Are You Wasting Time?

"If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves" - Maria Edgeworth

Whilst away as I watched sat back, relaxed and took in the sights and sounds of Corfu. What struck me most apart from the beauty of the Island, is the pace of life and the lack of urgency, even the driving was not as irrate as some places we have visited. As I pondered this it got me thinking about how we live our lives with urgency especially owning your own business and needing to provide an income. Since starting my own business I have had to learn the difference between urgency and important. I read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen covey some years back. I would recommend you grab a copy for yourself. I often recommend it to people who attend my Personal Development workshops. This book allowed me to organise myself and my time more effectively. I gave a copy to a client last Autumn, as he was stressed with a to do list that never seemed to reduce, Everything was urgent to him, I explained this book would help. However, his first comment to me was that there was something missing. His real challenge was that he didn't see how you get from the theory to the practice.

There is no doubt that the principles outlined in the book are fundamental truths, I mean they were even known to Aristotle. He was quoted as teaching that there are three basic steps that you must take to get what you want out of life.

* Understand that you Can achieve Success
* Define what Success represents, for You
* Organise you life around its Achievement

And I would have to agree and say he was absolutely spot on with these principles. Don't under-estimate the value of these simple steps ( in our lives we often over look something if its simple believing if its simple it has little or no value, and go on to over complicate life. I bet you can think of occasions you've done this) here you have an important principle. It is a principle that everyone who has ever been successful, in any field of endeavour, has also used.

In his follow-up book, First Things First, Stephen Covey explains that most people are driven by the concept of urgency. But to really effect positive change in our lives, we need to reorganise the way we spend our time; based on the concept of importance - not urgency. For most people, the problem is that we are continually doing the urgent stuff, at the expense of the important.

The result of properly dedicating ourselves to the important activity is that we will gain control over what is happening in our lives: we will thereby reduce the time we spend being driven by the concept of urgency. Time for important activity, of course, must come from elsewhere. It must come from saying 'no' to some of the urgent stuff! This can be tough at first but once you do it and realise nothing bad happens and life continues, it becomes very liberating.

So there is no question that to achieve something significant, we need to take the subject of Time Management very seriously. After teaching Time Management, I am convinced that people need to STOP and take stock of where they are and look at what is really urgent and what is important.

For a week keep a list of how you utilise your time, including how long you spend on each thing you do, be honest and don't miss anything off. Mark next to each task whether it is Urgent, Important, Non Urgent, Non Important.

Using this simple method you will be able to see, where your time is going: on the urgent stuff or on the important stuff. That's the kind of clarity you really need in order to be able to achieve your Mission. When you can make this important connection between your heart's desire, encapsulated within your Mission, and your everyday use of time, then you will become unstoppable.

Success simply cannot continue to elude you when you have followed the principles we have been discussing. You will begin to achieve your goals through your effective use of time.

And take your life further, because those goals will be set as steps along the route to your major objective, you will also achieve your Mission, however you have defined it. When it comes to your mission it is important to know your outcome and why you are doing what your doing? But that's for us to discuss another time. For now go away reflect on where you are right now and where you want to be. What needs to change in order for you to get there?