Living the Significant Life (21 page)
Read Living the Significant Life Online
Authors: Peter L. Hirsch,Robert Shemin
It would have been easy for Chris to help Jorge fix his problem and return to the comfort of his retirement. Instead, he eagerly turned a casual encounter into a challenge that gave his mental muscles a workout and instantly brought a new level of significance to his life.
Are you ready to follow Chris’s example? If so, take a moment to think about a challenge you’re currently facing or, better yet, one you’d like to create for yourself. Once you’ve named that challenge, you’re ready to move ahead to the next step on the way to significance.
PRINCIPLE #9
Pinpoint Your Priorities
It’s not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?
—Henry David Thoreau
Each year, you’re granted 525,600 minutes, which the universe doles out in increments of 1,440 per day. Aside from doing the necessities like sleeping and eating, how are you spending these minutes? A better question might be this: Are you merely “spending” them, or are you
using
them to reach your goals and achieve a life of significance?
We’ve done a lot of work up to this point. We’ve fueled your desire, found your purpose, fired up your imagination, sharpened your focus, set some worthwhile goals, gotten an attitude check, and learned to embrace challenge. But let’s be honest with ourselves. None of those things will make much difference if you fail to take one absolutely essential step, and that’s establishing priorities and using them to guide how you use your time. Without that step, a year from now you’ll still have your purpose, your goals, and your go-get-’em attitude, but you’ll probably be no closer to bringing real significance into your life.
Earlier, we touched on the topic of setting priorities when we talked about reverse goal-setting and consistent focused action. Using those techniques should help you to determine what specific steps you need to take to reach the goals you’ve set for yourself. Now the challenge is to make sure those steps become true priorities in your life and therefore find a place on your daily to-do list.
You might want to begin by taking a hard look at how you’re spending your time now. For a few days, keep a record and make it as specific as possible. It might be a real eye-opener to realize just how much time you spend checking and rechecking your e-mail, chatting with coworkers, or putting out office brushfires, none of which are leading you toward a more significant life.
But even beyond those little time-wasters, how many of your current activities have little or nothing to do with the goals you’ve established? This isn’t a book on time management (although we encourage you to explore that topic for help in freeing more of your time for the things that really matter to you), but we’ve found it useful to ask ourselves a few simple questions to determine the value of activities that tend to suck up time like a vacuum:
- Does this really have to be done?
- Could someone else do it?
- If it must be done and I must do it, is there a way to do it more efficiently?
Stones and Sand
When you begin each day, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what your to-do list looks like, even if you haven’t committed it to paper. But unless you’ve got firmly established priorities, you’re likely to tackle the easiest things on your list first. After all, it makes perfect sense. You do the things that can be knocked off quickly, thinking that once those items are out of the way, you can focus your time and energy on the more difficult, really important things.
Here’s the problem. Before long, the day is gone, and although you’ve been busy, busy, busy all day and you’ve crossed quite a few things off your list, you haven’t made any real progress. You’re no closer to your goal—and to a fulfilling life of significance—than you were yesterday, last week, or last month.
Try this experiment. Get a jar—an empty mayonnaise jar is ideal—and collect some stones and some sand. Fill the jar with sand all the way to the top. Now add the stones.
It doesn’t work, right?
Now empty the jar, fill it with stones, then pour in the sand. That’s much better. The sand simply fills in the spaces around the stones.
The stones represent the tasks that
should
be your priorities—those activities that, step-by-step, will lead you toward the life you want. The sand represents all those little tasks that are eating up your time and crowding out the more important activities. The grains that have fallen to the bottom of the jar are the real time-wasters.
Now start emptying the jar by removing the stones one at a time. Notice how quickly the level of the sand goes down. Removing just one stone makes a much bigger difference than taking out even a few dozen grains of sand.
When you’re deciding how to spend your time, think about that jar. Tackle the larger rocks first. If you never get around to the sand, so what? If a grain of sand eventually grows into a big stone, you can deal with it then. Or if you want, at the end of the day, after you’ve finished dealing with the rocks, take out a couple of grains of sand so you can have the feeling of accomplishment that comes from crossing things off your list. Just be sure to start with the rocks.
