Getting Out of Balance
by Donald E. Wetmore
The underlying core of my
more than 2,000 Time Management presentations during the
last twenty years has been the concept of "balance."
Success in managing our time has less to do with the
tools available to us, such as "to do lists" and
techniques for delegation, as it has to do with
achieving daily balance in our lives.
If we are not in balance to begin with, we are likely to
sabotage our success. Successful Time Management, then,
has a lot to do with what we are not doing.
Here's my list of the seven best ways to "Get
Out of Balance."
1. Ignore Your Health
Don't get the quantity and quality of sleep you require.
Don't take time for exercise. Eat the wrong stuff.
(90% of those who join Health and Fitness Clubs today
will stop going within the next 90 days.) Your
resistance level will be reduced and you will be
susceptible to all the latest sniffles and flues going
around to ensure that you take advantage of all the sick
days you are allowed.
Seventy five percent of all adult deaths are
preventable. We are literally driving ourselves to early
graves in these "hurry-up, stressful" lives of ours.
It's interesting that when someone gets a new car, they
bring it in for the scheduled maintenance, put the right
grade of fuel in the tank, and keep it shiny and clean.
Our pets visit the veterinarian on a scheduled basis.
In a recent study, 34% of the men surveyed said they
would not go to the doctor even if they were
experiencing chest pains.
2. Postpone Family Time
They will always be there for you anyway when you get
the time for them. A student once asked me, "what is the
best way to take my four year old on vacation?" I
replied, "You take her when she's four years old." Fifty
percent of marriages wind up in divorce court.
Imagine, getting married at age twenty-five and twenty
years later, at age forty-five, you give up 50% of
everything you have worked for in your adult life in a
property settlement in divorce court. It's like the
squirrel, gathering the nuts, hoarding away while
someone is drilling a hole in the side of the tree to
let all the nuts escape. The squirrel is too busy to
hear the impending threat.
The average working person spends less than two minutes
per day in meaningful communication with their spouse or
"significant other" and less than thirty seconds per day
in meaningful communication with their children.
3. Don't Plan Your Financial Life
Be assured that your employer, and if not, then the
government, and if not, then maybe a kindly relative
will take care of your needs. Most people arrive at the
end of life financially deficient or dependent upon some
type of assistance from the government or relatives.
Most people do not spend a little of their time, on a
regular basis, to create financial freedom and live
their lives they way they "want to", but rather do what
do because they "have to". Eighty percent do not want to
go to work on Monday morning. Ninety-seven percent say
that if they did achieve financial freedom, they would
not continue with their current employer or in their
current line of work.
4. Stay Away From Intellectual Development
You have the degree. You read books at one time. Five
percent of the population purchases ninety-five percent
of all the books. The other ninety-five purchase the
other five percent of the books.
They don't have time to read them. They give them away
as gifts. You barely have enough time to keep your head
above water, what with work and other interests. Coast
with the knowledge you have. It's draining away from you
daily, but hopefully you filled the reservoir enough
early on that it will carry you through your life.
5. Let Your Social Contacts Decide Your Future
Follow the advice of your friends about what you should
be doing in your life even if they are not in a place
where you would want to be. Be ever conscious of "What
would my friends say/think if I did . . . ?" Always seek
out and act only with the approval of your peers.
Take comfort in the knowledge that when there is a void
in leadership in your life on how you should be spending
your time, someone else will fill that void and tell you
what to do.
6. Let Your Professional Life Just Happen
Do not establish a lifetime plan of where you want to
go. Take whatever opportunity and advancement life gives
you and be satisfied. Don't rock the boat. Seek the
familiar and avoid the strange. Play it safe. Make it
comfortable.
If you chose a career path when you were eighteen or
twenty years old, and now at age forty you are unhappy,
don't consider a change. Hold on to that decision you
made twenty years ago. It will be like going to a twenty
year old for career counseling.
7. Avoid Spending Time In Your Spiritual Area
Not only in a formal religious venue, but also in our
relationships to others, our community, our environment
and the universe. Leave those questions to others to
ponder.
"When man forgets his Creator, his own creations will
turn upon him."
Dr. Donald E. Wetmore, a full-time Professional Speaker,
is one of the foremost experts on Time Management and
Personal Productivity and the author of "Beat the
Clock".
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