Category Archives: Time Management

If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down

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“If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down.”

—Robert Pirsig, late American writer and philosopher

Image from Unsplash by Milan Fakurian

What is the current pace of your life?

To what degree are you running the rat race or crawling along at a snail’s pace?

Perhaps the tempo of your world is just right — you’ve found your groove and there is not much more to do other than put things on cruise control.

If you are on an entrance or exit ramp of life you know when it’s time to hit the gas or pump the brakes.

EXERCISE:

Where are you restless and need to speed things up?

Where are you out of breath and need to slow things down?

What is the optimal speed for you at this point in your life?

You have to wait for the falling tide

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“You have to wait for the falling tide.”

—Arthur C. Brooks, faculty member of the Harvard Business School

Image from Unsplash by Aidan Hodel

As a young boy, Arthur Brooks was fishing along the shore without success. After a while an elderly fisherman from the area came along, and noticed his frustration that nothing was biting.

Today’s quote was the wisdom offered, indicating that when the tide recedes is when all the plankton and bait fish gets stirred up, making the game fish crazy and willing to bite at everything.

How might this idea relate to your life?

Where do the tides in your personal and professional worlds seem to be headed out to sea?

How could this be a time where things are getting stirred up with new possibilities to catch a big one?

EXERCISE:

Where in your life are the falling tides offer you some new fertile opportunities?

How can you avoid the mistake of not having your line in the water?

You have plenty of free time

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You have plenty of free time. You just need to find where it is hiding.

—Calm App Reflection

Image from Unsplash by Annie Spratt

What if time were like an Easter egg hunt? What if you could find an extra thirty minutes — or even an hour — with each extra egg you found? Consider going on an imaginary hunt in your mind and add the extra time to your base of 24 hours. With four extra eggs you could suddenly have 26 to 28 hours to work with and navigate your days with greater wiggle room. How would you spend it?

Of course, the rotation of the earth is not going to slow down any time soon. It’s clearly up to us to become better hunters to discover where pockets of time are hiding — often in plain sight.

EXERCISE:

To determine where your actual time is being spent, consider using a time log for the next few days. You can find a copy of this exercise in my Time Management Strategies and Tactics workbook, along with other tools to help you manage your time and energy.

As you apply these tools, please also consider the filtering words More, Less, Start, and Stop as guides to reallocate this hidden resource.

To improve your chances of finishing, cut your goal in half

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“To improve your chances of finishing, cut your goal in half or double your timeline for completion.”

—Jon Acuff, author of Finish — Give Yourself the Gift of Done

Image from Unsplash by Alice Yamamura

As we enter the halfway point of 2022, how are you progressing on the goals you established in January?

How many have been realized? Where are you on track?

Where have you fallen behind or perhaps given up completely?

To some, today’s quote looks like a cop out or a form of sandbagging. After all, we are supposed to swing for the fences and stretch for the stars if we listen to the most popular advice on achievement. This may be all well and good in theory but not if we never see things through and wallow in regret.

EXERCISE:

Where would cutting your goals down to size or giving yourself more time to complete things dramatically increase the likelihood of finishing?

Managing your own and others’ expectations will be an important consideration to reduce the chances of upsets along the way.

“How will you take time for yourself today?”

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“How will you take time for yourself today?”

Calm app “Reflection”

Image from Unsplash by insung yoon

Notice the flow of time throughout your day. How rushed, excited, or perhaps bored do you feel?

There are so many possibilities in each moment if we look closely.
Some questions I’ve asked myself this past year include:

  1. What have I done to grow myself mentally, physically, and spiritually?
  2. What have I discovered about the process of aging?
  3. Who are the people and what activities help me remain positive and enthusiastic about my life?

EXERCISE:

Consider these questions and make up a few of your own to discuss with close friends, family members, and colleagues to gain their perspectives.

If you are interested in a free copy of my Time Management Strategies and Tactics workbook, please reply to this post and I will happily send you a PDF copy.

“The more balls you try to juggle, the more you’re likely to drop.”

