I come across many situations where many people do not find time for important things that make a big difference to their lives. Let us ponder some of the reasons that prevent us from not having time for important things that matter to us in a big way.
1. We usually close previous day staying very late in night. This obviously make us start current day late. This late start will push us into late cycle leaving us frustrated that we are not able to accomplish our tasks planned for today. Thus, it is important that we close previous day "on time" so that we have the energy to start current day "on time".
2. We plan too many things for today: Despite the fact that we are unable solve at least 3 tasks / problems each day in the past 2 months, we still plan to solve 30 tasks today (i.e. we plan 10 times more than our daily achieved rate, for today). This will crumble us and leaves us in the zone of frustration. Thus, observe your past days and plan your today according to your recent performance rate.
3. Taking health for granted: Gone are the days where healthy body is given to most of us… Today, we must work for our physical and mental fitness every day. For this, we must allocate fixed time on daily basis. If we do not give sufficient time for our physical and mental fitness (may it be exercise or diet), we cannot do our tasks efficiently.
4. Spending time for everything around us: Most of us tend to dedicate our time to unplanned meetings / calls (who ever calls us, we give them importance) leaving our planned objectives aside. The fact is.. When we meddle through busy schedules where time is constraint, it is important to prioritize and respond to your colleagues as per the priority. If we keep your priority aside, you end up working for others’ priority. In this process, your priority tasks will get delayed. This leaves you on the backfoot.
5. Not using right choice of medium: We use chat, phone, virtual meeting, face to face meetings wrongly. In a context where texting is sufficient, we end up meeting people. In a context, where face to face meeting is required, we end up only texting. This will force us invite unnecessary garbage from the other side. The conversations go haywire and we end up spending our time for just created problems (through wrong usage of medium) instead of resolving planned problems/tasks.
6. Not honoring RRR rule: RRR stands for Right person doing Right Job at Right Time. May a times, we dwell into situations where we are not the right person to deal with the context. When we are not the right person doing the job at the right time, we end up inviting unnecessary conflicts and associated time investments.
7. Not agreeing our own weaknesses: We suffer because of our own weaknesses (Can be laziness, unable to talk in crisp way, ego, un-necessary interest in others matters, unable to focus, extra possessiveness, non-transparency, unbalanced and unfair treatment, telling lies, covering up things, using power and position to force your opinion on others etc.). Instead of recognizing our own weaknesses and fixing them, we end up blaming others. This will lead us in series of conflicts and thus demand huge time investment from our side on the problems derived because of this.
8. Not knowing “how to talk/communicate”: Even though our intensions are correct, sometimes, our communication with others comes in such a way that our timing and choice of words are bad. This will put us in conflicts and associated time investment in resolving the problems created
9. Our own priorities are not “really” important for us: At the outset, we say our priorities as a lip-service. However, we really do not mean to complete the priorities set for ourselves. Because of this, we end up not completing our own goals.
10. Unable to say "No": Certain times, we end up encircling in contexts where we are the wrong fits in those contexts or assignments. In those situations, we suffer a lot saying "No" to the context or persons and we keep dwelling in those demotivating contexts for longer time. This will eat away our energy. This continued demotivation will stop us focus on right goals.
11. Unable to understand "Why" of it? Many of us do our jobs, just because we are compelled to do it. In those situations, we cannot bring best of our versions to the context. Once we are convinced, "Why" we should do our job, we start pulling right energy from each of us. This will bring "better" version of us.
The reality is, even if we solve half problem each day, we contribute to resolution of 15 problems each month. If we resolve 15 problems each month, we become the preferred partner of anybody. So, instead of running to solve many problems, let us focus on few items each day, solving them with complete focus and become confident day after day with realistic planning.
When we tick each day with confidence, we tick with better version of us day after day.