Use Time Or It Will Use You
R. Geoff Dromey
Griffith University
What we lack more
than anything else is time.
-- Michelle Fitoussi
2nd
Edition
Published
2012 by Systems & Software Quality Institute Pty. Ltd.
Edited
by David Tuffley.
ISBN:
978-1-4658-2693-0
Smashwords Edition
www.ssqi.org.au/
Copyright
© The R. Geoff Dromey Estate, 1997 - 2012.
All
rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved
above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or
introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form
without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
About
the Author
Professor
R.
Geoff Dromey was the Foundation Professor of Software Engineering in
the School of Information and Communication Technology at Griffith
University in Brisbane, Australia. In 1991 he Founded and was
Director of the Software Quality Institute at Griffith University.
Profits from the sale of this book will go to the Professor R. Geoff Dromey Foundation and Scholarship Fund to facilitate industry focused applied academic research to advance and improve systems and software engineering capability.
Contents
Chapter 1: The strategic use of time
Chapter 2: Laws of time investment
Chapter 3: Laws of time utilization
Chapter 4: Managing the use of time
Chapter 5: Optimizing the use of time
Chapter 6: Time and your future
Appendix I: Problems with our use of time
Appendix II: The psychology of time utilization
Preface (Read First)
This book has a different focus from others that have been written on the human use of time. It is designed to inspire, to motivate and to assist anyone and everyone who is interested in improving the quality of their life.
The greatest pleasure and satisfaction in life comes from the accomplishment of things that require large investments of time. In a nutshell, this book is about how to create that abundance of time that you need to invest to realize your long-term goals and ambitions.
Each and every one of us has a great untapped potential to use our time much more effectively. If we exploit this potential we can accomplish things that will make our lives richer, make the world a better place, and give pleasure and inspiration to those we love and touch.
Most authors hope that their books will be read and appreciated. If that is all this book does for you, it will have failed. My hope for this book is twofold: first, that it will make you think, and second, it will cause you to take action.
Geoff Dromey,
Griffith University,
Brisbane, 1997.
Editor’s Note: This is one of those rare books that has the potential to transform lives. This edition of Use Time is produced with the kind permission of the Dromey Estate. This text has been reproduced with the same content as the original, including the original diagrams and tables. David Tuffley.
This book is available in paperback and Kindle. Searching the Amazon site will locate it. Profits from the sale of this book will go to the Professor R. Geoff Dromey Foundation and Scholarship Fund to facilitate industry focused applied academic research to advance and improve systems and software engineering capability
Ways to use this book
Each of us has different backgrounds and different needs. Consequently the way we set about getting what we want from a book can differ considerably.
Every author hopes that readers will read all that they have written, preferably in the order in which it is presented. However this is not the way the world works, or the way people necessarily behave.
To accommodate people who are "busy" the book has been kept deliberately short. This is a carrot to encourage people to read the whole thing. Readers who just want to get to the main game as quickly as possible often run the risk of getting a distorted and incomplete view of what a book offers. Also, by being focussed only on what to do, a reader runs the risk of missing important motivating arguments designed to keep them committed to improving their time-skills. Without this backup they may lose interest before they have derived real benefits from improving their time-skills. Things worth having, and of lasting value, don't just happen overnight. If you think any book on time utilization is going to deliver you the magic formula in a single cursory reading of a couple of chapters you are likely to be disappointed. This book can offer a lot to help you improve your time-skills, provided you are not in too much of a rush to get the results before you have done the ground work and paid your dues. For those who think they do not have time to read the whole book the following advice is offered.
The Reader Who Knows a Lot About The Subject and Who Is Looking To See If This Book Has Anything New To Say
Readers in this category should at least read Chapter 1 to get a perspective on what the book is trying to do. Chapters 2 and 3 deserve at least a quick visit to see what the laws offer. Chapters 4, 5 and 7 should be of most interest to readers in this category. They may find Appendices I and II discussing problems they are already well aware of.
The Reader Who Just Wants To Know What To Do And How To Do It Without Worrying About Why
This reader, who just wants to get hold of, and start applying the technology as quickly as possible, should at least read chapter 1 and then chapter 7 followed by chapter 4. This way of getting what you want from the book may work for some people. My personal feeling is that a reader who opts to do this, will lack the background, motivation and the perspective to maximize the benefits that they could obtain from the book.
