Time ….

Recently I attended the World Domination Summit. This was a significant investment of time as well as money, I had to fly to Portland, Oregon (West Coast America) and alongside the costs of event, plane, hotel etc was the time commitment.
Making a decision to do something is always much more than the cost of the event, and I think many of us don’t think enough of the time we commit to something.

It’s your time

Many years ago, I was very careful with my time and had no qualms of walking out of meetings, and especially conference sessions when I couldn’t see the value of staying there. In a conference it’s easy to walk out but more obvious in a meeting. I used to just stand up and say I have to go.  Nowadays it would be much easier, just look at your phone as if you have had an urgent text message.

Looking back though I’m not always so careful with my time – I’ve sat in restaurants and looked at the menu, realised there is nothing I consider healthy and nice to eat but still stayed.

I’ve spent far too long talking with people as I don’t know how to get away from them without being nasty. But it’s my time!

And then there’s the distractions and time wasting of reading so much stuff online.

One of the sessions I went to at the summit was on networking.  Mike Bruny said that there is no reason to try and re-energise a conversation which is flagging and it’s perfectly ok to end a conversation with a shake of the hand and to say ‘it’s been great to meet with you’ and move on.

Should you stay in a job/relationship?

Many people stay in a job which saps their energy, and means they have little time for anything that brings them joy. So why do they stay?

As many people stay in a relationship which also saps their energy, and makes them feel less than who they are rather than more.

Sometimes we stay in a job because of  need for the financial rewards, and of course we need enough money to pay our bills. But many are trapped due to the velvet handcuffs of a high salary.  Same with relationships, we can stay in a toxic relationship because of the hassle of having to divide up assets – who gets the book collection/ custody of the cat etc.

Maybe we should take time to think about what is important to us in these areas, and for example a career coach can help advise you on career decisions you are considering.

So how happy are you in your job/career?  Are you there because you want to be there or because you have to be there. Would you rather be doing something else?

5 years on will you be happy with the choices you have made?  Have you completed my 10 steps to a job you love eProgramme? Now might be a good time to work your way through that. You can access it from my main site – go back to the home page and see the sign up box.

Best use of time

I’ve been thinking quite a lot about how I spend my time and am I using my time well. I know what’s important to me

  • Health and wellness, so having the time to eat slowly and mindfully, to go for a long walk each day, to play tennis, to do my weights sessions at the gym.
  • My relationship – we spend time together quietly but often we go for long walks together which gives us time to talk.

But there are other things I don’t commit enough time for and one of them is being still.  I find it so hard to meditate and to just be.  Far too much of my time is spent on doing.

I also think that I spread myself too thin, and social media doesn’t help. So I’m planning on only going on to FaceBook once a day, and that will be in an evening.  I estimate that I spend 90 minutes a day on it, regularly checking it as a distraction from a task, and I do tend to follow links which takes up still more time.

90 minutes a day is over 10 hours a week … plus there are the newsletters and updates I get, and again I follow through. So my plan for next week is a once a day review at the end of each working day of both Facebook and non client emails.

But how should I spend this time I’ve gained? As I work for myself I could easily just continue to work, but there will never be an end to the work I could do.  So I need to not over plan or over commit and to decide something is good enough rather than create more and more revisions of an article or blog post.
Enough … what I do is enough.

ACTION

  • Think about how you spend your time, is this time well spent?
  • If you could make 1 change with how you spend your time, what change will you make?
  • Sign up and work through the 10 steps to a job you love eProgramme and get in touch if I can be of help
  • Any thoughts or comments? I would love to hear from you.

Till next time,

Denise x

Published On: July 16th, 2012 / Categories: Career Management, Inspiration /

One Comment

  1. noox July 19, 2012 at 5:17 pm

    This is the dilemma of working for ourselves. We don’t have someone to tell us when to call it a day which is important sometimes.

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