It’s not uncommon for me to be approached by a client who is totally overwhelmed: No time to think, no space to regroup, no energy to look at the big picture. It’s just running on the endless treadmill of disasters, action items, and obligations.
I’ve been there myself, and pledged not to do it again. I don’t want to die from a heart attack.
If you don’t have the time to step back, how do you make ANY progress? The answer is incredibly simple, yet one of the hardest steps to take.
You create a little space, period.
Sounds impossible, of course. If you have no extra time, no extra space, where can you steal from to create more? Do you give up what little sleep you’re getting?
No.
Think about it this way: If you work as hard as you’re doing right now, you’re going to get sick, quite possibly for a considerable period of time. And when that happens – not if – you’ll be forced to take some drastic actions. You’ll delegate some things, you’ll put some things on the back burner, you’ll even give some things up entirely – because at that point, it’s just physically impossible.
So the trick is to act as if that emergency already exists, but before you’re sick. Make some of those hard choices, just for the sake of your own sanity.
It doesn’t necessarily need to be a lot of time. I’ve known people who have made remarkable progress with just five minutes a day, because that five minutes was used to change their world. It’s amazing what you can do in just a few minutes if you’re clear on what you’re going to achieve.
In those minutes you can:
- Make your powerful list of life priorities
- Capture your long term career objectives
- Pick one thing to stop doing, then stop
- Think through how to make your meetings more productive – for everyone
- Block some time on your calendar for things which are important but not urgent
Fortunately, the clients who connect with me have already realized that reserving time to work on The Big Picture will make a difference to their lives. So I worry more about those people who don’t believe they can carve off some time to do even that.
You’ve spent a few minutes reading this. Can you spend just a few minutes more to do something that will make a big difference to your sanity? What would that be?
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