Time is our only finite resource. It is the only thing we are not able to gain more of. We have the amount of time we have and depending on how we treat ourselves, depends on if that time goes down or stays the same. So, how are you occupying your most precious resource? Are you spending time with your family? Are you doing things to progress you in both your personal and professional lives? Or… are you spending a lot of time doing busy work, avoiding the things you should be doing?
I think most of us do the latter of those questions. I believe most of us perform distracting activities and tasks to avoid what we should be doing. We are all very familiar with what this is called… Procrastination! We procrastinate the important things that move our needle forward and instead “act” busy and say we have too much going on to get the main things done that we need to do, in order to get better. With procrastination and busy work, how many of you are not being present in your environments?
When you are at work, are you thinking about things you need to get done at home? Are you wishing you were home and not spending so much time at work? While you’re at home, are you present, spending time with your family, making memories or are you mentally occupied with your day at work? Are you exhausted and overwhelmed with life, so instead of making a plan, thinking through what is wearing you down, you distract yourself with social media? Are you on your phone instead of giving your attention to your kids, dogs, cats, significant others, and friends?
Well, I am definitely guilty of all these things. It is a lot easier to hide in busy work or distracting activities, than it is to better yourself. Lately, I have really been focusing on trying to bridge these gaps and focus on being present and getting the crucial tasks done first. One big thing I have been doing since November of last year, is Andy Frisella’s critical tasks. You choose 5 tasks each day that will move the needle forward in your health, professional, and/or personal life. Any task that betters you, choose 5 a day and you need to complete all 5 to win the day! Depending on my day’s tasks, I range in my amount I need to complete. Some days I know the best thing I could do is get as much work done at a property as possible. For example, the week I was roofing, I would have a couple tasks I needed to complete to move the needle forward but then I had roofing, so I only had 3 tasks a day. My 3 tasks for one of the days was, complete 75 hard, blog, roof.
Those tasks helped me progress my personal self, my business, and Tutors of Life. To be honest, I didn’t read emails that day or really most of that week. However, that is not one of my critical tasks, so I did not worry about occupying my time doing so.
What can we do?
- Identify when you are doing busy work
- Through self-dialogue, discuss with yourself what you should really be doing
- Identify the tasks that would progress you in the direction you want to go the fastest
- Write those down in a master list, then choose the 5 most important, no more than 5 though.
- Start executing on your list of critical tasks.
- Review and Repeat
Always remain conscience of this, call yourself out if you are doing things you should not be doing. Are you playing on your phone when you should be having dinner with your spouse? Identify the problem, identify the right path, then execute on it. It is simple; however, it is not easy. All we can do is get better every day.
Your Life Tutor
-Shaun Tutor
Tutors of Life 