Time

Poet Carl Sandburg said, "Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you do not let other people spend it for you."

John Maxwell says, "Your greatest possession is the twenty four hours directly ahead of you. How will you spend it? Will you give in to pressure or focus on priorities? Will you allow pointless e-mails, unimportant tasks, telemarketers, interruptions and other distractions to consume your day? Or will you take complete responsibility for how you spend your time, take control of the things you can, and make today yours."

When I was a child, life had so  much less distraction. Life went on in a leisurely pattern. We had many less things to distract us, no TV, no internet, no computers, no mobile phones, no videos, the list goes on. When I joined the workforce in 1972 there were still no mobile phones, no internet and no video and no computers. Most correspondence was still hand written. When you finished work at the end of the day or week-end you did just that, finished work. How life and the workplace has changed. 

Now it is commonplace to still be working, in some form or other, during our leisure time. Now we have so many things which vie for our time and attention, mobile phones, e-mail, text messages, TV. 

Now I can sit in my lounge chair and take a photo and show it to the world in seconds. Technology is wonderful. In my work I can even go online and track aircraft and tell you exactly when they will arrive at their destination according to the information given by their computers and overhead satellites. 

Life is lived at a much faster pace and everyone, it seems, wants a piece of our time.  

How do we prioritise where we spend our time? How are we to know where we are to give this most valuable asset, the next twenty four hours?

Start by asking yourself these three questions:

What is required of me?

Any realistic assessment of priorities must start with an assessment of what you must do. For you to be a good spouse, friend or parent, what is required of you?

To satisfy your employer, what must you do? 

If you are a leader then the question should be, What must I personally do that cannot be delegated to others? When listing priorities, what is required should always be given careful consideration before moving on to the next question.

What gives me the greatest return?

As you move through life, you will begin to see some activities which return a higher return for effort than others. (If you haven't already discovered this, your probably not progressing.) Your attention should be focussed on the activities which return high yield.

What gives me the greatest reward? 

If you only do what you must and what is effective, you will be highly productive, but you may not be content. It is important to consider what gives you personal satisfaction. Don't start with the reward question and go no further. There must be balance. No-one can be successful who doesn't possess the discipline to take care of the first to areas before adding the third. 

The philosoper, William James said, "The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook."