Last week’s message attempted to make the case that knowing your purpose in life is key to winning the time management battle. Time management is challenging for most of us as we have not identified our purpose and priorities. How can we expect then to make the best use of our time if we don’t know what is most important to us?
Step away from your everyday life and invest time in knowing your purpose. “I don’t have time for that” you say. Really? Do you see the irony in that statement?
Now that you have scheduled the 1/2 day or day to work on your life plan, how do you do it? How do you uncover your purpose? You can simply begin by writing or drawing or otherwise describing how you envision your life. What do you need to accomplish in this lifetime? If you were attending your own funeral, what would the eulogy convey?
There are a number of tools available on the Internet to help you develop and define your purpose (71.1 million results) and develop your personal mission statement (8 million plus results). Great! So many resources, how do I choose?
For those of you with the foresight to be working with a professional coach, they will have numerous tools to support you in the process. After doing some initial legwork on your own with the tools provided, plan a 1/2 day strategy session with your coach to clarify your purpose and mission statement and outline an action plan that moves you toward it on a daily basis. You will find the issue of time management is a thing of the past!
If you are doing this on your own, check out Stephen Covey’s book, “First Things First”. It embraces the concept of knowing your purpose and mission with tools to help you do so.