Great leaders are measured by what they achieve! My new book, Creating Time Life Magic will be published in the next couple of months. Be on the lookout for it. It will help you get your life under control.
This week…take the time to think about what big contribution you have made in any part of your life recently…and ask yourself, what are your current plans for achieving something that is really important which will make a big difference in some way in your life…whether it be with your family, your fellow employees, your customers, or yes, even just for you.
It is never too late to start doing the right things. It is never too late to get better at something. It is never too late to get healthier. It is never too late to fix a relationship.
Don’t say you don’t have time because we all have the exact amount of time, which is 168 hours, 10,080 minutes, and 604,800 seconds a week to get done what we want to get done. We have this amount of time every single week over… and over… and over again. You can’t save any of it and use it later. If you don’t use it wisely, you cannot get it back.
We all invest money and we invest our time. We don’t all have the same amount of money to invest but we do have the same amount of time.
Why did you break it down into seconds, Lee, you might ask? I broke it down into seconds because that is the problem with a lot of people. They start wasting seconds by not being organized and not being able to find the phone number or address or piece of paper they want…and before long that turns into wasted minutes…and YOU know the rest of the story!
If YOU waste just 30 minutes a day, that adds up to just over 182 hours a year…which adds up to four and a half , forty-hour weeks…which equals one work month out of twelve. That is why seconds count!
What would you do with an additional four and a half weeks a year at work? YOU could spend more time with your fellow employees, YOU could spend more time with your customers, YOU could get your work done and have time to exercise. If you only waste 10 minutes a day, that is still 3,650 minutes a year, which is a little more than 60 hours…which is still a one and a half, forty-hour workweek. Wow, time does fly, doesn’t it?
- Think about having 10,080 minutes every Monday morning that you have to spend before next Monday rolls around. This in not money. This is time.
- What about spending say, 300 of those minutes exercising a week. This is a very good investment like a good stock. It will pay off later.
- How about spending 300-500 of those minutes with your family and friends making them feel special and treating them as individuals.
- How about spending 120-180 minutes a week taking that special person out for a movie, dinner, or just a walk in the park.
- How abut spending 150 minutes week on your own personal development so you can get that next position.
- How about spending 150 minutes a week coaching and counseling your fellow employees who report to you.
Block out 3,360 minutes a week to sleep. Block out on your calendar 75 minutes a week to plan your days and to think about what you should be working on now that will help you later in your life.
- Exercise is an investment in the future.
- Financial planning is an investment in the future.
- Spending quality time with your loved ones and friends is an investment in the future.
It is so true that many things that we spend time on now don’t pay off for years to come; but if we don’t invest our time right…right now…the future will not turn out the way that we can make it turn out if we spend our time wisely.
Have a healthy respect for time, and have a healthy respect for your ability to control your future to a large extent! Now take 300 seconds and think about this, and write down what you plan to do about it!
Remember to schedule right into your calendar…the priorities in your life.
- You cannot wish that things get better.
- You cannot hope that things will get better.
- You can pray that things will get better, but…
- The best way to make things better if for YOU always to control the events in your life and to take charge of your life…and to make things happen!
If you are not organized, go take a time management course and buy yourself a day-planner. My Day-Timer which I have been using for 34 years is my best friend. Go to www.daytimer.com and take a look at the seminars they offer or email me at: Lee@leeCockerell.com to remind me to remind you when my Creating Time Life Magic book is published and ready for you to order. Have a great weekend everyone. I have to hid the Easter Eggs on Sunday and that is a big responsibililty and it needs to be done on Sunday and not Monday….Someday is not a day of the week….Lee
Lee,
The best take-a-way from this post is the last paragraph. Use some sort of system to track your tasks. Whether it be paper based like a Day-Timer or software based on your smartphone or tablet, use it religiously. Check it first thing in the morning to see how your day is shaping up, update it throughout the day, and look at it at the end of the day to make sure everything that needed to get done has, in fact, been done.
Our days are way too busy to commit everything to memory.
Armand Girard
Lee,
Your comment “The best way to make things better if for YOU always to control the events in your life and to take charge of your life…and to make things happen!” is spot on. In our world we focus on results. That is absolutely the wrong thing. Results are a product of our effort and the inputs. Control the things we can and work. In my business it’s simple, you set appointments with clients and find new clients. Revenue follows those two things. It’s easy to get caught up in the distractions of the urgent. It’s easy to get caught up in the things we can’t control.
It’s hard but critical to do exactly what you say.
Thanks!
“Future you” will thank you for the positive actions you take today. Be the person who thinks “I’m so glad I….” Instead of, “I wish I had….”