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The underlying core of my more than 2,000 Time Management
presentations during the last twenty years has been the
concept of "balance." Success in managing our time has less
to do with the tools available to us, such as "to do lists"
and techniques for delegation, as it has to do with
achieving daily balance in our lives. If we are not in
balance to begin with, we are likely to sabotage our
success. Successful Time Management, then, has a lot to do
with what we are not doing.
Here's my list of the seven best ways to "Get Out of
Balance."
1. Ignore your Health.
Don't get the quantity and quality of sleep you require.
Don't take time for exercise. Eat the wrong stuff.
(90% of those who join Health and Fitness Clubs
today will stop going within the next 90 days.) Your
resistance level will be reduced and you will be susceptible
to all the latest sniffles and flues going around to ensure
that you take advantage of all the sick days you are
allowed. Seventy five percent of all adult deaths are
preventable. We are literally driving ourselves to early
graves in these "hurry-up, stressful" lives of ours.
It's interesting that when someone gets a new car, they
bring it in for the scheduled maintenance, put the right
grade of fuel in the tank, and keep it shiny and clean.
Our pets visit the veterinarian on a scheduled basis.
In a recent study, 34% of the men surveyed said they
would not go to the doctor even if they were experiencing
chest pains.
2. Postpone Family time.
They will always be there for you anyway when you
get the time for them. A student once asked
me, "what is the best way to take my four year old on
vacation?" I replied, "You take her when she's four years
old." Fifty percent of marriages wind up in divorce court.
Imagine, getting married at age twenty-five and twenty years
later, at age forty-five, you give up 50% of everything you
have worked for in your adult life in a property settlement
in divorce court. It's like the squirrel, gathering the
nuts, hoarding away while someone is drilling a hole in the
side of the tree to let all the nuts escape. The squirrel is
too busy to hear the impending threat. The average working
person spends less than two minutes per day in meaningful
communication with their spouse or "significant other" and
less than thirty seconds per day in meaningful communication
with their children.
3. Don't plan your financial life.
Be assured that your employer, and if not, then
the government, and if not, then maybe a kindly relative
will take care of your needs. Most people arrive
at the end of life financially deficient or dependent
upon some type of assistance from the government
or relatives. Most people do not spend a little of their
time, on a regular basis, to create financial freedom and
live their lives they way they "want to", but rather do what
do because they "have to". Eighty percent do not want to go
to work on Monday morning. Ninety-seven percent say that if
they did achieve financial freedom, they would not continue
with their current employer or in their current line of
work.
4. Stay away from intellectual development.
You have the degree. You read books at one time.
Five percent of the population purchases ninety-five percent
of all the books. The other ninety-five purchase the other
five percent of the books. They don't have time to read them.
They give them away as gifts. You barely have enough time
to keep your head above water, what with work and other
interests. Coast with the knowledge you have. It's draining
away from you daily, but hopefully you filled the reservoir
enough early on that it will carry you through your life.
5. Let your social contacts decide your future.
Follow the advice of your friends about what you should
be doing in your life even if they are not in a place where
you would want to be. Be ever conscious of "What would my
friends say/think if I did . . . ?" Always seek out and act
only with the approval of your peers. Take comfort in the
knowledge that when there is a void in leadership in your life
on how you should be spending your time, someone else will
fill that void and tell you what to do.
6. Let your professional life just happen.
Do not establish a lifetime plan of where you want to go.
Take whatever opportunity and advancement life gives you
and be satisfied. Don't rock the boat. Seek the familiar
and avoid the strange. Play it safe. Make it comfortable.
If you chose a career path when you were eighteen or
twenty years old, and now at age forty you are unhappy,
don't consider a change. Hold on to that decision you made
twenty years ago. It will be like going to a twenty year
old for career counseling.
7. Avoid spending time in your spiritual area.
Not only in a formal religious venue, but also in our
relationships to others, our community, our environment,
and the universe. Leave those questions to others to ponder.
"When man forgets his Creator, his own creations will turn
upon him."
Dr. Donald E. Wetmore, a full-time Professional Speaker, is
one of the foremost experts on Time Management and Personal
Productivity and the author of "Beat the Clock".
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