(Time to read: 2 minutes)
Every time and life management system I’ve studied has one of two basic problems.
Since I was very young, I have been interested in the question:
- How can I make use of ‘what I want to do right now’,
- Honour agreements I’ve made with others,
- Achieve long-term goals that are important to me, and
- Keep life functioning smoothly enough that I don’t have to drop everything to attend to emergencies of routine matters like no clean clothes?
The Two Basic Problems
We all know that things get done much faster and easier when we do them when we want to do them.
But traditional time management techniques encourage us to “plan our work, and work our plan”, ignoring the aliveness / “want to” factor. That’s why many of us haven’t been able to stick to them consistently.
Instead, we (naturally or because it is the “new truth”), follow other approaches that are more “do-what’s-alive”- oriented. And we end up producing what I call the “snowplow effect” – pushing off the things that really do have to get done until they reach some kind of crisis.
Spacious Balance: A Third Way
I have spent literally decades investigating this topic:
- Reading every time management and organization book around,
- Trying out every planner (paper and electronic),
- Working in a wide variety of settings (from large corporations, small partnerships, medium-sized non-profits, as a solopreneur), which has given me the opportunity to understand the unique requirements of each type of environment.
And through it all – testing, discarding, refining, experimenting, tweaking…
People who know me describe me as someone with very high standards. It’s not enough that something “sort of” work, or work most of the time. And it can’t take a lot of time and energy, because I want to spend my life doing things – not planning and organizing them!
I have learned a few key things that work consistently and easily – and lots and lots of things that don’t work over the long haul.
That’s what I’ll be sharing in my blog posts. But first I thought it was important that we have a shared understanding of the complexity of the problem we are facing together – hence today’s post.
Having been a life coach for over 20 years, I also know that each of us must identify the tools and strategies that work for us, and “tweak” them until they are a perfect fit for our personalities and our lives.
And I believe I can help you – if you haven’t yet found your unique way to be both alive and reliable; trust-worthy and free – to speed your search for your perfect custom-fit solution.
If you’re interested in finding out more, click on one of these two links:
Click here to book a session to talk about how I might support you.
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