You can't.
Time, is by far, God's way of leveling the playing field for everyone. Obama, Osama, you and I all have 24 hours in a day. Now, how each of us make use of the time given to us is what makes the whole world of differences.
Time acts on us and there is nothing we can do about it. We can change time, go back in time, nor distort time. So, if we try to change, control, or manage time, then we'll end up being just unhappy. If you substitute the word "time" in this entire paragraph for "weather", you'll know what I mean.
Hence, if we try to manage time, while time is outside our circles of influence, we'll of course be stressed! As stress is an emotion we get when we want to control or do something that is outside our circles of influence.
Through the lens of PoEM, we can only do three things and that is; invest, use, and leverage on time.
First, if I can use the acronym AIR, which stands for alignment, indicators, and reflection; it sums up how we should be investing our time. Do we spent time doing things that matter to us or do we spent time to do things that can bring us huge returns? That question can be summed up in Covey's Quadrant II of "Important but not urgent".
In other words, if we invest our time in doing things that do not act on us, then sooner rather than later it will bring us huge returns. So what are the activities that we should engage in order to invest our time? The answer lies in AIR.
If the activities we engaged in are Aligned to our mission or purpose in life, and there are Indicators to tell us how we are progressing (or how are we truly living our lives in accordance to our mission), and finally if everyday we can invest time to Reflect on what we have done or did we act in such a way that is accordance to our mission, then those are good Quadrant II activities.
Say, exercise is something that doesn't act on us. Most of us, myself included, really need some serious nudging in order to get ourselves to exercise. But is that aligned to our mission? Well, yes, if you see that having a healthy body allows you to be more confident, more alert, and feel better (so as to fulfill your mission) then it is aligned.
We also need indicators, like how long you're going to be on the treadmill or how far you're gonna run, those become indicators to tell us if we have achieved. It could be also the number of times you'd run in a week.
Finally, only when you have indicators, like I will run three times weekly for at least 30 minutes, then at the end of the week you can say whether you are successful or not.
Secondly, how we use time. Time and tide wait for no man. So its how we use it that matters. Here, the focus is more on, given a particular situation how would you use your time? This is more reactive, where let's say you intend to do your Quadrant II activity today from 7pm to 9pm, but as you were settling down, you spouse ask for your time. How would you respond?
Honey, I really need to work on this? Or, well, let's talk? Which will you say? It all depends on whether you operate out of a perspective of "I" or "we". The answer is obvious which you will pick based on your perspective.
Hence, here is an issue of where if you think of "manage time", then you may give in but can't wait to get back to your task. So the generation of time management tools will tell you to adhere to your schedule. Or worse, you will face a dilemma. Life is full of surprises, so if you schedule your time so tightly to fulfill your Q2 activities, then you're just setting yourself up to fail.
Which brings us to our third and final point. If we are able to leverage on others' time, then we can certainly achieve more. But achieve more at who's expense? This is where, as an employee you are really selling your time to your employer so that the company can achieve its goals. Here, the offer in return is salary. So, the higher your salary, the more valuable you are to the organization.
Here's the thing. How do you leverage if you are not the one handing out the pay-check? The answer lies with how you can engage (not just involve) another person to work alongside you to fulfill the goal? The answer comes to two factors. Either you can motivate that person in an extrinsic manner (which we just discuss above) or in an intrinsic manner.
The second manner is more challenging. But the answer actually lies in, our ability to engage another person to AIR, that is what makes your leverage a success. Hence, engaged mastery skills and attributes will allow you to AIR another person so that together everyone achieve miracles (team)!
Respectfully yours,
Melvyn Tan
(Sent from my Blackberry Bold)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment