7 Key Reminders About Time

Have you watched the movie In Time by Justin Timberlake? Yes, he's the guy in the picture above. I like how he emphasized that "You can do so much in ONE day!" The movie's concept in reminding how time can make a difference in a person's life is amazing. Time is precious, it's irreversible and every time past without being well invested, might be a time well wasted. 

I believe time management is actually not managing the time itself; but managing yourself. Because everything stems out from you. You decide your thoughts, your attitude, your behaviour - and all these will lead to what you want to achieve in the end. You decide to laze, or to be hardworking; and you decide to be driven; or to slack; and you decide to prioritise or to do whatever it comes. The trick is, your willpower comes from how strong your desire is - to do whatever it takes to reach what you want.

My company organized a Time Management workshop today and I really can resonate to what the speakers (Linnet Tan & Kenny Ong) said! It was quite a lot of knowledge but guessed I echoed best to some parts which act as important reminders to me.

7 KEY REMINDERS ABOUT TIME (and some of my thoughts)

1. Prioritization is key

The ability to prioritize will help you to yield desirable results instead just feeling busy yet not achieving, after a whole day of work. If you can't prioritize naturally (which is perfectly fine), 1 simple mindtool you can use is the Urgent/Important matrix. I personally have been using it for about 3 years and it really helped me and some people in my team is using it too! Another great management mindset is to know how to delegate, this is well illustrated by one of the great management concept: "Who's got the Monkey".

2. Make sure you are always achieving, not always busy

Many people tend to end up busy doing a lot of things but achieving nothing, because they did not prioritize the important tasks that leads to the end goal. So keep track on number 1, and you'll be on track on number 2.

3. Maximize your time

How much can you do with the time you have at this very moment? Are you investing in something - knowledge, people, finances, change etc? Are you making sure all gaps are filled up with works of valuable results? 

4. Time investments compound

How we invest in our time determines our happiness in life and also financial success. For money to grow it has to be invested, same goes to time. If you invest your time to improve in certain skills, or to become more efficient - you will slowly find that that skill you invested would bring you more money; the efficiency you had will give you more time to make more money, to meet more people and spend time with people who matters. When you have more time, you can invest them back and benefit from the compounding interest to gain more time and money which are valuable factors to make sure you have time to spend with those who truly matters and do things that you really want!

5. Save time by effective communication

Sometimes communication breakdown burns out time to fix the mess. To be effective at work, communicate clear goals, identify resources together, set expectations and timelines together - when everyone's aligned, things move fast - and you get more effective and you have more time to invest in other things than just work.

6. Desire for success is important. Successful people  = Effective people

Everything boils down to a person's decision. The desire to be successful will drive you to find all ways to achieve it. Automatically you will want to accomplish things that matters effectively and efficiently. What is your burning desire that you will put down everything and focus on it and deliver it? 

7. Objective of time management is to achieve things in life, not just at work

I cannot agree more to this statement. We are living to live to enjoy the abundance in this world and to make a difference in this world, not living just to work and get by day by day. Being efficient at work helps us to have more time to achieve more things outside of work. It's making sure we have time to spend with those who matters and to live a fulfilling life where we reach our dreams and we influence other people!

I guessed these are the 7 key reminders I had from the session. Honestly, everyone knows this deep in our hearts - we know it. But sometimes we just need people to knock us at our heads to remind us how important it is again if we aren't able to focus on it. Again, I believe the inner desire is the best driver to succeed in life. Like I said:

"Your willpower comes from how strong your desire is - to do whatever it takes to reach what you want."

May you be inspired!

Thoughts I Had #10: Learning VS Doing

From Forbes: "Learning is good, Doing is better."

Good reminder for all of us. We often love to read and learn; but what happens after a good book read was put back onto the shelf?

So put your learning into action. Turn knowledge into wisdom. To do all these, it comes from one person and it's you. It comes from within yourself, it is your choice to make, not anyone else.

I've heard from many people at work, at Facebook, at gatherings, at random chats saying that they need extra learning, training, inspiration, motivation, development, opportunities etc. My first curiosity was always "What did you do for yourself?". I'm curious to know have they ever taken any first step to get to what they need, have they ever tried all means to improve themselves.

What I learn from people, especially those who didn't even hold a degree but are great entrepreneurs is that - If they want something, they tried every way to make things work, to get to where they want. They do not hold anyone accountable for their lives, but themselves.

Thoughts I Had #1: Sleep late and regret the next morning

Funny why do people like to sleep late, and regret the next morning. Many times we tell ourselves to be discipline to sleep early so we can wake up early and live life to the fullest! But most of the time we failed. We ended up chatting on Skype, enjoying Youtube, stalking people on Facebook, or just plainly browsing so called non-constructive stuff...and then we found out it's already 3 in the morning. Then we finally slept, and wake up the next day being all cranky just because we did not have enough sleep.

Some times we sleep late because some of us believe there's more to life during the night, at other places other than our school, workplace or home. We pour ourselves into peeking other people's life in Facebook and wishing we were doing as great as them, or laughing at great vids at Youtube and envying their skills, or starring at MTVs yearning to be a star etc etc etc...We were all searching for a more exciting  life by looking into other people's.

Thing is, if we turn every second of that into action steps to achieve what we want to be ultimately; then sleeping late is worth it.

Good night. I just watched a couple of Korean dramas because I want to improve my language. So sleeping late for today is worthwhile. XD