MANAGE YOUR CHOICES, NOT YOUR TIME
“I don’t have enough time” is the greatest excuse in the history of excuses. As soon as someone says, “I don’t have enough time”, we instantly know what they really mean; this is not important.
There’s no such thing as time management. There’s only choice management. We use time as an excuse when we don’t like our choices, but we always have choices, and making no choice is still a choice.
If everything is important, then nothing is important. How often do you say, “I’m so busy”? Wearing busyness as a badge of honor is a sure-fire way to undermine your purposefulness and personal effectiveness. There is usually an inverse relationship between how busy someone is and how productive they are.
Truly productive people rarely talk about how busy they are. Why? Because they know that trying to do everything with equal energy usually results in doing nothing with any energy.
The challenge is not to confuse motion with momentum. A rocking horse will keep you moving, but it won’t get you anywhere.
INSPIRATION FROM OTHERS
“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” – Michael Altshuler
“You can do anything, but not everything.” – David Allen
QUESTIONS TO REFLECT ON
- What percentage of your time today is spent on things that don’t deserve your time?
- Do you tolerate others using your time in a way that is ineffective?
- Imagine that you have $100 to spend, where the money is a metaphor for your time and attention. Looking at your to do list, how would you spend that $100?
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