The Author's Model Reader
This reader will read what has been written with an open mind, but in a critical and reflective way. They will weigh up what is said, and take away from the book what is useful to them. This reader will be prepared to try out things, to take action and to see what really works for them. Readers in this category will find it useful to read Appendices I and II straight after Chapter 1 in order to gain a better understanding of the problem before getting caught up in the "how to".
Chapter 1: The strategic use of time
Our quality-of-life in the future depends upon the quality of our thinking (and actions) in the present -- Edward de Bono
We do not have enough time
In today's fast-paced world so many of us experience the feeling of not having enough time to do the things that are important to us, the things we would dearly love to do and even the things we have to do. There is that ever-present feeling of being under pressure or having too much to do. No matter what we try, or how hard we work, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Our quality-of-life is far from what we want it to be.
Over the past five hundred years the human race has made giant strides in education, in science and in the use of labour-saving technology. However, by any of these yardsticks, the way we handle time is still in the dark ages. All around us people are living in dire time poverty.
Take even this short book. Unless you belong to a small minority, it won't be easy for you to find the time to read it. This situation would change little even if you believed the book could be of great benefit to you. Here, right before your eyes, at this very moment, your lack of time is confronting you and limiting you! Most people don't get past the first ten pages of any book. Other seemingly more pressing things demand their attention or distract them and consume their time.
An endless stream of demands on our time keep rolling in from all quarters. There is little time to focus and to concentrate. We struggle to make any real progress on the things that are important to us. Instead of being active users of time, we find that others, and external events beyond our control, always seem to be dictating how we spend our time. Days pass, months pass and even years can pass, without anything very satisfying being accomplished? We are too busy reacting to things to pay serious attention to strategically and effectively using our time.
There is a way out. You can escape this time poverty by learning and actively using an effective set of time skills like those described in this book. Superior time skills will give you the freedom you need to realize your full potential and to change, forever, your quality of life.
Use Time or It Will Use You Chapter 1: The Strategic Use Of Time
What time means to us
We regard life as precious and go to great lengths to preserve it. Rarely however, do we extend this belief to what should be its logical consequence -that of placing an equally high value on how we use our time.
Why should we bother to do this? The answer is simple -what we do with our time affects the quality of our life now, and in the future. This consequence is inescapable.
Time is the most precious resource any of us has.
Only when we come to see time in this light are we likely to start using it to improve our quality-of-life.
Like all valuable resources, there are many things we can do with time. We may waste it, abuse it, ignore it, spend it, value it, save it, and even take the enlightened step of investing it. The eminent inventor Benjamin Franklin once said: time is money. With all due respect to Franklin, this assessment of time is too limiting and unadventurous. If he had said: time is opportunity, he would have given us far better advice. Time is the key resource we all must use to improve the way we live.
Regardless of anything else, there are four fundamental things that have a long-lasting impact on our quality-of-life:
- our continuing personal growth
- our health and fitness
Our seeming lack of time prevents most of us from striking the balance among these factors that would make us truly happy. If we get this balance right, it is possible to be happy and relaxed, and still accomplish far more than most. Not only can we do this, but more importantly, we can do it without the pressure of being constantly busy and without working exceptionally hard. What it comes down to, is how we choose to invest our time.
While the major focus in the rest of this book is upon using time strategically to achieve long-term goals, we take it as given that the set of long-term goals we choose should always include as high priorities the other three things (i.e., personal growth, health and fitness, etc) we have spelled out which give quality to our life.
This is something we should not compromise on, no matter what our current circumstances or what our past has been, if we want to live life to the full and achieve what will give us long-lasting pleasure and satisfaction.
The tetrahedron below, which succinctly summarizes this philosophy and emphasizes three things:
- the importance of balance between the four factors,
- that all of these factors contribute equally to our quality-of-life, and
- that each factor is supported and reinforced by the other three.
When you achieve balance between these elements, leading to an improved quality of life, you will find that an increasing synergy comes about.
Synergy is when the total or the whole is more than the sum of the parts. It is seen in fully optimising people, a person who is moving towards a state of self-actualisation. Such a state is natural, representing your fullest potential as a human being.
