Here is the next section of the FINAL FAMILY SURVIVAL STRATEGY. Because this book has lot of illustrations that don't show up correctly in the copied text you need a pdf copy of this book. Just send me your email address and I will send you a pdf file of the book. My email address is [email protected].
To get started, choose one of these strategies, try it for two to four weeks and see if it helps. If it does, consider adding another one. If not, try a different one.
Plan each day. Planning your day can help you accomplish more and feel more in control of your life.
Write a to-do list, putting the most important tasks at the top. Keep a schedule of your daily activities to minimize conflicts and last-minute rushes.
Prioritize your tasks. Time-consuming but relatively unimportant tasks can consume a lot of your day. Prioritizing tasks will ensure TIME MANAGEMENT CREATES SUCCESS
INTRODUCTION
You now have a reason to take action and time management is where it starts. I have a confession to make. This started out as a chapter in another book on how to be successful in life. As I grew older it appeared that time management might well be the ultimate key to success. The number of hours that we have in each day is the same for each of us. The same can be said for each week, month, and year. The only unknown is how long we will live. That is not important if we make the most of each hour.
Since I wrote the original chapter on time management several things have come to mind. Most of us with even the best of plans and preparation cannot manage our time on an instant by instant basis.
My recent experience has taught me that focus and how you spend your working time is one of the essentials of success. It is great to have a daily, weekly, monthly and even yearly time management plan complete with goal setting. The rubber meets the road when you at-tempt to apply these plans. This book will fill that gap and help you with your long term time management goal.
You just asked the question: Why is there a time section in a book about surviving the 21St Century? You never have enough time and unless you utilize what you have you will not be prepared.
TIME MANAGEMENT
What is time management? To understand time management we must first understand what time is. Time in general is defined as the space between two events such as when the sun comes up and when the sun goes down. Time is a quantity that can't be stored or put away for a rainy day. The unique quality of time is that it is the universal equalizer. Rich or poor, smart or not so smart, we all have the same amount of time each day. Each day is made up of 24 hours. This may be measured by the vibrations of an atomic clock or by ob-serving the solar system. No mater how you measure it your 24 hours and is the same as my twenty four hours. The difference comes from what I do with my 24 hours and what you do with your 24 hours.
This goes back to the statement that every action has a consequence. The time spent to achieve a specific consequence is time management. The simplicity of time management is that we get to choose how we will spend our time.
Deciding how to spend your time is the important and most difficult part. If you have specific goals or things that you want to accomplish then you must provide time to accom-plish them. You must decide what is most important.
THE THREE P'S
You have seen this section before in the planning area. Read it again here as it is that important. There is one thing that you must do before you can set goals that facilitate man-agement of your time. That thing is to develop a life plan that will enable you to accomplish those things in life that are most important to you. GOALS
In order to manage your time you must know what is important and that is where goals enter the picture. To effectively manage your time you must have an end point in mind.
This brings up the question: What are goals? A goal is the very essence of life. Without a goal for your life and the sub goals that go with it you are like a cork in a pond. You are pushed this way and that way maybe you will end up on the other side of the pond or you might get washed over the spillway.
As I sit in my chair thinking about goal setting I realize that it is an area that I have not defined clearly for myself or written a way for others to achieve great goal setting. This is not an easy task. Goal setting starts with looking deep into your soul to discover what it is that makes you go. The preliminary to goal setting is development of a life plan. This is when things get tough.
My personal opinion is to look into ourselves and see what we really want out of life. Most people seem to want the same things in the core of their being. For most it is some-thing like this; Family and companionship, financial security, meaningful work or service, and leisure activities that are meaningful to the individual.
I will share my core values with you. My great passions in life are:
• Family
• Service
• Fixing things
• Gardening
• Learning and writing.
My goals from these are fairly simple but not so easy to obtain. My passion for my family breaks down into many areas. Some are:
• Financial
• Friendship and relationships
• Legacy
• Tradition
The other areas can be broken down into many smaller pieces also. One similar point in all of these personal passions is a financial piece. Everything that we do must be funded in some manner and that leads us to financial planning and managing our money. In order to do this we must have our goals in order.;
Many people would call the statement of our life a mission statement. Yes, I have one that took me three years to write. That was many years ago and it has changed little since. My mission statement is in reality a statement of my core values and how I will apply them in my life. I am not going to attempt to tell you how to write a mission statement in this document. There are volumes written on how to write a mission statement.
