Yup. Reading the PMS daily does make a difference: I exercised after work daily, and spent the week finishing my planner pages with ticks all down the page. Lost some weight, got fitter (a bit, it’s only a week). Couldn’t ask for more.
Or could I?
Some friends have often asked how I manage to run an Institute, give driving advice, run a speakers club, do the social and side-business that those commitments entail, write a couple of books and compile this blog.
I, on the other hand, ask them how they manage to get so much done because my perception is that they are constantly being, doing and having a better social life than me, and their homes are pristine. (Occasionally it occurs to me that their houses are spotlessly clean because they’re never in them.)
When it comes down to it, the difference must be in the way we choose to spend our time and what lies behind how we choose to spend our time.
I’m not judging – the way they choose to spend their time and money may be different to how I do those things, but that doesn’t make either side ‘wrong’. It merely provides tangible proof that the things we value are different. Alternatively (and this is a bit deeper), our values are the same but the way we address those values is different.
For example – and see which side you fall – whenever I have conducted a values exercise I can be absolutely sure that for those who are parents, ‘Family’ always come at or near the top of the tree. And I look at the room and I see people who work 80 hours a week and who rarely even see the family that is so important to them.
Then I reflect on that values definition, and realise that while my value of family is defined to include ‘presence’, their value of family might just as easily (and validly be defined as ‘providing for their needs and wants by working hard to get the money that pays for them’. So we act differently on what we value to be important.
And what we ‘do’ takes up ‘time’. What I do to take up my time is write and serve the organisations I have joined. My friends spend their time differently – for example, running around after their children helping them learn, play, perform and so on. Which is something I used to do but now my kids are adults. What I do now is not necessarily what I did then. And I forgot!
How we spend our time is a reflection not only of our values but also that of our current situation – our obligations, duties, interests, and so on.
I get a lot done because I prioritise and plan my time. As a result, the reason I appear to watch so much television is because I have the time to do that. And said television is so predictable I can read a book or ‘do’ Facebook at the same time. (20 mins of adverts per hour helps. It’s amazing what you can get done in short bursts.)
Learn values-based time management. Apply what you learn to what you truly value. See if you can do more of what you value, less of what you don’t, and still get the things done that need to be done.
It is possible.
Buy My Book HERE. Read the opening pages at ‘Look Inside’. Available in Kindle or Paperback.