This structure maps in a natural way onto our reality. It captures in an essence, what life could be, or perhaps even what life should be all about. Each factor supports the other three. Just as the geometric structure is highly stable, so too should be a life that is lived and balanced according to these factors.
If we fail to develop one or more of these dimensions we will pay a price which is measured by a corresponding loss in the quality of our life. When we look around us we see manifestations of all these possibilities. There are people who excel in all dimensions, right through to people who excel in only one dimension at the expense of the others. Finally there are some who do not excel in any of these dimensions.
There is always plenty of scope for each and everyone of us to extend and balance our growth along these dimensions. If we can do this, we will achieve a marked improvement in our quality-of-life.
For most of us, of the four dimensions, the achievement of long-term goals is the one which is most often neglected. It is also the one that is most difficult to accomplish -hence the focus on long-term goals in this book. By long-term goals here we mean things that are likely to take us six months, a year, two years, or even much longer to achieve.
It is what we do with time that counts
When all the dust is cleared away it is not time itself that is of much consequence -it is what we do with our time that really counts. People do not pay serious attention to time because they fail to appreciate what it could do for them if they were to learn to use it strategically and effectively.
What each of us does with our time makes a very big difference to the quality of the life we experience, what we accomplish, and our future.
We claim that what we do with time, more than anything else, has a profound effect on the quality of our lives. This raises a very fundamental issue -do we each place enough importance on the way we live, and on what we achieve? If we do, then time should be very important to us. It is the primary resource we use to do absolutely everything. Let us put the issue another way. When we ask people if their quality-of-life is important to them, we get a unanimous "yes". We therefore owe it to ourselves to understand why time is, or should be, important to us.
What we all seek
In living, we seek pleasure and satisfaction from what we do. Taken together, pleasure and satisfaction add up to happiness. Throughout this book, we intend to use the words pleasure and satisfaction in quite distinct ways. On the one hand we will associate pleasure with our own feelings about what we do, what we experience, and what we accomplish. On the other hand, we will associate satisfaction with our feelings about what we perceive or project that other people think about our actions or accomplishments.
Peoples' motives for what ever they do are to seek pleasure and satisfaction and/or avoid pain.
There are countless things we can do that give pleasure and satisfaction. However, the degree of lasting satisfaction, pleasure or benefit we get from what we do seems to be intimately tied to the scale, or size, or difficulty of the task or accomplishment. For example, to win an Olympic Gold Medal might only take a few seconds or minutes. However, almost invariably, years of effort and training goes into reaching the level where winning such a medal is even a remote possibility.
In contrast to this, sitting down and watching a movie for a couple of hours gives us pleasure. The catch is, that the feeling of pleasure derived from this very passive action rarely lasts much beyond the time it takes to watch the movie. In other words, it is a very transitory pleasure. There will be very few people who will come up to you on the street and congratulate you for having spent the time to watch a particular movie. The personal payoff for this sort of activity is very small. It passes the time, that is all.
So what we see here is that winning an Olympic Gold Medal and watching a movie both take time; what is involved, and what are the outcomes in the respective cases, in terms of pleasure and satisfaction, are however, worlds apart. Analysing these two situations, we see that there are at least a few people who are prepared to forego a lot of transitory pleasure and maybe even endure considerable pain and hardship to realize long-lasting pleasure and satisfaction. On the other hand, a much larger group of people seek, or only ever attain transitory pleasure. There is a place for transitory pleasure but it is unlikely that seeking just transitory pleasure will make us truly happy. Each and every one of us has the capacity to do things that would change our lives, that would change the way we think about ourselves and would change the way other people think about us. The opportunity is there for us to seize.
The preceding discussion would seem to suggest that small things that only involve small investments of time are not of much long-term consequence. We should be wary about jumping too quickly to such a conclusion. There are many "little things" we can do that can have a lasting positive impact on our life and on the lives of others. These "little things" are usually things that are done spontaneously and selflessly without any thought of recognition or reward. One prime example of this is unconditionally giving a little of your time and undivided attention to another person. By giving, in fact you usually receive far more pleasure and satisfaction in return.
