Priorities: Phase I

Lately, I have devoted quite a bit of time to pondering why I am always struggling to feel a sense of accomplishment in my day. Time management, a term I am allergic to, is a chronic struggle for me. I prefer to live life as a free spirit, not tied down to a schedule. I detest doing the same thing at the same time every single day. In fact, when I wake up in the morning, what charges my battery and puts a smile on my face is thinking "What about this particular day is different?". All that being said, however, free spirits like me don't really seem to finish anything particularly well. Sad, but true! The path of my life is littered with great beginnings, but few of them are brought to completion. As my friend Kim at workstrategically.com tells me, I need to "Change my thinking to change my life." That has been my back-burner priority for the last few weeks.

What emerged as a result of said pondering was a totally new thought. Perhaps I have been coming at this process from the wrong end... I am an expander, not a condenser. I am a divergent thinker, not a convergent thinker. Hmmm... If too many details overwhelm me, and I have discovered that I only need, and in fact, I prefer only a few key things to fire my jets (the operative word here being few), then maybe making a complete schedule of my days is not the best way to ensure that my time is productive. This was a brand new twist on a very old topic in my world!

I feel confident someone else could have arrived far more quickly at my revelation, but for me this epiphany seems perfectly marvelous. I decided to simply make a list of the very most important things in my life that I want to make time for. Broad headings, not too much detail. Then, each night, create a general mental sketch of which ones I would fit into tomorrow. All of this I can hold in my mind. If a pencil needs to be involved, you can rest assured: this plan is on its' way to the graveyard! So far? Revolutionary! It's working! I am cautiously thrilled!

In my next post, I will enlighten you specifically and fill you in the goals & the experiment!

...Stay tuned for Phase II...