PREFACE
We save minutes with techniques.
We save moments with strategies.
We save memories with a mindset.
Our goal as consultants is not to save you time. Rather, it is to save your life—the life you want to live while everything else is getting in your way. Our goal for you in reading this book is not that you will become the master of time but that it will not master you. Our goal for this book is to help you figure out what is most important so you can use your time wisely and productively.
To accomplish these goals, we use what we like to call “an uncommon approach to the common sense of life today,” inspired by our favorite teachers and mentors: Viennese psychiatrist Alfred Adler, Chicago psychiatrist Rudolf Dreikurs, and High Point University president Nido Qubein. We have also asked expert colleagues in the field of human development and other learning development professionals to provide their best time tips for trainers and people developers. You’ll find their practical and unique ideas throughout the book, along with the best ideas from classic time scholars. It is our intent that the masters will be your teachers, as they have been for us.
If you prefer more of an “over-the-shoulder” view of what we as coaches learn from our clients’ challenges with time, you will enjoy the Coach’s Corner throughout the book. These are real questions and answers about time and life management that we’ve encountered. Perhaps you’ll see one of your own among them. Here is an example:
Coach’s Corner
Q: My to-do list is never-ending. Each day, my tasks—no matter how much I do—are replaced within 24 hours by more. Should my to-do list follow me to the grave?
A: It probably will. Like time poorly used, the list is just a list and ours to use, ignore, or misuse. Here is an idea. Consider using your to-do list as a project blueprint. That way, instead of checking off boxes, you can work from a plan in the same way a building contractor constructs a home.
Group your activities into errands, work, family (and alone) time, study, and so on. Then put each activity into one of those bigger groups. Of course, the details will change from day to day, but your beam, your focus, the “home” you are constructing will remain the same. For some, this grouping helps maintain focus and reduces anxiety.
Another approach is from Qubein. Rather than a to-do list, also have a “to be” list. What do you want most in life? What needs to change? What is your bucket list of things to do before you die (or really start living)? What is your legacy? What do you want it to be?
Finally, the key to time well used will always be organization. Use a daily 3 x 5 card to quickly take notes of situations that occur to you. Later, put the notes in your organizer. A helpful online tool that is also a free application file (app) available for smartphones is www.rememberthemilk.com. Another tool can be found at www.daytimer.com, which is a well-established time management company that produces many useful items both electronic and in print to keep us all at our best. Find one that is simple and easy-to-use and actually works for you. This is a personal decision. Any system works as long as you work it.
The key to the to-do list is organizing toward a goal, not simply checking items off a list each day. While one supports a life well intended and well lived, the other simply shows a calendar with an “X” drawn through each day as if you live in a cell. In the end, what do you want your legacy to be?
As you read this book, we wish you a great adventure—one in which you can live the life you want within the time you have. This book is not meant to be a book of mere techniques and tactics, though you will find plenty. It is not meant solely to save you time, though most certainly you will. Rather, it is a book about what is most important in your life.
And it’s about time we all thought differently about that!
Although the 10 steps in the following pages will help you master the complications and the joys of the 168 hours you have every week, we can summarize this entire book for you right now: self-regulation. Bad things happen in anyone’s life, including major misfortunes and even occasional disasters, but the fact is that the key to surviving these times is a deep understanding of one’s inner authority, inner power, and choice making. Even when faced with a child’s (or boss’s) temper tantrum, one can take heart with Dr. Dreikurs’ famous advice for parents: “Take your sail out of their (children’s) wind.”
POINTER
The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshall replied, “In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon!”
—John F. Kennedy (1917–1963)
In life, how often do you fall prey to the easy victim mentality of “poor little old me?” When you feel overwhelmed, ambushed, besieged, busy, overwrought, rushed, and stressed, the victim mentality is an easy and seductive mindset to adopt. But successful, happy people enjoy something their less happy counterparts do not; they control the parts of their lives that they can. The famous Alcoholics Anonymous movement advocates control in all but the first of its 12 steps, which states that the alcoholic must admit he or she is “powerless” over the effects of alcohol. Each ensuing step constructs the result of following step one—a life plan based on self-power, self-regulation, self-control, and self-responsibility.
How Do You “Really” Spend Your Time?
In the same way that some dieters lose weight simply by keeping a record of what they eat, meticulously recording exactly what they eat, you can do the same with time.
As you begin this book you might find it helpful to keep a very accurate record of how you spend your time. Attorneys do this daily to bill their clients, and they do it in 15-minute segments, looking back and recording how they spent the last quarter hour and for whom.
So…pick some major categories of your life: work, family, children, leisure, TV, friends, and so forth. Keep meticulous records of these categories for one week. Then analyze if that is how you want to spend your time. On week two, notice what is changing, better, different.
As simple as this may sound, you may find what many others have found: when you pay attention you become aware and when you are aware you can change things.
Our culture, however, is less enthusiastic about self-regulation. Consider the last time you heard someone blame, bemoan, or judge rather than take responsibility for his or her own actions. How often have you witnessed road rage? How often did you hear about someone who “deserved” special treatment, different and apart from the others? When Kevin’s children attended Montessori School, the teacher warned parents that responsibility was to be taught and practiced daily. “If your child forgets his or her lunch, you as the parent can bring it to school if you wish, but we won’t give it to your child.” Rather, the teacher continued, “We will ask the class to look into their lunches and offer one item to help their classmate.” (Most children only forgot once, because every offering from the other lunches was usually the least desirable item!)
If it is to be, it is up to me. This may be common sense, but in our culture, it is easy wisdom to forget.
May you use the next 168 hours in the way you want.
Cyndi Maxey, CSP
Kevin O’Connor, CSP