I actually really like day 24. Chalene says some really awesome, eye opening things. When I first heard them they were mind blowing and really made me rethink how I interact with my time.
The “Being Busy” Mentality
There’s this misconception out there that if you have a to-do list, or if you’re into time management that you’re into ‘being busy’. You’re that weird person who’s always doing something all the time. You never cut loose and have fun. All work and no play.
But that’s not what this challenge is about at all. It’s not about ‘being busy’.
It’s about knowing what task will give you the most bang for your buck. What task should you be focusing on that will be the best investment of your time?
Do that first.
Cool. Just got that task done. Awesome! What’s the next most important thing? Guess I should move on to that then. Done. Like a bawce. Next?
Knowing what you ‘should’ be working on is what turns you into a lean, mean, task destroying machine.
Chalene calls it the ‘Now’ approach.
In ‘Jen Land’ I call it the ‘Nike’ approach. I don’t know… in my head ‘Victory’ just sounds cooler than ‘Now’… Maybe it goes back to that whole ‘task destroying machine’ thing…
The idea is still the same, though. Nike’s slogan is ‘Just do it.’
If you know you have a task that needs to get done, like, bad juju, explosive fires, death and destruction from the skies if this task doesn’t get done type of stuff, then just do it.
Don’t procrastinate. Don’t sit and think about how much you don’t want to do it. Don’t waste energy, and more importantly, time, dreading over it.
Burpees suck… thinking about how much I don’t want to do them isn’t going to get them done any faster.
Just do it.
Get it done and out of the way so you can sit back and feel like a bawce. Heck. Give yourself a high five, even if other people are around. Screw them if they think you’re weird. You deserve a high five for being awesome and taking care of business.
Quick! The boss is coming! Look busy!
Another super awesome point that is brought up is that just because you’re at your desk doesn’t mean that you’re doing something important or productive. I know I’m guilty of this.
Sometimes I need to reply to a message on Facebook and suddenly it’s 20 minutes later and all I’ve done is look at cat videos. And there’s no way to get those 20 minutes back. I basically set them on fire when I should have been responding to a two minute message, if that.
I don’t procrastinate much or often (at least any more. We won’t talk about those years after high school…). And even when I do it’s normally on science articles or random things that are still informative. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a better time / place to indulge in those tendencies.
Are my actions honoring my key priority? Are my actions reflecting that I view as important?
Sometimes not…
We can’t manage time. It’s only ever going to be 24 hours, 86400 seconds each and every day. No more, no less.
The only thing we can honestly, truly manage is ourselves. Our actions. So make sure you’re ok with the actions you’re doing.
I totally love my time watching cat videos. The only time I have an issue with it is when I KNOW I should be doing something else, but I’m not. Everything has a time and place. If I’m doing something at the wrong time, then there’s normally guilt associated with it later.
It’s one of those “I know I should be doing something else, and I know I’ll pay the price for it later” type of situations.
It’s so much nicer to just avoid that whole icky guilt situation completely and to keep my self doing what I know I should be doing, and saving the more ‘unimportant’ things for a moment when I can fully enjoy them.
So, lots of good stuff today. “Just do it,” and, “Manage your actions not your time”.
The homework is pretty simple but can be a hard truth to face. What activities / habits do you have that are unhealthy investments of your time? What things could / should you cut back on?
FaceFail – The Black Hole of Time
I know for me it’s scrolling through Facebook. Really if it wasn’t for keeping up with my industry contacts I would forego social media.
I still might…
I’ll keep mulling it over. For now I’ll focus on catching myself when I start falling into the black void of time wasting.