Random musings: Time Is Of The Essence

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Time Is Of The Essence

It's been awhile since I've shared something from Harvey Mackay:

A major league batter has approximately two-fifths of a second from the time a baseball leaves the pitcher's hand until it reaches home plate. In that split second, the batter must attempt to gauge speed, trajectory and placement of the pitch.

Those batters who can do it well enough to hit safely three out of 10 at bats become millionaires. Those who are a millisecond slower and can do it only two out of 10 times have to find another way to make a living.

Well, most of us aren't baseball players, so what has this got to with anything?

Companies and their employees face similar challenges. They may have a little more time to deal with their problems, but if they expect to stay in the game, they have to be able to make rapid adjustments. Fortunes are made and lost by those that disrespect the importance and power of time.

Ahhhh...a nice segue into business. What can we do about time?

My primary advice is to first get organized. Really, really organized. I don’t mean just tidying up your desk, although that might be useful for some. I’m talking about defining your immediate needs and long-term goals and planning your time to accommodate both.

Start with a daily planner. Electronic or paper, it doesn’t matter. Choose a system that gives you at least one page per day, and then make sure you pay attention to the commitments. If a distraction is going to put you off schedule more than a few minutes, either reschedule your prior commitment as soon as possible, or plug the new item into the planner.

Then get rid of your to-do list. Why? Because there is a better way to use it. Transfer the items to a particular time and day in your daily planner. You’ll be amazed at how much your stress level goes down and how much you accomplish when you actually schedule a specific time to achieve them.

I talked about getting rid of your task list here. I've been using the Google calendar app for awhile for creating appointments and reminders. I like it. I bought The One Thing planner, but I haven't used it...I've been using bullet journaling, although somewhat sporadically.

Figure out what works for you and take control of your 24 hour allotment you get every day,