There is yet another dimension to what people seek -that is, the avoidance of a feeling we usually loosely describe as pain. In some instances, avoiding pain is a stronger influence on our behaviour than the desire for pleasure and satisfaction. In fact, pain often stops us from doing lots of things because they involve some risk of failure, hardship or embarrassment. A voiding, putting off, or choosing not to do certain things often has two possible consequences. It leads to the creation of a worse situation which in the end wastes or costs us a lot more unnecessary time and pain than if we had confronted the issue in the first place. Alternatively, it can result in missed opportunities which could have made a significant difference to our situation and to the quality of our life.
What society values
There are two clear messages that flow from our preceding discussion. What our peers and what society seems to value, applaud, and recognize most in others, are things that take a lot of effort, skill, persistence and time to accomplish. And, what individuals usually derive the greatest lasting pleasure, satisfaction and benefit from are those same things that involve very substantial effort to accomplish. Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer, summed this up very nicely when he said: "Most things I've done take many years . . . I'm always impatient but it doesn't speed things up."
Society values achievement because people know that a large amount of effort must have gone into its realization. Part of this recognition often stems from the fact that people acknowledge that they, themselves would not have the strength of character, energy and persistence to achieve such a goal. They also recognize that people who achieve long-term goals, unlike themselves, have had to forego lots of transitory pleasure in order to realize their achievements.
The other main reason why society values the achievement of long-term goals is because such achievements often make the world a better place in some way. Take the case of the inventor Thomas Edison who persisted for so long time before finally identifying a suitable material from which to make light bulbs. His persistence and achievement has ensured that he will always have a place in history.
Breaking through the time barrier
It is our lack of time, like an insurmountable barrier, that is always standing there before us preventing us from doing so many of the things we want to do -things which we know we are capable of doing.
More people would try to, and be able to achieve, fulfilling and exciting long-term goals if they only knew how to more effectively use their time.
If we are to break through this barrier and find the time we need to do the things we really want to do then there are a number of changes we will need to make in our attitudes and in our behavior. This is not something that will happen over night even when we understand what needs to be done. It will only happen if we invest the time and the sustained effort to make the changes. A fundamental law operates here -it says you only get out of things a return that is commensurate with the effort that you put in, in the first place. No one is going to deliver you more time on a plate. You can certainly gain access to a lot more time but you are going to have to earn it through your own efforts.
Many of us put off doing things that we want to do, and things that are important to us, because we have the forlorn hope that somehow in the future we will have more time to do these things. This is just wishful thinking. The chances of it happening are usually remote. We have to make the tough decision to MAKE time now to fit in the things that are important us. This means allocating and spending time each and every day on these things we really want to do. We will only succeed if we hold firmly to this. Compromises and disruptions to our commitment should be few and far between.
Your response to this suggestion might be -well that is unrealistic or impossible with the schedule and commitments that I have. If this is your response then you should reassess your priorities. Most of us try to hide behind the excuse that we are already too busy. Being "busy" is a situation we need to send packing out of our life very quickly. There are always more things that we could do or that we think we have to do, than there is time for. This situation is quite normal. It certainly does not constitute a legitimate excuse for putting off important things that we really want to do. All it usually means is that we have let things come rolling in on top of us without giving enough thought to prioritization and to sorting out what is really important to our long-term happiness.
We must reject completely, now and forever, the notion that we are too busy.
We need to recognize that there are always choices regarding how we use our time. Our job is to make the choices and devote time to things according to their importance and long-term impact on our lives. If we do this we will cease to be busy and start being effective. I know, in my own case, since I have stopped saying or believing that I am "busy" there has been a change as dramatic as the contrast between night and day. I am doing as many, if not more things than before; the difference is, I no longer feel stressed. And, as a bonus, I am also getting a lot more of what really counts, done.
Our lack of skill in investing time wisely and in using time effectively, contribute in a major way to the barrier that prevents most of us from ever achieving substantial goals that would make a real difference to the quality of our lives. So many more people have the talent to achieve worthwhile goals than ever achieve such goals. They either never start, because they cannot see how they will find the time to accomplish the task, or they start, but because of their poor use of time, they stall and give up long before their goal is anywhere in sight.
To set the right preconditions for breaking through the "lack-of-time barrier" we must add to our mind-set the recognition that time is our most valuable resource. It then becomes much easier to make the switch to actively and strategically investing our time each and every day.
