Have you ever noticed that there are some things you just never find time to do? You want to do them, but years slip by and they just never get done. How can you find time for those important things?
Time Management is About Priorities
Believe it or not, the problem with getting important things done is priorities. In those months and years when you did not do those things you always intended to do, you managed to do a bunch of other things. You found time for work, friends, family, projects, learning, chores, and so on. You had the full complement of time – unless you were imprisoned or hospitalised, or the like.
In all you did do, using all the time that anyone has, you did not make a priority of the ‘important things’ you thought you should do. But you did find time for a lot of other things. Many of those other things did not deserve to displace the important things, but they took that place none-the-less.
Imagined Priorities
Write a list of ten things that you believe deserve highest priority in your life. Include the things that deserve to be given time. Things that build toward your future, or involve the important relationships in your life, will probably be on your list.
Most of the things that end up on your list will be your “imagined priorities“. These are the things your conscience tells you should be top priorities. These are the things that you believe in sentimentally.
Now, write a list of the ten things that you actually do give priority to. Include the things that take up most of your time, your thoughts, your emotional energy and your devotion.
This is the list of your “real” priorities. They are real, because they are the priorities you actually give time and attention to. And it is this list that proves that your first list is of “imagined” priorities.
Reality Check
Those “important things” you don’t get done are left out because they are not really important to you. What is important to you is linked to the things you actually do get done.
If you waste time on amusements or trivial conversations, instead of getting the study, work, or other things done, then your true priority is the right to waste time. If you don’t find time for the “important” people in your life, then they are not really important to you. You know that they “should” be important and so you give sentimental lip-service to them. Your actions, however, confirm that they are not as important as you say, when it comes down to how you really live.
You Will Never Find the Time
You will never find the time for “important things” that are not really important to you. You are deluding yourself. You are refusing to see the truth about yourself, by telling yourself your priorities are different to the way you live. You shield yourself against your failure, but upholding noble thoughts. But those noble ambitions are a cover. What you really do tells us who you really are!
You will never find the time for those things you talk about. Your talk is a smoke-screen. You cannot be believed to uphold those noble or “important things” until you do those “important things”.
You Have to Make Time
You will never find the time you need to get things done. The object is not to “find” time, but to MAKE time. When you get up and do what has to be done, you have MADE the time.
Don’t ever look for the time, MAKE it!
So stop fooling yourself with the sentimental idea that you have high priorities. It’s time to start changing the way you live.
Do It! And Do it Now!
Start reading a chapter of the Bible, Today! Phone that important loved one, Now! Pull out that unfinished project and get back to it, Today!
When the phone rings and someone wants to eat up some of your time, tell them you’ll have to get back to them later. When someone wanders in and starts rambling on about something, politely ask them if you can get back to them when you’ve finished the thing you have to do.
If you don’t make the time you will lose it. So, get to it, Now!
Note: This theme is continued in a follow up post titled Finding Time by Making Time. Click this link to go to that post now…. FINDING TIME BY MAKING TIME.
Tags: time management
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