Time-Saving Tips to Help You Extend Your Life
By Adam Sparks
Special to the San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, December 16, 2002
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Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.
--Abraham Lincoln
Everyone needs to be organized. Few are. Getting organized and being productive is the province of successful people. There are, of course, quite a few successful folks who live through a muddled haze, but they're the exception rather than the rule. Getting organized is work, but it can be done effortlessly, and the effects can be liberating after the fog lifts. The moments saved soon become days that your life can now reclaim.
Here is my advice to those wanderers in the diaspora: You must first value yourself. If you don't do that, you'll never value time. If you consider your own life valuable, understand that time is how your life is measured. If you want more life, you'll want more time. You'll be less stressed and have more time to do what you want to do if you're organized. You have much to do. So get busy.
1. Plan, Don't Cram: Plan your day. When you wake up, attack your calendar. Get your priorities in order for the day, week, month and year. Put them in writing. You're hurtling down the highway of life, and the datebook is your map. Get serious. Your datebook should include today's tasks, this month's out-of-town getaway and this year's vacation.
2. Chart Your Goals and Dreams: The calendar should reflect your life's goals for your month, year and life. Be sure to commit your goals to writing. If you don't create a timeline that includes benchmarks and schedules to realize your dreams, no one else will. Take control of your life just like a director controls a film. Get a datebook with inspirational messages. What will you do with your newfound time? If you have a family, make sure to allot plenty of time for them in both your goals and your days. Remember your legacy. To have one, you've got to get busy planning and creating it now.
3. Think Blue Sky: Imagine what each day would be like if you didn't have a lot of time pressure or money constraints. After reviewing your goals for the week, include some blue-sky items like leisure and personal events -- workouts, shopping, attending sporting events or shows, phoning friends, a cocktail date, yoga, political meetings, etc.
4. Do To-Do. Your daily appointments are just the beginning. Scores of to-do items are often left over from yesterday or last week, and they have to be updated, reorganized and prioritized with today's tasks. Make a written to-do list that reflects your priorities. Give your tasks deadlines. How long should each item take, and when should it get done by?
5. Strategize. Don't overplan or underplan. Getting your to-do list in order, particularly after adding timelines, can seem like an anal-retentive task. Do it to the point that if feels right to you. You'll relax by getting all that stuff out of your brain and onto paper. Remember, the point of this exercise is to liberate you, not to stress you with artificial deadlines. If you have a complex task, particularly one that involves others, make a flow-chart diagram.
6. Handle Paper Once. If it's in your in-basket, deal with it once. If it's a bill, pay it. If it's paper, file it or trash it. Trash as much as you can. Otherwise, you'll be a slave to your files, which will most assuredly drive you nuts. It does this by attacking your dreams at night.
7. Easy Does It. One thing at a time. Concentrate on getting each task done in turn. Tackle your list in order of priority. Calmly concentrate on one item at a time. Stop multitasking. Don't read and eat -- you'll get fat. Get off the Internet when you're on the phone. Limit your Internet time in general. You'll feel less stressed out: Just ask any Internet junkie. Take a car holiday. Take public transit once a week if you drive to work each day. Take a cell-phone holiday. Take a TV holiday. These holidays will relax you. Calm is good.
8. Fax It. Fax back short hand-written responses. Write directly onto any letter that asks for a reply. Write short notes or e-mails.
9. Plan the Attack. First, spending enough time deciding on how to handle a task before you do it will save you a great deal of time. Develop a vision, and make a clear decision. Spend quality time with a blank paper and pencil. Draw, chart out, diagram and outline. Think on paper.
10. Think Simply. Simplicity first. It's hard to move a boulder. So, if you're stuck, start on an easy task. Once you overcome the inertia getting the project in motion, the rest will come easier. It'll be like rolling a boulder downhill. Just ask any writer.
11. Contemplate the Zen of Emptiness. Clear your desk and mind. You can't work in a messy environment. Clear your desk and your mind. Give yourself some space. Get rid of the distractions before getting started -- otherwise, your work product will look just like your desk: a big mess. Think on paper. Let a pencil and paper be your special friends.
12. Delegate. If other people can do it, please let them. Don't be a hero. Life is tough enough. It's also long enough to prove your heroism later. If tasks can or should be done by others, let them be your guests.
13. Plan Meetings. Get focused. Agenda. Time limits. Get in and get out.
14. Organize Your Tasks. If you have a half-dozen calls to make, consider calling in a single block of time. Letter writing? Do the same thing. Spend a portion of the end of your day clearing your desk and filing. File as much as possible into the circular file.
Spend your reclaimed time wisely. The time that passes won't return. Now that you've got the extra time, whatcha going to do? How about: read, call a friend or relative, hang with the family, learn ballroom dancing, go to a comedy club, take night classes, plan your investments, retire early, exercise, take a hot-air-balloon ride, attend a lecture, write a letter to the editor, take a walk or just raise a glass and have a toast. Cheers, and here's to your health.
Ralph Waldo Emerson expressed the true meaning of success the best:
"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success."
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Adam Sparks is a San Francisco conservative writer. He can be reached at adamstyle@aol.com.
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