Time Management
Identifying and Sticking With Your Prioritiesby Jeff Davidson
In order to use your time and energy efficiently, you must decide which few things in your life are most important to you. This article gives tips for staying on course in your quest to achieve your goals.
The key to winning back your time is to decide on what is important to you. If you don't establish your priorities, almost anything can compete for your time. Once you've established your priorities and identified some goals in support of them, what will it take to ensure that you stay on your chosen path? Here are some reinforcement techniques that will help prevent you from straying:
Join up with others who have similar priorities and supporting goals, perhaps a professional, civic, or social organization in your town.
Surround yourself with reinforcing statements, reminders, and post-it pads so that you don't lose sight of what you said was important.
Create a cassette tape of your priorities and supporting goals in the form of affirmations, "I choose to visit the health club four times per week for a minimum workout of 30 minutes..."
Prepare a budget. List exactly what it will cost to honor your priorities and the goals you've chosen to support them.
Develop rituals that support your quest. If your goal is to lose six pounds by the end of June, begin taking the stairs instead of the elevator whenever you're heading for lunch or to the car.
Keep your action steps bite-size. There's no value in choosing goals that are so difficult to achieve that you can't honor the associated priority.
Report to someone. Have some significant other serving as a coach or watchdog to ensure that you do what you said you would (Don't be lulled into thinking that this ploy is for the weak-willed. High achievers do this!).
Visualize the goal everyday. Imagine achieving your goal while you're waiting in line at the bank, when you're in the bathroom, or stuck in traffic. The research is in: visualization helps. Olympic athletes on-board a plane, en route to their next meet, improve their performance during the meet by visualizing their performance.
Set up a series of small rewards so that you're naturally reinforcing the behavior you've chosen to engage.
Make a contract with yourself. Author Dennis Hensley describes what he calls Advancement by Contract as "A contract (that) takes precedence over everything else." He suggests carefully selecting three to five major goals [in support of your priorities] and then signing a contract that aids you in reaching these goals. "Once under contract, you would have to succeed by a preselected date or else face the consequences of defaulting on the contract." Make three copies of your contract (see figure below). Keep the original. Give copies to your spouse, a co‑worker, and a friend.
SELF‑INITIATED CONTRACT
I, ___________, agree to accomplish each of the following items on or before _____________ and hereby do formally contract myself to these purposes. These goals are challenging, but reasonable, and I accept them willingly.
A. ________________________________________
B. ________________________________________
C. ________________________________________
Signature: ___________________ Date: ________
Review your contract when you find yourself becoming distracted by small details, or if you think you're not moving in the right direction.
Plot your campaign on the calendar starting from the ending date - the goals deadline. Then work back to the present, plotting the sub-tasks and activities that you need to undertake in order to accomplish the goal. It is helpful to use a monthly calendar to establish realistic, interim dates that reflect available resources, vacations, holidays, week‑ends, other off hours, and reasonable output levels. Give yourself flexibility; build in some down-time and vacation time
When You Get Off Course
If you're like most people, on more than one occasion, you're bound to get off course. When you do, revisit the list above and initiate a new strategy in place of or, better yet, in addition to, the ones you're already using. Here are some of the signs that you're not proceeding along the path that you said you would:
* Paying lip-service to yourself - You said that undertaking your goal was important, but you haven't scheduled any time on your calendar, budgeted any funds, or thought even about it.
* You're late - You said that working out four times a week was important, and you intended to get to the gym at 6:30, but you're not there till 7:05.
* Letting piles stack up - Although you've chosen a handful of priorities, you find yourself still assembling piles of stuff--things that are not in accordance with your priorities.
* You decide that your priorities are not the same, though you have given much time and thought to establishing your goals.
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Jeff Davidson, MBA, CMC, is a popular conference speaker and author of 28 books, including Breathing Space (Feb 2000). For books, videos, cassettes, or presentations, visit http://www.BreathingSpace.com, FAX (919) 932-9982, or call (919) 932-1996.
