We all have the same amount of time in a day. 24 hours to eat, sleep, produce, enjoy and repeat. Some days, it starts to feel like the line on the back of the shampoo bottle, “Lather, Rinse, Repeat”. Have you ever been pressed for time? Where the time in your day just doesn’t seem to add up? Have you ever wished for more time to tackle your ever-growing to-do list?
If so, I hate to break it to you, but you’re normal. At some point or another, we all have felt pressed for time and wish there was a better way to consciously control the allotted time we have throughout the day.
During the workday, we get pulled in multiple directions and we have to filter through which direction we need to pursue. Dr. Stephen Covey in his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, talks about how a quadrant two leader (the best kind of leader) focuses on things that are important, yet not urgent. When you focus on what is truly important, you’re taking preventive steps to reduce the risk of becoming a quadrant one leader. A quadrant one leader operates from a reactionary position. Everything is urgent and everything is important. As you can imagine, that’s highly stressful and the reality is many people unknowingly operate this way.
When we begin to add margin to our day, in other words control how we spend our time, it is imperative that we focus on items or issues that are important but not yet urgent. For example:
- Exercising daily. It’s not urgent, but it is important.
- Eating healthy, daily. It’s not urgent, but it is important.
- Staying ahead on sales calls or administrative paper work. It’s not urgent, but it is important.
- Spending time with loved ones. It’s not urgent, but it is important.
When we begin to see what is truly important and focus time in that direction, the re-active life, which is exhausting, begins to shrink to a manageable portion of your day. There will always be unexpected things that come up that require immediate attention and action, that’s just life. What we want to do is begin to take preventive steps by investing our time in important but not yet urgent activities.
CONTROL YOUR BOOKENDS
I love what Darren Hardy says in his book, The Compound Effect, about controlling your bookends. He discusses how we can control our mornings when we wake up, and our evenings before we go to bed. I mean, WHOA! How empowering is that? Talk about a light bulb moment. I have put this into practice in my own life. In the morning, before anyone in my house wakes up, I spend time reading, thinking, praying and looking at the bigger picture. I take time to sit back and smell the roses. I carve out time in the morning to exercise before work. I invest my time in things that are important but not urgent. At night, I do something similar. I stop, pause, reflect, pray and read. I control my bookends.
As much as I would like to control everything that happens throughout my day, it is impossible, I can’t, and neither can you. But where we can get intentional and begin to build margin in our lives is at the beginning and at the end of each day. Sure it takes discipline and I am not perfect. I have hit the snooze button a few times and I have worked tirelessly into the evenings right up to the time my head hits the pillow for bed. What I have come to find out is that when we are purposeful with our time and begin to invest in important things that are not urgent, things truly begin to change. We begin to take back the time that flew by and re-invest that time to create margin in things that are purposeful and meaningful to you and me.
