Our life, with its nine-areas, can be likened to a house or our bodies. A house is a structure within which there are many systems all working together, hopefully, to make our life easier, safer, more comfortable and convenient. Systems like electrical, plumbing, security, HVAC, and others. Our body is a structure consisting of many systems all working together well, hopefully, to make us healthy and functioning at our peak. Systems like nervous, skeletal, respiratory, digestive, and more. When there is harmony among all these systems, the house and the body operate at their best. And so it is with our life structure. When all nine-areas are working in harmony, we are functioning at our best, accomplishing more than we ever thought possible, and enjoying life so much more.
The underlying principle and process ensuring that we are optimizing the harmony in our life is the ability to manage our use of time. We can’t manage time so we have to manage ourselves in how we use time to our advantage. This takes becoming skillful with the 5 management functions. You first plan and set priorities, then organize your calendar into blocks of time for the various activities you’ve planned and prioritized, then direct yourself to follow the plan, control your distractions and amount of wasted time, and finally coordinate with others to ensure they understand what you’re doing and will help instead of hinder.
I challenge you to make a list of all the activities you are engaged in on any given week or month and determine realistically into which of the 4 quadrants they each fit. The goal is to have as many in quadrant #2 as possible. That’s where harmony resides. My guess is you will have a majority of your activities in quadrant #1, which is the fire-fighting quadrant. It is there you will hear yourself say you don’t have enough time to do everything you need to get done. We think we never have enough and yet we have all there is. It is never that you don’t have enough time. It is more likely you haven’t planned or prioritized properly and are not utilizing the other management skills to ensure the harmonious use of the time you have been given. Become more skillful here and you will wonder why you didn’t do this sooner. A less stressful and more productive life awaits!
