January 25, 2018

By Robert Murray

This article describes my struggle, and my solution, to time management — and provides you with a resource tool that you can download if you like the approach.

For many years, I spoke cynically about lobbying the governments of the world to extend our days to 30 hours to give us more time to get done what we need to get done.  During the first decade of running a business, I had a perception that I didn’t have enough time. Over this same period of tine, I received countless hours of training in time management, I read books, I watched videos, and I heard speakers at numerous conferences — but it never really sunk in. 

Then, I watched the ever-popular video by Stephen Covey. Actually, I watched it a few times. You can watch it here. It’s a classic!

Long story short, Covey walks the participant through an exercise that demonstrates a few core principles:

  1. We have a finite amount of time each day, week, month, and year.
  2. Some priorities are more more important than others.
  3. Everything can fit better when we start with the biggest things first.

The idea is very simple.  

  • Identify your core priorities (your rocks) and then fill your bucket with them first.  
  • Next, pile on the next set of priorities, and so on.

Start big, then go smaller, and you will see that more fits.

I, like many of others, spend time on all sorts of stuff, and the vast majority is not on my priorities.

Even though I understood the principle, I still struggled to bring it to life.  Then, for some weird reason, it hit me like a ton of bricks! My calendar is my bucket and my priorities are my rocks.

Solution

Now, I have my number one, two, and three priorities in my calendar planned for the next 12 months. My other priorities are also in my calendar with time chunked out so I can work on them all, down the road.  The key is I know I need to be working on them, so they’re in the calendar.

Time is our most valuable asset and I’m set up to make sure I crush my 2018!

What are your priorities this year?

Are they in your calendar?

Download the worksheet here.

Rob is an action junkie at Intrigue. When he isn’t meeting with clients to create marketing campaigns to grow their business, he is meeting with Chuck Norris to find out how he became the king of action. Rob is part of the Young Professionals Network of Guelph and the Master Planning Steering Committee for the Guelph General Hospital. When Rob isn’t working, he works on finding new ways to catapult himself through the air.

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