Attitudes that wreck your day.
You zip into your office and busily get to work. First answer emails (and phone) make sure don’t miss anything. So far so good, you are on the trail zipping along.
Then the meetings start and the interruptions. You remind yourself that knowledge is power and you have to be in the know.
Next thing you know your day is slipping by and you still haven’t started that project with the deadline looming.
What attitudes that wreck your day and drive this behavior?
These are not necessarily “bad” attitudes. They can, however, wreck your day, wreak havoc on your schedule, and send you flying off the trail.
If you stand on the sidelines and watch your day turn into a wreck not knowing happened, what would you think? Would you gasp?
I challenge you to stop, look closely at your attitudes towards your time management.
Ask yourself what are the attitudes that wreck your day or help you get to your goals. Be intentional about them. Here are 7 common attitudes I often hear, both in my head and from others.
- I have to answer all emails right now. It is true you might have to go through your emails right away and answer the urgent and important emails. Do you really have to answer all of them? Which ones can you defer, skip, and not add to the “email wildfire?”
- I might miss something important. Really? What is important to getting you closer to your goals? In fact, what are your goals aligned with your values? This one point can make or break your schedule because it closely ties values, goals and activities to prioritization.
- I have to be in the know. Knowledge is power. Have you ever considered that knowledge is not really power? It is knowledge. Properly applied knowledge to aligned activities and goals creates power. Stop wasting your time. You might get more done than ever.
- I’m so busy I don’t have time for anything else. Busy doing exactly what? Do you know? Consider tracking your time throughout the day for 5 days and see where you spend your time. Do these activities get you closer to your goals? Yes or No.
- Everything has to be done now. It’s all top priority. This is just plain not right. It is the consequence of poor planning and not knowing what you want.
- No time to plan. If you take no time to plan you will be bounced around by others’ plans and all the incoming requests. What system do you have in place? (ahem, what plan and goals do you have place?)
- Being busy is what I’m paid for. That’s my job. Well, that’s BS. You might not say it out loud but do you carry this around as an attitude? You and everyone else is paid to produce value for the company, the organization, the group. Busy-ness does not produce value unless it is aligned with valuable goals. Are your activities aligned with valuable goals? For yourself? For your organization?
These 7 attitudes that wreck your day and send you flying off your path.
What are you going to do about them?
“Dominate your life with Focus, Decision and Execution.”
