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Insurance for your church or Nonprofit
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Search more than 2,400 annotated links to grantmaker Web sites
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Managing by Choice
Last Modified: May 19, 2004 03:38 PM
Article ID: 10071
How well you manage your time and your life is determined by the choices you make. Everyone makes daily choices. To say 'yes' or 'no'. To start a project now or later. To interrupt yourself to get a coffee or to keep working. To write things down or make mental notes. To do something or to leave it undone. To get upset under stress or to remain calm.
You choose the type of planner you use, the paperwork you keep, the books you read, the courses you take, the foods you eat, the associations you join, and the friends you make. You decide how to spend your weekends, your work time, your lunch time, your spare time and your family time.
And yet how often we blame our time problems on others. The boss is at fault for giving you too much to do. Your peers are at fault for interrupting you so often. Your employees are at fault for not working efficiently. Even God is at fault for not giving you enough time.
If we are really serious about gaining control of our time, we must first accept the responsibility for its use. The real meaning of the word is response-ability -- the ability to respond. We must respond to situations we encounter by making the right choices.
If your goal is to complete a certain task by 4 p.m., your choices should reflect this. If asked if you've got a minute, your choice might be to say 'no', and schedule the meeting after 4 p.m. Other choices might include leaving the voice mail on for a few hours, having the office door closed, cancelling a luncheon appointment, delegating other jobs that should be done that afternoon, drinking water instead of coffee, sticking to the job instead of interrupting yourself, ignoring the e-mail that flashes on your computer screen.
The point is, if you choose to do a job -- to make it your goal that day, you can complete it by making other choices consistent with that goal. But too often we simply make a decision to do something and lose sight of this decision amid the vicissitudes of the day.
Another example is our reluctance to say 'no'. We seem to be unaware that saying 'yes' to something that will demand a lot of our time is the same as saying 'no' to something else -- whether it be reading a book, spending a few hours with the family or going for a walk. It is more than just a decision as to say 'yes' or 'no', it is a choice we make as to how we will spend our time.
Many of us seem to go though life placing the responsibility for our time problems on others. "We had to work late." It was a bad day." "It was impossible to get anything done." Statements like these indicate we had no choice in the matter. Things happened to us that were beyond our control.
Of course we could argue that indeed we have no choice, because if we had refused to work overtime we would have been fired. But isn't that a choice? Conceivably there could be a situation where choosing to be fired rather than do something could be the best choice to make. It is simply a matter of recognizing we do have choices, and accepting the responsibility for the choices we make.
Managing our time is more than simply planning and scheduling and working as efficiently as possible. It is a process of making the right choices. What is right for one person may not be right for another. But once you are conscious of your values, your personal goals have been determined, and you know what it is you want to do with your life -- both on and off the job -- you will be able to make the choices that lead you in that direction.
Managing your time is managing your choices.
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