How To Beat Mediocrity With The Most Practical Time Management Principle
I used to feel proud of myself when I crossed off the items on my to do list after accomplishing the tasks that I set out to do. But then I realized I haven’t really accomplished much in my life. Or at least accomplish the thing that really matters to me.
Sometimes we kid ourselves with trying to do too much, appearing extremely busy with so many activities that we are not really mastering or excelling at any one thing. That’s what I did, I was crossing off the wrong items or should I say the low priority activities.
The best thing to do is really knowing and setting what your most important goal is and how long to do you think you can accomplish that goal. I call this my A1 goal. The things that are urgent for the day but do not contribute to my A1 goal I call my "maintenance tasks" like doing the laundry, paying bills, balancing checkbooks, house repairs, grocery shopping, cooking etc.
I now schedule the time in accomplishing my A1 goal, by scheduling I mean I block that time ex. from 8 to 10 every morning that’s just reserve for doing my A1 goal. Nothing can come in the way during those hours. No interruptions, no distractions. And the rest of the day I can now do my maintenance tasks. Life is not that stressful once you have done what is the most important to you in the long run and at the same time the knowledge that your day is unfolding smoothly because you still have the time to do your chores.
It’s just a matter of knowing that one thing, you want to accomplish and going for it. Not wanting to do a hundred things different things all at the same time. Mediocrity is definitely the outcome of trying to spread yourself too thin with not so important activities. To quote someone, "If you want to raise prize winning roses there’s no need to raise also petunias."
Sometimes we kid ourselves with trying to do too much, appearing extremely busy with so many activities that we are not really mastering or excelling at any one thing. That’s what I did, I was crossing off the wrong items or should I say the low priority activities.
The best thing to do is really knowing and setting what your most important goal is and how long to do you think you can accomplish that goal. I call this my A1 goal. The things that are urgent for the day but do not contribute to my A1 goal I call my "maintenance tasks" like doing the laundry, paying bills, balancing checkbooks, house repairs, grocery shopping, cooking etc.
I now schedule the time in accomplishing my A1 goal, by scheduling I mean I block that time ex. from 8 to 10 every morning that’s just reserve for doing my A1 goal. Nothing can come in the way during those hours. No interruptions, no distractions. And the rest of the day I can now do my maintenance tasks. Life is not that stressful once you have done what is the most important to you in the long run and at the same time the knowledge that your day is unfolding smoothly because you still have the time to do your chores.
It’s just a matter of knowing that one thing, you want to accomplish and going for it. Not wanting to do a hundred things different things all at the same time. Mediocrity is definitely the outcome of trying to spread yourself too thin with not so important activities. To quote someone, "If you want to raise prize winning roses there’s no need to raise also petunias."
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