"There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing." - Brian Tracy
Time. Something I don't have enough. Too many things to do and too little time.
Or, that is the excuse I give myself.
Recently, I saw a video that showed a Japanese man, got up, prepared breakfast, got dressed and ate breakfast and out of the door for work, in 4 minutes and 52 seconds. In the video, he invented a lot of shortcuts to get things done e.g. how to brush teeth and wear your pants at the same time (I have pigued your interest there :) ). It was pretty funny when I saw it.
Really, there is enough time but I just need to PRIORITISE. Big word, but what does it mean? It means I have to be time-disciplined (not sure if this is an official term, but if not, you heard it here first!). I have to pull myself away from the facebook games that I am currently addicted to and write this post. I have to hang out the laundry first so while the clothes are drying, I can sweep the floor. It means I have to stop doing laundry or sweeping the floor and answer the question that my 4 year old is asking.
Time-discipline means that I have to do the most important thing first and go down the list. Whenever a more important thing arises, I do that thing first. That's easy, but why do I have so much trouble?
There are 2 main reasons:
- Distractions
The Internet, a TV program, a messy house - these things distract me from finishing the most important things. - Avoidance
The most important things normally take patience and time and sometimes, tedious. So I avoid doing them. I tend to do the easy-to-complete (read: unimportant) things first, leaving precious little time to do the really important things.
Not hard really. Just a very conscious effort to do the most important things first.
Knowing we should prioritize is one thing. Knowing HOW to prioritize is another. IMHO, I think many people equates importance to priority.
ReplyDeleteI once learnt something from a time management course which I found to be very true. I was taught that this should be the correct sequence of doing things (from first to last):
(1) Urgent and Important matters
(2) Urgent and Not Important matters
(3) Important and Not Urgent matters
(4) Not Important and Not Urgent matters
Very often, people try to finish item (3) before item (2). Because Important matters sometimes takes more time to complete (that's why they are important, right?), by the time they are finished, item (2) might be already overdue. This may sometimes lead to more issues and generate more problems solved.
I had a friend who procrastinated for one whole month in paying his credit card bills because he had to rush out that all-important work plan. Then he got slapped with a late payment fine of $30 dollars, and reality set in... that's too unacceptable! Now he has more urgent yet unimportant things to do: rush off to pay his bill before the 24%pa interests chalk up too much, then call up the credit card company, wait 20 minutes on the phone to get through to someone, spend 10 minutes selling his excuse to try to waive his late-payment fine, then realized that he couldn't understand the service operator's heavy accent and vice versa, and spend another 30 minutes waiting for and selling his excuse to the operator's supervisor.
So I do agree with "the mum" that it is crucial to overcome the 2 main causes of procrastination (which apply to me very often too), I would like to add that knowing how to prioritize is important as well.
[...] how, I feel time deprived when I am in Singapore. I yearned for more time in the day and time to do things that I would do [...]
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