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“The more balls you try to juggle, the more you’re likely to drop.”

—Mohit Pandey, The Scrabbled Thoughts

Image from Unsplash by Yi Liu

Did you know that you can become a lifetime member of the International Juggler’s Association for only $1,250? As a bonus, you can include up to five additional members of your family (if they live at the same address) at no additional cost. The world records for juggling various numbers of balls are:

# of Balls Record Time
3 12 hours, 5 minutes
4 2 hours, 46 minutes, 48 seconds
5 2 hours, 41 minutes, 27 seconds
6 25 minutes, 17 seconds
7 16 minutes, 25 seconds
8 1 minute, 13 seconds

EXERCISE:

How many balls are you trying to keep up in the air, and how many are dropping? To what degree have you already become a lifetime member of the association without paying the membership fee? What are the right balls, and the right number of balls, to put in your juggling rotation for an optimal life?

“If we wait for tomorrow to be yesterday, we’ll wait forever.”

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“If we wait for tomorrow to be yesterday, we’ll wait forever.”

—Stephen St. Amant, Marketer, blogger, artist

Image from Unsplash by Aron Visuals

How does today compare to yesterday, last week, last month, or last year?

To what degree have you accepted that the past is history and the future a mystery?

What did the good old days look and feel like for you? To what extent is it possible to go back and actually recapture your happiest of yesterdays?

Where do and don’t you have control or considerable influence on what tomorrow may be?

EXERCISE:

What can and will you do today that will help realize the possibilities of many better tomorrows in your personal and professional communities?

What might it cost if you wait or hesitate?

“No one wants to be the skydiver who pulled the rip cord too late.”

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“No one wants to be the skydiver who pulled the rip cord too late.”

—Eric Barker, author of Barking up the Wrong Tree

Image from Unsplash by Kamil Pietrzak

Where has procrastination, putting things off, or just a hint of hesitation resulted in your experiencing negative consequences? Perhaps you have missed an important professional or personal opportunity?

Although delays and inaction rarely have life-threatening impact, they can chip away at our overall success, fulfillment, and life satisfaction.

Alternatively, where has acting too quickly or jumping the gun resulted in false starts, penalties, or disqualifications from important events in your life?

What value could having a far better grasp on your personal and professional timing have on your future?

EXERCISE:

Consider picking up a copy of Dan Pink’s book, When – The Scientific Secrets of Perfect to Timing – to glean a few nuggets of wisdom on this important life skill.

“When was the last time you had some ME time?”

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“When was the last time you had some ME time?”

—Author Unknown

Image from Unsplash by Caleb Frith

George Washington once said, “It is better to be alone than in bad company.”

These days it may also be better to be alone than in even good company.

To what degree is finding “Me” time a significant challenge for you? How often may this be due to your selfless, giving nature? Where are you burning the candle at both ends to serve and support others in your various communities?

What is this costing you? What may it be costing those you care about because you are often running on or near empty?

EXERCISE:

Do your own Google search for “Me Time” activities that suit you. Select at least one strategic activity for when you have one, five or fifteen minutes. For advanced activities look at longer blocks of time to fully recharge and be your best.

Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only

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“Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.”

—Sir Francis Bacon, 16th Century Lord Chancellor of England

Image from Unsplash by Thought Catalog

I have a math problem for you on the subject of books. According to Google’s advanced algorithms, about 130 million books have been published in all of modern history.

Consider multiplying 130 million by the number of hours it takes you to read an average book, giving your reading speed. To keep it simple, let’s assume it takes you ten hours. Multiply 130 million by ten and you see that it would take you one billion, three hundred thousand hours to read all the books published in modern history.

Now let’s pretend you began reading at birth, and that, given advanced medical breakthroughs, you live to be 100.

If my math is correct, it would take 876,000 lifetimes to read them all – far more if you took time to sleep, work, eat, or do anything other than read.

EXERCISE:

As you examine your book tasting efforts, which new books, or perhaps a few oldies but goodies, are worth your valuable time in the years ahead?