Why Time Investment Beats Time Management

By Shazad

“People are frugal guarding their personal property, but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy”

Seneca, On The Shortness Of Life

“Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen”

Epictetus, Discourses

Time is a valuable commodity that we all wish we had more of. However, managing it can be a daunting task. What if we considered time as a precious resource rather than an adversary to battle with every day? By doing so, we could use it effectively to prioritize our tasks, decide where to devote our attention, plant the right seeds, and take enough breaks to recharge. I will guide you on how to achieve all of these things.

The chapter on Time Investment in the Awesome Life book has some great lessons to learn from. If you want the detailed version, I recommend you read the whole chapter. The first thing you need to do every day is to identify your MCAs (Most Critical Activities). What are the 2 or 3 highly important tasks that you must accomplish today? This helps you to know where to focus your energy for today. Everything else can wait until you finish your MCAs or until the next day. You can either delay, delegate, or delete any task from today’s To-Do list that is not an MCA. This way, you will develop a laser-focused approach to what needs to be done. You basically say NO to everything else.

Action Steps:

1. Define your MCAs for each day or at least the Weekdays if you don’t want to do this on Weekends as well.

2. What can you Delegate, Delay, or Delete off your daily list of To-Dos?

3. The night before each day, create an MCA list for the next 24 hours

To make the most of your time each day, it is important to organize your short and medium-term activities. You need to think of your life as a series of projects like finishing a degree, getting married, going on a vacation, planning a birthday party, and so on. Next, you identify the project you are working on and what the steps are to reach the finish line. Now you can just focus on completing the daily tasks related to each project and achieve success.

Remember, you should not just keep yourself busy each day without a clear purpose. You need to actively work towards completing one or more projects by completing required daily tasks to move things forward. If you cannot work on an important project, delegate some tasks to someone who can help you move it to the next milestone.

Action Steps:

1. Write out all your projects for 2024.

2. Define the key milestones for each of these projects and the steps to achieve each milestone.

3. Write out your daily action plan to complete the required tasks for each project.

The third big idea is to "Do Less to Achieve More". Stop doing so much and always being "So Busy". Cut back on your socializing or social media use. Stop mindlessly scrolling the internet for deals or watching the latest TikTok videos. We have all done this at some point in time and it’s toxic if you keep doing this as an adult. Reduce your talk and text time with those friends who just want to grab your ear for 3 hours each day. Also, don't work all the time and obsess over every single detail in your life's projects or your daily MCAs. Relax… refine your habits and nature to worry less and focus more on what matters. Let some trivial things and unimportant tasks just slide… hopefully, into someone else's inbox or To-Do list. When you say "NO!" more often to people and things competing for your attention, you get your time and your life back! You get to decide how you run the day instead of 100 things driving you around just for fun and someone else's profit.

Realize that attention is a resource just like time and many companies want yours for their gain. Don't be so generous with either of these things. Protect them like Gold and Diamonds!

Action Steps:

1. Write a list of all the people and things vying for your attention each day.

2. Decide which items on your list can you immediately cut down to 50% of your time.

3. What things on your list do you look forward to and want to do more of if you had the time and attention?  

So now you know the 3 key steps to making 2024 the year you truly feel you are getting the RIGHT THINGS DONE and feeling Awesome at the end of each day. You will develop strong "NO!" muscles this year, and it will become comfortable very soon to just say this N-word as a default response. This means you'll be able to give a resounding "YES!" response to the remaining few things that make you want to fly high so you can Live Awesome!

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