A Frog a Day Keeps Procrastination Away
Just as this isn’t a time management book, it also isn’t a diet book, but we recommend that you eat a live frog every day. Let us explain.
Procrastination is the bitter enemy of accomplishment, but most of us suffer from it to some extent, especially when we’re faced with something that is so unpleasant that we simply can’t bear the thought of doing it. No one wants to do things that are unpleasant, but that’s simply part of life, and putting those things off can sometimes lead to disaster.
So try this. Imagine that every morning, first thing, before you could do anything else, you had to eat a live frog. No matter what happened after that, the rest of the day would definitely be an improvement, right? The worst would be over. But if you knew you had to eat the frog and you kept putting it off, your day would be ruined, and at some point you’d still have to eat the frog.
If there’s a tough task that you don’t want to face and you’re putting it off, think of it as your frog. Eat it early and move on. The task of eating it won’t be any more pleasant, but at least the prospect won’t color the rest of your day.
We think it’s a good idea to eat a live frog every morning, whether it’s preparing a weekly financial report that you always dread or spending the thirty minutes on the treadmill that you never get around to. You’ll have a sense of accomplishment that will give you energy for the rest of your day, and you’ll have moved closer to reaching your goals.
More Help for Setting Priorities
One problem with setting priorities is that most of us are faced with a myriad of things that must be done each day, so deciding what to do first can be a real headache. Now that you’re adding steps toward your newly established goals to the mix, there’s an even greater temptation to focus on the easy stuff rather than the tasks that would make a bigger difference in your life.
But don’t throw in the towel. It’s not as hard as it sounds. One of the simplest methods is to divide the items on your to-do list into three categories:
A. Vital
B. Important
C. Nice
Once you’ve determined which items are As, Bs and Cs, number the items in each category according to how they rank as your true priorities. This is particularly important with B items, because that will almost always be your largest category. Then work your way through the list in alphabetical and numerical order. It’s that simple.
There’s one caveat, though. Think carefully about how you categorize your B and C activities. Taking your spouse out to dinner might initially seem to fall into the C category, but if you routinely spend all your time and attention on work and advancing your financial goals, eventually you might not have a spouse to wine and dine. If having a happy family life is among your goals, remember our earlier discussion about the importance of plugging in fun, and be sure that date night makes the B list before it moves its way up to the A category.
The most important thing to remember is to focus on what matters and let the trivial things go. Time management guru Alan Lakein advises his followers to stop several times each day to ask, “What is the best use of my time right now?” It’s a good way to ensure that you’ve got your eye on the ball and to get back on track if you find yourself focusing on the grains of sand rather than the stones in your jar.
Also remember that it’s not necessary to slog through a fifty-item to-do list each day. There might be days when all your time is spent on a single task or project. Is that the best use of your time? If the task is one that moves you closer to your most important goals, you bet it is.
There is no better example to illustrate the importance of setting priorities than Andrew Carnegie. It’s said that the great industrialist once hired a consultant to help him find ways to run his empire more effectively. The consultant followed Carnegie around for a few days, then handed him his report, which consisted of three sentences:
Make a list of everything you have to do.
Do the most important things first.
Do it every day.
Carnegie scoffed at the simple advice, but the consultant suggested that he follow it for a while, then pay whatever fee Carnegie felt the advice was worth. A few weeks later, the consultant received a check for sixty-four thousand dollars, a small fortune at the time.
Finally, if you’ve established a goal, but the steps necessary to reach it never seem to make it to the top of your to-do list, maybe it’s time to step back and reassess. Perhaps it’s not the right goal, at least for now, or maybe you’re not as committed to it as you thought you were.
Lauren King got out of bed the moment her alarm went off. She wasn’t usually a morning person, but today was different. For the first time in a long time, she was genuinely excited about starting the day.
“You’re chipper this morning,” said Lauren’s husband, Greg, over breakfast.
“Absolutely. It’s not every day a person starts writing her first novel.”
Lauren had wanted to be a writer for as long as she could remember. She’d taken a couple of creative writing courses in college but had opted for the practicality of an accounting major. So far, her career had been marginally enjoyable, but she never got over the desire to write. She’d written a few short stories and had made notes on several ideas for novels, but she’d never taken the plunge. Between her job and her family, there simply had been no time.
