved, make the wrong choices, your fate is sealed."
Time Management and self-management are closely intertwined. When you make the right choices in regard to your time, you then have to be able to manage yourself to the extent that you are able to follow through on those decisions. I recently had to make a very tough decision regarding a goal that I had made at the beginning of the year. I set a goal, a reasonable I thought, of posting on 3 of my blogs, on a daily basis. This was a goal that I had spent a considerable amount of time on, and was happy with my final decision.
I started to implement my goal and that is where the wheels came off. I tried for over two months to find a balance between that goal, and the rest of the demands on my time. Some days I was able to get the 3 posts done, other days, 2 posts, and some days no posts. That was not an acceptable outcome. I knew that I would have to make a tough decision or lose control of my daily Agenda, a situation that would totally destroy my focus and productivity on a daily basis.
As important as that goal was, it was more important to keep control of my Agenda and what took place on a daily routine. I had to make a decision that I was not happy with but knew had to be made. I ended up reducing the number of posts from 3 to 2. It was a tough decision but a necessary one. It sounds corny but it's not unlike being in a sinking lifeboat, if you do not sacrifice one person, everyone will drown when the boat sinks.