Investing time in what is important
Time, like money, must be invested in substantial amounts to accomplish things of value. Investing substantial amounts of time regularly, over a long period to accomplish a task, or achieve a goal, is not something that can be done lightly, if it is to be effective. Very few people naturally and intuitively have the ability to do this.
To achieve long-term goals we certainly cannot go about things in a half-hearted or half-baked way. We have to make a commitment, we have to be involved, and we have to be passionate about what we want to achieve. This must be coupled with a commitment to master how to make time and how to invest time if we are to give ourselves a chance of accomplishing long-term and worthwhile goals.
Disciplined investment of time is what is needed to achieve long-term goals and attain lasting pleasure and satisfaction.
While this all sounds good in theory it is also important to recognise that investment of time is a skill that must be nurtured and developed as a very strategic activity over a considerable period. It can be hard to break old habits and equally hard to establish new, worthwhile time habits. It is alright to be impatient for, and hopeful of, immediate large-scale improvement. However, do not be surprised if the gains you are seeking come more slowly. Keep in mind that a one percent daily improvement will lead to a doubling in performance in approximately three months. Time is on your side when persistence is your ally.
Developing time-skills
Making the commitment to develop your time-skills will be one of the most important decisions you make in your life if you have the patience and persistence to follow it through to fruition. It will change forever your quality-of-life.
Despite the potential benefits of having effective time-skills, very few people ever seriously venture into this territory. That society, and the education system, overlooks such a critical life-skill is a great pity. Its consequence is a great waste in human potential and a loss of happiness. Not only would individuals benefit and be happier from having better time-skills, but society in general, would also be the winner.
Desire and commitment is not enough. People must learn through sustained practice how to use their time, just as they must learn how to walk, or swim, or any other skill. Very few people have jumped into the water for the first time and swam with the grace and power of a competent swimmer, let alone an Olympic Champion -the same applies to the effective use of time. Unfortunately, very few people understand or have ever thought about this. They just battle on doing things without recognizing that they need to diligently invest time and effort to develop their time-skills.
The ability to effectively use time is a skill that can only be mastered by diligent and sustained practise.
To master how to use our time strategically we need to have an overall plan for how we are going to improve our use of time. This plan must be underpinned by a philosophy and a set of perspectives, strategies and techniques that will help us to invest our time wisely and to use it effectively. Then we must carry out our plan and measure how well we perform relative to our targets. All of this, and more, is needed to substantially improve our effective use of time. The rest of this book addresses these issues.
What is presented should be of interest to a very wide audience; from professionals, to people in business, to students, to athletes in training, to people with hobbies, to parents with young children. The techniques can be used by people to achieve important things either as part of, or outside, their normal work or everyday activities. How you choose to use these techniques is a judgement you will need to make. Keep in mind that there are 168 hours in every week -which is a lot of time. It should be possible for each and everyone of us to find, at the very least, 10% of this time to invest strategically, on a regular basis, in one or more worthy projects or goals that will make a significant difference to the quality of our life.
While the whole focus of what is presented is addressed to individuals, there is absolutely no reason why it should not deliver similar payoffs to teams and even larger organizations and bureaucracies -the same laws of time investment and utilization apply on a collective scale, provided they are accompanied by a shared vision and a shared set of values and long-term goals.
Chapter 2: Laws of time investment
Wisdom lies in the
intelligent perception of great principles and not in the slavish
imitation of detail.
E. Bramah
Creating an abundance of time
More than seventy years ago a little book titled "The Richest Man In Babylon" was published by George Clason. That book, which has been labelled the most inspiring book on wealth ever written, contained a lot of sound advice about how to accumulate and manage another precious resource -gold (wealth). The high-level guiding principles enunciated in that book were summarized in Clason's, Five Laws of Gold. Perhaps, not surprisingly, since time is also a precious resource, it too has a similar set of laws that govern its wise investment and effective utilization. Lasting pleasure and satisfaction is the gold we acquire in this case
While acquiring and managing wealth is an aim that appeals to some their is something else that has far greater appeal -to be happy, and to live life to the full. The problem is, to be truly happy and satisfied in life, we need to achieve long-term goals that require large investments of time and large investments of physical, emotional and/or mental effort to accomplish. Unfortunately, most people do not know how to create the abundance of time that they need to invest to achieve their long-term goals. The aim here is to put forward practical principles and strategies that may be used to create that abundance of time.
