| Case Studies | Margo | Daniel | Bill | John | Denise | Jane | Rocky | Samantha | Roy | Sam | Frank |
Daniel's problem:
"My problem is a common one. I don't have enough time
in the day to do all the things that I want and need to get
done. It seems like I am burning my candle at both
ends. I am involved in so many things and have so many
obligations that even if I gave up sleep, I could not them all
done. People are starting to get pissed off at me because I am
letting them down when I don't do what I promised I would
deliver. What do you suggest for what is probably a common
problem with people in today's society?"
Dear Daniel,
What you describe your lack of sufficient time as a problem - because
it is an undesirable condition - is only a problem because you have
failed to make proper choices. You have chosen to loading up
your schedule with more activities than what you can handle. So,
I recommend classifying your time-crunch situation as fitting into the
category of decision-making and not as a problem.
So, you might ask "what is the decision that I need to
make." One of the hardest parts of decision making is
abandoning choices. In decision-making, you are
forced to select from mutually exclusive alternatives simply because
no one has the resources to execute them all. So, although you
have made what appears to you to be good choices, you have simply
picked more than what you can support. In other words, you are
like the kid in the candy store, "your eyes are bigger than your
stomach".
How do you resolve this situation you've gotten yourself into...by executing the last step of decision-making - choosing phase. You simply picked too many options, and now to solve your undesirable condition, you need to de-select some the choices you have made or at least defer them. Now, here is some old-fashioned philosophy. We are all destined to live a long life, so we don't have to do everything at once. We can choose to space the things we want to do along the continuum of our life line. By not doing everything at once, we save some activities to look forward to in the future.
Specifically, I recommend that you list all the activities (those that you have to do and those that you want to do) and prioritize them from most important to least important.. List the amount of time that each activity takes per week and don't forget to include setup time such as transportation. Then go down the rank-order list and pick activities until the cumulative weekly time totals no more than 72 hours. This is your cut off point. You will need at least 12 hours a day for personal time, maintenance, and sleep plus leaving one day a week in reserve or as margin. All the activities above your cut off point are the ones you keep. All the activities below the cut off point your either abandon or postpone for the future. You have now made a choice to focus on the high-value activities to set aside the others.
