Five Questions That Help You Make the Most of Your Time
Questions have the power to instantly change your focus and put
you into a productive frame of mind.
These five simple time management questions will immediately
direct your attention, your focus, and your thinking towards
your top priorities and away from distractions.
Just ask yourself these questions habitually throughout the day
and you will start making better use of your time.
1. What is the most valuable use of my time right now?
This is a slight variation of a question developed by time
management expert Alan Lakein.
The purpose of this question is to shift your focus to what is
most important and valuable at this moment. It is a perfect
question to ask whenever you are unsure about what to do next,
whenever you face an unexpected interruption, or whenever you
feel that you are not making good use of your time.
For example, let's say you find yourself with an extra twenty
minutes of unscheduled time. Asking yourself "What is the most
valuable use of my time right now?" will help you find an
important task for the time you have available.
2. What am I ultimately trying to accomplish?
The purpose of this question is to focus your thinking on your
real objectives and goals; the real reasons you are working on
your projects and tasks.
Asking this question habitually will help you avoid getting
sidetracked, drifting into trivia, or falling into
perfectionism. You can use this powerful question for all your
projects.
For example, while preparing a presentation, you can easily get
sucked into less valuable work when you start playing with the
formatting, or adding bells and whistles, instead of working on
the content.
The work seems important because it is connected to your
presentation project, but when you take a closer look, you
realize that you are wasting your time on details that don't
really matter.
Asking this question will help you refocus your efforts on your
real objectives and away from trivial matters. If it turns out
that the formatting details are important for this project,
you'll recognize this as well and give them the attention they
deserve.
This question can also help you find and eliminate useless tasks
that don't contribute toward your ultimate goals.
3. What am I giving up to do this?
Whenever you choose to do something, you automatically reject
everything else you could have done during that time.
The purpose of this question is to help you realize what you are
giving up in order to undertake a task or project. Once you
recognize the true cost of an activity, you may decide that it
is not how you really want to spend your time.
Asking this question before you take on a new task or project
will help you stay focused on what really matters. It will also
help you recognize when you should be saying no to that new
request.
You should also ask this question about activities that you are
already doing on a regular basis. These could be things like
volunteering to do some work for your trade association,
chairing a committee, or serving on the board of a community
organization.
While all of these things may be valuable undertakings, you may
be sacrificing something even more important to do them. Asking
"What am I giving up to do this?" may turn out to be a real eye
opener.
You probably wouldn't consciously sacrifice time with your
family in order to participate in a committee you don't care
about, but you might be doing it by default if you don't examine
your existing commitments on a regular basis.
4. What are my three most important projects or tasks today?
The purpose of this question is to help you make use of the
80/20 rule every day. The 80/20 rule states that 80% of the
value is contained in only 20% of the items. The top two or
three projects and tasks in any given day could account for up
to 80 percent of your day's value, so give them the time and
priority they deserve.
If you practice weekly planning, you can change this question to
"What are the three most important projects for this week?"
5. Should I continue doing this?
This is a slight variation of the first two questions, but
shifts the focus toward what to stop doing rather than what to
start doing.
Deciding to stop doing something that is no longer valuable is
often more important than actually deciding to start doing
something else.
This is a perfect question to ask whenever you feel you may be
wasting time trying to perfect something that should already be
done, or when you feel stuck in a commitment that is no longer
serving your long-term objectives.
Keys to Success
* Make it a habit - At first, you'll have to keep reminding
yourself to ask these questions over and over again. However, if
you keep asking consistently, eventually they will become a
habit that will serve you for the rest of your life.
* Use these three steps whenever you have to make a time
management decision: pause to think before you react, use
questions to put you in the right frame of mind, and do the
right thing.
* Keep asking until you get an answer - Sometimes you won't get
an answer to these questions right away; just keep asking while
you review your projects and task. The right answer will come.