To achieve our long-term goals we must find time in our day-to-day routine that was previously wasted or used for other less important things. We will now enunciate a set of laws and provide a brief commentary on each one before considering the more practical aspects of investing and using time. The laws provided give clues on how to create a wealth of time in three ways:
- by not doing some things, and
- Law 1: Create and maintain a compelling future
For each and everyone one of us, life is a journey through time. Wherever we happen to be on that journey, there is always a choice of directions, roads to travel and destinations to seek. The destinations within our sight, from our current vantage point, are always defined by the clarity of our vision. Many people ignore this by metaphorically turning their backs on the future. They stumble through life as if there were no horizons, no future, no destinations beyond what today offers. They never see possible interesting and challenging futures, things that they could accomplish, different styles of living they could create and ways in which they could contribute to improving the lot of humanity. Instead, the choices they make are dictated solely by the moment, by their current circumstances. Roman philosopher Seneca, captured this approach to living when he said: ifyou know not what harbour you are sailing jor, any wind is the right one. Is this the best way to live life? Surely not. Each and everyone of us owes it to ourselves, and to the rest of humanity, past, present and future, to try to do our part to create a better world, a better place to live and share our experiences, a better future for us all.
If, as we journey through time, we are constantly learning and growing, if we accomplishing new things, and if we are contributing to society, we will discover that the territory keeps changing and new destinations come within our sight and within our range. These opportunities are there to be seized, not ignored.
What we are talking about here is making some compelling choices about how to live. In creating a vision we need to make some tangible specifications about three things:
- What we want to accomplish, and
- A compelling vision gives us direction. It can also transform our life and give it real purpose and meaning. Of course, as we progress, and as we accomplish things our vision will change as new things become important.
Without meaningful personal long-term goals our life lacks direction, purpose and focus. And, as a consequence, it suffers in vitality and quality. Goals are important not only for what they will deliver when they are accomplished but also for improving the quality of our living along the way. A life lived without strong purpose is only half lived.
Deciding what that purpose is, and then committing to it, gives meaning to our life. There can be little quality in a life lived without purpose.
Some time ago I remember reading an article about survival in the Nazi Concentration Camps during World War II. The thrust of the article suggested that those who were most likely to survive were people who had a strong sense of purpose. They were people passionate about the things they wanted to accomplish when they got out of the mess they were in. These were people who had a powerful vision beyond their current circumstances, who had a compelling future. Few of us today face circumstances that could be even remotely linked to what those people experienced. We have no excuse for not creating a compelling future for ourselves.
The trees in the forest have something to teach us about how to live our lives. As a tree journeys through time it grows in grace and stature. It is always changing, renewing itself and adapting to its environment. It encounters hard seasons, which it accommodates, and good seasons in which it flourishes. Its roots (c.f. our values) are the key to its well-being. They nourish its growth, and give it the strength and stability to adapt to its changing environment. A tree's growth takes place in a number of different directions, but always with a view to maintaining its balance and the integrity of its structure. A tree is also always mindful of its environment and its relationships with its neighbours. It does not try to harm or take advantage of them. Instead, a tree does its best to play its part in creating a harmonious environment in which it, and all of its neighbours, can flourish. It helps protect its neighbours from strong winds and at the same time enjoys the protection and support that they in return provide. It is true that a tree competes with other trees for the light, for the space and the nutrients in the ground but it never seeks to do things in excess or take more than its fair share of resources.
There are always dangers in taking any analogy too far. People differ from trees in a myriad of ways. However, the tree-in-the-forest analogy gives us a number of things to reflect upon in choosing how to live.
Reading Theodore Zeldin's beautiful book, An Intimate History of Humanity, brings home just how easy it is for us to let our circumstances limit our vision, limit what we do, and dictate the quality and direction of our lives. Do we really have to repeat the mistakes of our ancestors, of our parents and of many of those we see around us. Should we opt for playing out roles that are largely predictable, unimaginative and unfulfilling? Need this be what we are prepared to accept, assuming we get only one chance at life?