I spent three years writing a mission statement. This is my guiding document. It provides the ground rules that I use to develop my goals and to determine what constitutes success for me. A couple of good books to start with about writing a mission statement are 7 HABITS OF HIGH EFFECTIVE PEOPLE and PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST by Steven Covey. Not only will these two books get you on the correct path to create a mission statement but will also provide great insight into living a better and happier live. After all isn't that what success is all about?
You have decided what is important in your life—good. Now it is time to write goals for each area and to break the major goals down into sub goals. In order to accomplish this task we must define the parts of a goal. A goal contains these parts.
A definite and defined statement of the goal: Success depends upon how well the goal is defined. This must be a written statement.
• The goal must include a brief but complete description.
• The goal must explain how the goal will be obtained.
• The goal must include a definite due date.
There is another side to the goal thing. Many people think that achievement of a goal is success. This may not be the truth.
There are almost as many definitions of success as there are people writing them. The most common definition is that of a journey. Some have stated it like this "Success is the continual realization of worthwhile goals." This is a good behavioral based definition but it raises the question, "What are worthwhile goals?" A worthwhile goal to me may not be worthwhile to you. Eradication of all Piranhas in the Amazon: would not be a worthwhile goal to me. The point is that each of us must decide what is important in our lives.
There are strings attached to what we want to achieve. It must not be harmful to human-ity and it must provide a service to others. Many of the great figures of history have accom-plished goals that were not for the good of mankind. The checks and balances of God and the universe tend to level out these low spots. For continuous happiness we must not vio-late the rights of others. You have to look deep into your soul to determine what is right and wrong in any situation. There are no hard rules for all cases.
The concept of happiness and success seem to be linked in some way. All of the achievement (goal accomplishment) in the world is not of any value if you are not happy in getting to the goal. When a goal is achieved it does not automatically mean that we are happy and successful. For a lot of us achieving a goal leaves a feeling of emptiness. The ac-complishment of a goal always raises the question. "Where do I go from Here?"
I wrote the paragraphs above over ten years ago. I still have not created a good defini-tion for success. I can now tell you what it is not. It is not the size of your bank account, the number of cars that you own or the value of your house. All of these things contribute to your material well being. They do not in themselves make you happy or create great joy in your life. Great personal power is not success. Many people believe that personal power and the accumulated things of life create a successful person. I disagree with the idea that things and power define success. I have never met a man on his death bed that wished he had spent more time making money. Most people preparing to meet their maker talk about fami-ly and how they treated their wife. They talk about family and what a mess they made of certain situation. These comments all lead me to believe that true success and joy come from the relationship of our soul and the rest of God’s Children.
The man that raised several children to be successful adults (they don’t have to be per-fect) and has remained good friends with his children is more successful than the man that has millions in the bank and his children are waiting for him to die so that they can fight over his money. Wealth in itself is not wrong but it takes a great man to handle great wealth in an honest and upstanding manner.
Each of us must define success in our own terms. If you feel that success should make you happy then you must also define what “happy” means to you. This seems like an endless loop but it is not. Happy is only one component of success.
PRIORITIZING YOUR ACTIONS.
Your actions should be prioritized to lead to the goal that you wish to achieve. Everyone needs to have life time goals. This should be discussed in your mission statements and your mission statement should include you ultimate goals. My recommended method of prioriti-zation is to do it on a weekly basis. Daily is too short and monthly is too long to keep track of.
Prioritization must reflect the importance of each item on your task list. I use the A,B,C method.
A = Important and urgent=
B = Important not urgent
C = not important and not urgent.
D= A total waste of time
Where do these categories come from? My first observation of this method was in Ste-phen Covey's book, 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE . I don't think that they originat-ed with Covey as I have seen similar grids in other places. In any case, an adaption of the grid is included.
This grid is the central thought in all time management methods. The individual must remain in quadrant I and quadrant II. The best application of this method is to remain in quadrant II. This is not always possible as some urgent and important issues always are pre-sent in our live. The more that we are in quadrant II the less stress we have in our live.
Quadrants III and IV should be avoided like bad germs. Most of the items in these two quadrants bring little productive results and not that much pleasure either.
Time management: Tips to reduce stress and improve productivity
Effective time management is a primary means to a less stressful life. These practices can help you reduce your stress and reclaim your personal life.
By Mayo Clinic staff
“Do you find yourself overwhelmed by the number and complexity of projects you have that need to be completed at work each day? Do you often feel the day flies by without your devoting the necessary attention to each assignment because other tasks keep landing on your desk, co-workers interrupt you with questions or you can't get it all organized?
