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|| personal development | PERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS
by Marc Richter
A MARATHON: THINK, ACT, SHARE ACHIEVEMENTS
THE TAMING
OF THE SHREW
What is our life? “Routine, a gray, bedraggled reality,” as one denizen of
the World Wide Web has expressed it. But if we dig a little deeper, it will
emerge that everything is subject to routine, even the everyday life of cre-
ative people. It’s time we realized that routine is life as we have created it
for ourselves. And it’s sufficient to begin doing what we like to do for life to
get interesting, and instead of being a boring slog, the everyday routine will
become an instrument for achieving your goals.
I
f you’re engaged in business, then time is a very
valuable resource for you. And a poorly organized
life is a series of missed opportunities. The less you
attend to regimen in your life, the more of your en-
ergy is stolen. The people and kinds of activity that
are important to you suffer from a shortage of attention.
Of course you want to master your time, to tame that
shrew; the trick is to find concrete ways to reach that
goal. АLPEON proposes several toeholds on the climb
to success.
Set up a system of priorities and stick to it.
Good organization is the ability to distinguish be-
tween what you need to do from what you’d like to do if
you had unlimited time. Unfortunately, none of us have
that. So write down on paper your main goals and tasks
as they come to mind. Then compare their value to you
and, depending on degree of importance, assign them
numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Discard everything else. Com-
pare how you’ve spent your time with how you should
have spent it, gearing yourself to the tasks that have
ALPEON.COM
been set. Discard any activity that doesn’t lead to your
goal. Use three columns so you can keep track of all
your obligations. The first column is for goals and high-
priority activities. There you can mark positions: “A” is
for “urgent,” for matters that cannot be put off and that
only you can deal with; “B” is for “important,” for urgent
matters that you can delegate to someone; and “C” is
for “can wait awhile,” for matters, the necessity of which
is questionable for the time being. The second column
contains a list of the phone calls you’ve penciled in to
make over the course of the work day. And the third col-
umn lists various points you plan to discuss with col-
leagues, partners, or personnel.
As you finish up the day, devote fifteen minutes
to an “evening sort-out” and put together a plan
for the next day.
Your analysis of the day just past is in the answers
to these five questions:
— What have I managed to do, and what haven’t I?
— What interfered with my achieving more?