A few weeks earlier, her secure accounting career had suddenly hit the skids when the owner of the small firm for which she worked announced plans to shut down. Much to her surprise, Greg had encouraged her to wait a while before looking for another job.
“We’ll be okay on my salary for a while,” he’d said. “Why don’t you take a few months off and write full-time? You’ve always talked about writing a book, and there will never be a better time than this. You’d have all day at home while the kids are at school. Take the plunge.”
Today was the day: her first day as a novelist. She could hardly wait to get started.
After Greg and the kids left, Lauren headed into the family room. Time to get to work. But first she needed a few things.
Two hours later, Lauren returned from the office supply store and began putting away her purchases. It didn’t take long to realize that the desk she would be using was not conducive to productivity. Its surface and drawers had become a repository for all sorts of odds and ends, so she set to work getting it in shape. It would be so much easier to work in an organized space.
By the time the kids got home from school, everything was perfect, but her computer still hadn’t been turned on. That’s okay, Lauren thought. Now she was ready to dig right in tomorrow morning.
The next morning, Lauren was about to head for her work space when she remembered her promise to make cookies for a school bake sale the next day. Better get that out of the way. She could start planning her outline in her mind while she was baking.
By the end of the week, the house was spotless and every imaginable errand had been run, but Lauren had yet to write a single word. That’s okay, she thought. Now that I’ve gotten all that other stuff done, I can really focus.
Monday morning found Lauren at her computer, where she spent two hours outlining the plot of her novel. A dental appointment interrupted her work, and somehow the rest of the day slipped away. On Tuesday, she wrote eight pages, then realized she needed to do some research on Australia, since that’s where the story was set. One website led to another, and by the end of the day she’d made quite a few notes on Australia and had also signed up for Facebook, ordered some Christmas gifts online, and investigated writers’ organizations in her area. Quite a productive day, she told herself.
As the weeks went by, Lauren felt guilty about her lack of progress, but she defended herself to Greg when he cautiously asked how things were going. Writing is a creative process, she insisted. She had most of the book written in her head. She just hadn’t committed it to paper yet.
One Saturday afternoon, Lauren returned from the grocery to find Greg sitting at the kitchen table, paying the monthly bills. A wave of guilt swept over her as she realized how many weeks had passed since she’d brought home a paycheck and how little progress she’d made on her book.
“You know,” she began cautiously, “maybe it’s time for me to start looking for a job. We can’t exist on one income forever.”
“We’re fine,” Greg replied evenly.
“I know, but . . .” But what? She really didn’t know where she was going with this conversation.
“Look, Lauren, we can do whatever you want. It was my idea for you to take this time off to write because I thought it was what you wanted, but if it’s not, that’s fine. You don’t
have
to write a book if you don’t want to.”
“Of course I want to!”
Greg hesitated for a moment. This could be dangerous territory.
“I know you say that, but it doesn’t seem like you really mean it. Since you’ve been home, you’ve cleaned out all the closets and the garage, you’ve painted the kids’ bathroom, and you’ve cooked a lot of new recipes. The only thing you haven’t done is write. Working on the book seems to be your last priority rather than your first one.”
Lauren looked down at her hands and picked idly at a fingernail. He was right, of course.
“I know. I’m not sure what the problem is. I really want to do this, and I think I’ve got the skills to do it, but what if I’m wrong? I guess that subconsciously, I think that if I never finish the book, I’ll never have to face the fact that maybe I’m
not
a novelist. I’d just be one more person with a dusty old manuscript that no publisher wanted to buy.”
“That’s true,” Greg said. “Of course, right now, you’re just one more person who thinks she can write a book but has never really tried. Personally, I’d rather have the dusty old manuscript and the knowledge that I’d given it my best shot.”
“You make an excellent point, sir!” Lauren said with a smile. “Give me a couple of days to think about it. If I really don’t think I’m up for this, at least right now, I’ll start writing a new résumé instead.”
“Sounds fair to me.”
On Sunday afternoon, Lauren pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant where the monthly meeting of the city’s authors’ organization was held. She had enthusiastically signed on as a member, looking forward to the opportunity to meet some of her fellow writers, but now she was a bit nervous as she arrived for her first meeting. What if all of these people had written multiple best sellers?