Law 2: Invest time in your future
Clearly, how we spend our time, at all times, strongly influences the quality of our life now, and in the future. By wisely investing our time we can fulfil our ever-present needs for pleasure and satisfaction.
Accomplishment, success and satisfaction comes to those who invest at least 10% of every day working towards the achievement of long-term personal goals.
What this law is suggesting is that each and every one of us needs to have long-term personal goals that we are working towards on a consistent and regular basis. The claim is made that if, over a long period of time, we invest nearly two to three hours every day on worthy long-term goals we will realize accomplishments that will give us long-lasting pleasure and satisfaction. The force behind this principle of investment of time is exactly the same force that operates when money is invested. We know that when money is invested regularly for long periods it accumulates at an exponential rate. A similar sort of favourable return flows from regularly investing time on long-term goals over a long period of time. The challenge to find two or even three hours each day should not be too hard -for example, the average person spends roughly 25 hours per week (that is, three working-day equivalents) watching TV.
There is an important corollary to the law of regularly investing time in our future. What it says is that once we commit to working on a project or achieving a particular goal we should continue making regular (preferably daily) time commitments to that goal until it is achieved. When we do this we build up substantial momentum that ensures that we get the best return (as measured by progress) on our regular investments of time. In this sense, the law of investment of time works in a similar way to the law of investment of money. Investing relatively small amounts regularly, over a long time, in the end gives greater returns than sporadic intense efforts or fragmented efforts. What is more, we can achieve our goals without great sacrifice to our quality of life along the way.
Momentum, through regular, uninterrupted time investments is the key to almost effortlessly realizing long-term goals.
If, on the other hand, our investments of time towards achieving a goal are irregular or there are significant gaps between bursts of activity then much of the time that we invest gets lost along the way. It takes a lot more effort to restart a project after a break than to keep it bobbing along on a regular basis. In my own experience, this has been one of the most valuable lessons I have learned about the use of time. Projects carried out through regular uninterrupted time commitments are a pleasure to work on. Their realization appears before our eyes, almost without our noticing. It is a wonderful feeling. We feel at ease, we feel relaxed, but the project continues to role on towards its completion almost effortlessly. This is such a contrast to the way most large projects are brought to fruition. The sense of frustration, or strain or pressure that usually comes with the territory is gone.
Law 3: Invest time in worthy goals
Simply investing time to achieve goals is not enough. If we were investing our money we would take great care in selecting an investment. The same care should be exercised in investing time. We need to be strategic and highly selective in the choice of goals we choose to pursue.
Those who invest time in worthwhile long-term projects are rewarded
Each of us has our own idea of what constitutes a worthy goal. Our values, our needs and the influence of our peers and those close to us largely determine what we see as a worthy goal. Pushkin's advice is probably the best universal guide. He said: never compromise for glory or gain.
Before investing a lot of time to achieve any goal it is wise to bring to bear the best relevant information. To do this we need to use a set of criteria and an accompanying process to assess the "worthiness" of the goal. A series of questions which help determine:
- what it will cost in effort and time,
- whether it is congruent with our core values.
These questions should be used to make the assessment. Details for doing this are provided in Chapter 5, which discusses optimising our use of time.
Law 4: Time must be made for important things
If we take the attitude that we will spend time working on important long-term goals/projects only when we are not busy, or when everything else is done, or when we have spare time, the likelihood that we will achieve those goals is relatively small. Most of us find ourselves in situations where we have more things to do than we have time for. No matter how many things get crossed off our To Do lists there is always a backlog of things that remain to be done.
Time must be made for long-term projects that are important, no matter what our present circumstances.
The only practical way forward in this situation is to consciously take the decision to make time, on a regular basis, for things that are important to us and to our long-term future and happiness. The operative words here are "make time". The time we need to accomplish long-term projects is not going to magically manifest itself to us. We have to make room for important and strategic things no matter how "busy" we are, or what our personal situation is. This sometimes means that some less important things don't get done. But, no matter how much time we had, there would always be more things that we could do, or that we think we should do. Given that this is the way things are, we should not feel guilty taking time for the important things.
