#Middlebury #Christmas
Insights for Constructive Living
by Pat Iannuzzi
A cliché that tends to pop up around this time of year emphasizes the reality that another year is almost over and we haven’t accomplished anywhere near what we had planned. “My, how time flies,” the saying goes.
I think most people would agree it’s important to use our time productively, but hardly any of us can truthfully say we do so in a consistently disciplined way. In spite of our best intentions, we all get distracted – some of us more than others – with the result that we spend a lot of our time on things that really aren’t all that important and neglect areas that are vital to our success and happiness. Why is this?
I firmly believe the main reason is that we are all confronted daily by more people, tasks, situations and desires than we can effectively deal with, and we are not consistently able to effectively prioritize them so we can focus our attention on what is most important. We all have a tendency to devote time to trivial activities that we like to do, are easy to do, or appear to have a pressing time frame while we tend to neglect the essential ones that may be unpleasant, uninteresting, difficult or challenging.
Considering the fact that our tenure here on Earth is absolutely limited, it’s critical that we manage our time in the most productive manner. Several years ago Stephen Covey published a best-seller named “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” His third habit had to do with time management and was titled “First Things First.”
Dr. Covey advocated grouping tasks according to their importance and urgency. He stressed that we should prioritize tasks that are both important and urgent – things with clear deadlines that have significant negative consequences if we don’t take immediate action. President Dwight Eisenhower is said to have advocated a similar approach.
Important activities are those that are critical to our achieving our personal and work goals and responsibilities. Examples of such activities include completing a work project, taking care of our children, preparing for an exam, and keeping an appointment with the dentist.
Urgent activities are those that require immediate attention, either because they came upon us unexpectedly or because we procrastinated. An example of the latter would be putting off studying for an exam until the last minute. Ideally, we should have few activities on our daily schedule that are urgent other than those important ones that are part of our normal daily routine such as going to work, getting our kids off to school, and special tasks planned for that specific day.
Other important tasks should be properly scheduled for a future time when we can take the appropriate action they require. In this way, they do not become urgent until the time we expressly set aside for their accomplishment, thereby minimizing daily stress.
Anything that is urgent but not important (responding to certain emails, phone calls or trivial requests from friends and family) or neither urgent nor important (social media, watching TV, surfing the web) should be addressed only after all the important activities for that specific day have been accomplished, or they should not be done at all. By continually asking ourselves if what we are currently doing is truly important and justifiably urgent, we can devote more of our precious time to the activities that really matter in our lives.
Pat Iannuzzi of Symbiont Performance Group, Inc. is a performance consultant, trainer and coach focusing on selling, presentation and interpersonal skills. He lives in Litchfield and can be reached at 860-283-9963 or piannuzzi@symbiontnet.com.
