Do you ever feel like your brain is full? Like you can't possibly remember all the things that need to be done and the only way you can add another item to your to-do list is by deleting some of the unfinished tasks? That's the way I've felt for the past several weeks.
Like a lot of people, I'm sometimes guilty of taking on too much - saying yes when I should really say no, believing I'll find the time to get the job done. And so the list continues to grow, and deadlines dictate what will be completed next.
The problem, of course, with filling our schedule with busy work is that we don't have time for the truly important items. It's difficult to be proactive when we spend all our time reacting. We can't work on fire prevention if we're constantly putting out fires.
This is what Stephen Covey talks about in his best-selling book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Habit 3 is to put first things ffirst - to work on those activities that will help us accomplish our goals and say no to everything else. Covey divides the tasks that make demands on our time into four categories, or quadrants:
- Things that are both urgent and important.
- Things that are important but not urgent.
- Things that are urgent but not important.
- Things that are neither urgent nor important.
Most of us make time for the items in quadrant one -- those tasks that are both urgent and important. The real decision about how to invest our time is made in the other three quadrants, and many of us, driven by the idea of urgency, get pulled into quadrant 3 -- doing things that take up our time but don't help us accomplish our goals. Highly effective people, however, focus their attention on activities in quadrant 2 -- things that are important but not urgent.
Of course, we all know this is the key to success, but for many of us it's difficult to ignore a ringing phone, to say no to the urgent in favor of the important. That's why I was so impressed when my new boss sent out an e-mail last week saying he was cancelling our weekly sales call and that he didn't want us to do any work that day. Instead, he encouraged us to spend our time on "personal or professional development" and report back to him on what we decided to do.
His mission for us was to focus on quadrant 2. I pulled out my to-do list, ignored everything with a due date, and spent time working on long-term goals. I was so inspired that my professional development day turned into a entire weekend. It was time well spent.
Intrigued? Not sure where to start? Here are a few ideas.
- Set some goals: Before we can focus on what's truly important, we have to define what important means.
- Find a mentor: Someone who can help you become more successful
- Become a mentor: The quickest way to learn all that stuff we pretend to know is to teach it to someone else.
- Go back to school: Get a Masters, get a professional designation, or take a continuing education course.
- Read a book: It's cheaper than school and can be just as effective.
- Get organized: Yes, it'll take some time, but it'll save time in the long-run.
- Exercise: It's good for you, and it'll clear your mind and make you more creative.
- Take some time off: Take a nap, take a vacation, spend time with your family, go to church -- do something other than work. It will rejuvenate you.
- Volunteer: We're all in this together, and sometimes people need a helping hand. Don't worry -- you'll get something out of it too.
We all lead busy lives, but we should be careful not to let the day-to-day routine get in the way of our long-term goals. As Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard points out, "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." So how are you spending yours?
