Want to progress faster? Pay attention to two parameters – the path and the time.
Pay attention to what happens to you along the way and how much time you invest in it.
Is it possible to do more with less?
A question that preoccupies every freelancer is how to avoid falling into the trap of the current, navigate the daily whirlwind, and even manage to raise your head and look at the horizon. Or in short, how to not lose it?
About thirty years ago, Stephen Covey published one of the world’s best-selling management books, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” In it, he laid out the 7 habits used by successful people, as part of ongoing leading management behavior. One of the habits dealt with what is now known as “time management.”
The Big Stones video is one of the cornerstones of the method.
The method is based on a simple 4-cell table, the axes of which are whether it is important/significant – yes-no, and whether it is urgent – yes-no.
All activities that consume our time and resources, whether at work or in our private lives, can be placed into one of the four options, and examined – are we really progressing at the speed that is right for us?
In the personal training process , we understand how to put your time in the right place.
- Urgent and important – crises, problems that arise and require immediate attention, and everything that needs to be done according to a schedule:
If most of the day is spent dealing with what is urgent and important, over time this creates high levels of burnout, fatigue, and a feeling that nothing is progressing because time is constantly being wasted putting out fires.
- Urgent but of medium importance – interruptions of any kind, conversations of low relevance or meetings without an agenda:
When most of your time is spent on what is urgent but not most important, your focus is on the short term – how to get through the day. The feeling of finding immediate solutions that stems from a lack of control over the path, at some point leads to losing the path itself and feeling victimized by circumstances.
- In what is neither urgent nor important – fun, and for the pedants among us it also gives a great sense of satisfaction (look, we also cleaned panels) but does not advance. When most of the time is wasted on everything that is neither urgent nor important, there is no development, no progress, no true independence.
- In what is not urgent but important – promoting strategic goals, implementing long-term plans, etc.:
Ah! Doing what is really important to us – prevention, maintenance, nurturing relationships, identifying new opportunities, thinking and deepening – with some of the time directed to what is really important to you, according to your strategy, your vision, if you manage to introduce discipline and order into your daily life in order to work towards these goals – significant results will probably not be long in coming. Handling what is important on an ongoing level allows you to manage from a relatively high level of control, it motivates the team, gives meaning and understanding of the big goal, even in the face of everyday matters.
How does personal training relate to all of this?
Life is full of surprises, dynamic and changing, certainly in the life of a freelancer.
In order not to lose it, you need to identify what is really important and promotes, and then create a progress plan. Define the right direction, what the next goal is, what the destination is, and aim for it. It is true that there will be a lot of noise along the way, but when faced with knowing what is really important to me, what the direction is, what the plan is, we will always know where to go back and aim, and don’t forget that after this crisis, this traffic jam, this blockage, there is a destination we are aiming for and want to reach. In order not to lose the way, examine yourself on a personal and business level – what you really want to achieve in the end.