Her fears were groundless. The group seemed to include writers at every level of expertise and experience, and the atmosphere was friendly and welcoming. Lauren found herself chatting with a woman named Grace, who said she had recently completed her third novel and had ideas for a fourth one percolating in her head.
“Wow, that’s great,” Lauren said. “How long have you been writing full-time?”
“Oh, I don’t,” Grace said. “I teach English at Franklin High School. I just write in my spare time, when I’m not working or driving my kids to soccer and so forth.”
Lauren was amazed. “That’s incredible,” she said. “How do you find the time? I’ve been at home full-time for a few months, and I still can’t find the time to write.”
“Well, it’s not that you
can’t
find the time. It’s probably that you’re not
making
the time. If writing was really a priority for you, you’d be doing it.”
“That’s what my husband says,” Lauren replied. “So how are you doing it, with a job and a family?”
“I schedule it,” Grace said. “I call it my ‘sacred time,’ and my family knows to respect it. The thing about writers is that most of us seem to really hate writing, because we’re the worst procrastinators in the world. For some reason, we’ll do anything to avoid actually sitting down and writing. When I started working on my first book, I planned to write for an hour each night after I got my kids into bed. The problem was that I rarely actually wrote anything because I’d find some excuse not to do it—I had to get tomorrow’s dinner into the slow cooker, I was too tired, my favorite movie was on television. There was always an excuse.”
“So what did you do?”
“I reordered my priorities. I decided that writing would be the first thing I did every day, before other things started pulling away my attention. Now I get up at five-thirty every morning and write for two hours.”
“
Five-thirty
? Yikes, that’s early.”
“I know, but I’m used to it now. My husband gets the kids up and dressed while I’m squirreled away in our home office, then we all have breakfast together before we head out for the day. I’d like to get a little more sleep, but this has proved to be the only way for me to prioritize my writing. If I don’t get it done first thing, I usually don’t get it done at all. The other thing I’ve found is that it gives me momentum for the rest of the day. I find it easier to prioritize the other things I have to do.”
“That makes sense,” Lauren said. “I guess I’d always assumed that novelists spent eight hours a day at it, kind of like a regular job. I think that’s one reason I’ve found it so hard to get started or get any momentum going. If I don’t have that much time to devote to it, it doesn’t seem worth getting started if I’m going to have to stop in an hour or two to pick up my kids or whatever.”
“You’d be surprised at what you can accomplish in an hour or two,” Grace said. “Sometimes I find that I get more done when I have less time because I
have
to work on what’s most important and avoid wasting time. When school is out during the summer and I’m at home full-time, I don’t write much more than I do during the school year—maybe an extra hour a day, but rarely more than that. As long as I make that two-hour stint in the morning my top priority, it gets done, even if I’m just chipping away little by little.”
A month later, Lauren was back at the authors’ club, pouring herself a cup of coffee before finding a seat for the meeting, when Grace approached her.
“Hi! How’s your book coming?” Grace asked. “Are you making any progress?”
“Amazing progress, actually,” Lauren replied. “I gave it a lot of thought after we talked last month, and I decided that I needed to either decide that I wasn’t a writer after all or make it a priority and see what happened. I’ve finished my first draft, and now I’m making some edits and trying to figure out how to start making the rounds to publishers.”
“That’s great! So are you getting up at five-thirty like I do?”
“Heavens, no! I’m not a morning person, although I guess I’ll have to do that if I go back to the corporate world. I start writing at eight-thirty, as soon as my husband and kids are out of the house. I’m not as disciplined as you are, so I have to make some deals with myself. I’m not allowed to have a second cup of coffee until I’ve worked for thirty minutes, and I can’t do the breakfast dishes until I’ve worked for two hours. That sounds stupid, but I’m a little obsessive about having a clean kitchen, so oddly enough, that’s an incentive for me.”
“Hey, whatever works!” Grace said. “I work with a guy who gets his wife to hide the sports section from him until he’s finished a three-mile run. Hey, would you like me to see if my publisher would be willing to read your manuscript? Can’t hurt to ask.”