The alternative, of letting busyness or business create a barrier that stops us from making progress on long-term goals, should not be an option. All busyness does is rob us of accomplishments that would give us long-lasting pleasure and satisfaction. There is absolutely no virtue in being busy. We are wasting our time and putting our quality of life in jeopardy if we succumb to busyness. We are far better off investing time in things that will improve the quality of our life and hopefully contribute to making the world a better place.
Law 5: Invest time in personal growth
There is an old Chinese proverb which says: when you stop learning, whether at eighty or twenty, you are old! We do not grow unless we take action by mastering new skills, accepting a new challenge, reading new things, writing and, most importantly, thinking deeply, intensively and creatively about new problems and issues. Learning, is to people, what water is to plants. Without learning, we lose our vitality and our zest for living.
A part of your time is yours to invest in your own development and growth no matter what your current circumstances are.
Unless we are consistently investing at least some of our time in learning and growing we are failing to use our time wisely -our life will lack balance and be pointed in the direction of shallow living and stagnation.
A passing comment on reading, I came across recently, sums up the situation: a person who does not read is no better off than a person who cannot read. This indictment may be applied with equal force to other forms of learning and thinking. Through learning, and nothing else, we learn how to live. For what can life be, but a journey of learning.
Law 6: Invest time in other people
It was Benjamin Franklin who said the noblest question we can ask is: what good can we do in the world? A preoccupation with satisfying only our own needs is unlikely to give us, or others, much long-term happiness. Nor is such a focus likely to contribute significantly to making the world a better place.
The greatest gift we can give another human being is our time and our undivided attention.
Giving time to others can be one of the most satisfying things that any human being can do. In these times, when everyone is so "busy" and preoccupied with their own affairs there is not that much sharing of time between couples, between parents and children, between friends, between neighbours and between people in general. No one has much "quality" time to spend and share with others. Most of us need this quality time with others to share our experiences, to have fun, to work through our and their problems, to get the feeling that we and they are important, that there is someone who cares about us, and about what we do and what we think. By sharing experiences with others we increase the quality of those experiences. It is not the same thing, to have climbed the highest mountain all by yourself, as sharing the climb and the experience with someone else. Sharing time with others can also stimulate our and their personal growth and learning. The consequences of not sharing time with others is that we usually become more selfish, less caring and more unhappy and frustrated.
In sharing time with others we should seek to make that time creative and constructive. It should be used to, where we can, create opportunities and possibilities for others and to make them happy or feel special or important. A day should not pass where we fail to do at least one little thing that makes someone else feel happy or special. At the same time, spending time with others should not be devoted to imposing our values upon them or inflating our ego. Such time is wasted, as is time spent gossiping, politicking and criticizing people behind their backs. More often than not, when we are with others, it is far better just to listen and to try to see things from their perspective, and their circumstances, rather than from our own -the latter might be quite different. Some people use a lot of their time with others doing things for them. While in some cases this is appropriate, it is far better, in proverbial terms, to teach people how to fish than to keep giving them fish.
More than anything else, in the time we spend with others, we should be looking to set an example in what we do and in the way we do things. What we do by example is far more likely to have a positive impact on others than anything we might say to them.
Giving freely of our time to other people, and doing things for others without being prompted or asked, is something that adds a little extra to our lives. Such deeds, whether we are on the giving or the receiving end, are uplifting experiences that can influence our and their future behaviour. One of these incidents happened to me recently when I travelled overseas. Before I went, I had cleared out a lot of junk from under our house and put it in a large container that I had hired. The container was located outside our backyard in the local park. When the guy came to cart away the container (while I was away) he decided that I had piled in too much rubbish. He "solved" his problem by simply dumping a big pile of the rubbish in the park. The local park ranger promptly turned up and told my wife that she had to move the rubbish forthwith or we would have to pay a hefty fine. My wife's welcoming words, when I arrived home, after a twenty-six hour flight, were that I would need to immediately set about removing the rubbish. Reluctantly, I got changed and headed out the back gate to see what needed to be done. When I got there, to my complete surprise, the rubbish was all gone. Our next-door neighbours who had witnessed the whole drama, without even a word to my wife, had taken the load of junk off to the local dump. When this happened, I felt guilty because I knew just how busy my neighbours were, but, at the same time, I felt how lucky we were to live where we do.