Other than finances, time is one of the most important areas of our life we allow complacency and laziness to dictate how it is handled. Winning with time means you are giving the best part of yourself to the most important things in your life. When all is said and done, the memories we look back on are the ones we spent doing what we loved and spending time with the people we loved. How do you get to that point? By making time for the most important and life-giving activities. Like finances, if you grow complacent with your time, years will go by and you will look back and wonder, “where did it all go?”
In order to prevent this, we need to develop great time management. Live your life to the fullest, today! Don’t wait until you are in the last parts of your life. Win today! Be successful and develop time management skills. The quality of your life and your influence depends on it. Here are a few things you need to do in order to have great time management:
- Define what is non-negotiable. Determine what is most important in your life, put it on the calendar and then build your schedule around it. Doing this allows the important things to stay important and not get swallowed up by the urgent things. Urgent is not always important, but important is always important. Keep the important things at the forefront.
- Do not overcommit. Make sure you think through the reality of what you will be committing to. Being apart and involved with too many activities does more harm than good. Even if what you’re involved in is a great and noble cause. Too many people and events taking up your time will only weaken your influence. When you say “yes” to something, that means you are saying “no” to other things. Pick wisely and when you commit, and then fully commit! Be ALL IN in those areas.
- Let your “Yes” be “Yes” and your “No” be No”. Stick to your word and follow through with what you said you would follow through with. We are only as good as our word. Being able to say “No” is very important and a common belief is that this makes us sound ‘mean’. It is not being rude or mean, but it is setting a boundary to where you have control over what you spend your time and money on. Most people mean well and do not intend to overstep, but often, it happens.
Our time is valuable. One of the most valuable assets we possess. Once it is spent, it is lost forever and we cannot get it back. This is why managing our time well is so vital to our success. Great time management spills over into every facet of our life. We can make enough time for anything in our life we want to do. But in order to do that, we have to define what is most valuable to us, decommit from things outside of our top values and then stay committed to what we have chosen to do, until it is finished.
If you want to write a book, it will take a lot of focused time and energy. In order to spend adequate time doing the project, you may have to give things up, such as, coaching your sons soccer team, or perhaps a couple rounds of golf during we week. The values we set do not have to be set in stone for the remainder of our lives, however, they do have to be set in stone for the season we commit to. If it is something you truly want to do, you will find, and make, time for it. But it will require saying “No” to other things.
It’s time to start winning with your time. Set your values, come up with a plan and stay committed to what you have committed to. You will be surprised at how much more time you have when you decide up front what to spend your time on.
This was great! I liked how you emphasized the importance of saying no when necessary, but also making sure to stick with it if you already said yes. Great blog!!!
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