Coaching Videos & Tips - May 16 2019 No.603
A QUICK GUIDE TO TIME MANAGEMENT
I think I've made best use of time by getting to the heart of good time management in less than four minutes! What do I mean by best use of time? Well, perhaps, you have four minutes (or slightly less!) to spare.
Whatever you've done or haven't done today, whatever you've achieved or not achieved, however you now feel about how things have gone so far today... how you feel now is what's important; what you do next is most important and how you do it is of the ultimate importance. Your future depends on what you do now. What's already happened today is in the past. You might learn from it but you can't relive it. So, embrace this moment, it is the start of something new.
And, if you want to learn more about how to embrace the moment, there are over 600 previous "weekly editions" in The Archive.
Today' video explores time management and today's Quick Tip alludes to how we often waste time looking backwards. Actually "often" is too cursory a word... subconsciously (unless you've got your mind tuned in to flow) we're permanently looking backwards.
In conversation a while back, a client explored what he described as "the lunacy" of trying to undo or redo the past. He talked about how we would (in the past!) often come away from a meeting wishing he had said or not said something, somehow thinking that agonizing over something that is history might somehow change it. Lunacy indeed. As we all know, what is past is past - it may provide us with some learning but, all too often, the exercise in looking for learning lapses into loops and loops of useless thought.
And, then, as another client explained, we start feeling guilty that we've wasted time thinking useless thoughts about the past... guilt being one of the most corrosive forms of useless thought.
Exactly the same process kicks into gear when we waste time and know we're wasting or realize we've just wasted it. I've had many conversations over the years with people who are beating themselves up about wasting time... and exercise which is, of course, another exercise in time-wasting!
The key point about time, though, is that now is the time! Now is the only time in which I can give my all to what I'm doing. Now is the only time I can be in the zone. And regardless of how many things you'd like to do or how much time you've wasted, your challenge in life is to make the most of now.
It's May, we're in the full throes of asparagus season! In the fancy restaurants up the road in Geneva, clientele is being overwhelmed with asparagus done ten different ways with twenty different sauces... and rarely an accompaniment. Done right, asparagus is a meal in itself. Or so it would seem...
We were shopping for asparagus a couple of days ago. At the checkout in this wonderful place that specializes in fresh fruit and vegetables, the assistant was scanning our purchases when, as she passed a bunch of asparagus through, a couple of the tips (the nicest part!) broke off. As we packed our purchases and as she picked up the broken pieces, we fully expected her to put them in our bag. Instead, she picked them up, popped them in her mouth and quipped "That'll keep me going until lunchtime... sure asparagus is a meal in itself - and it's so good for you!"