You have more than enough time for the things you’ve chosen to focus on, haven’t you? Perhaps your focus is on your personal life, your career, being a leader, developing your business or whatever is important to you. If your use of time doesn’t reflect these focused activities, the route to achieving personal success will be a long one.

Using time effectively is a simple process, yet I’ve found that often, the most basic actions steps aren’t taken. I noticed this in myself recently while reading a book. As I skimmed the page, I decided this wasn’t something I needed to read. I wanted to read something I knew nothing about, so I could learn about it. After all, I needed new information, not the same thing I’d heard many times before. Yet because I’ve been aware of being more focused and effective, a few of the words had obviously stuck in my mind and kept coming back to me over the next few days. The words were ‘create a time-log.’ I didn’t really need to hear this because it’s fairly basic stuff. I’m way past that! I thought I was clear on what my time was used for and that it was all productive. Wasn’t it? Because it came into my mind a couple of times, I decided to give it a bit of space.

A time log is simply a record of how you use your time. So armed with a piece of paper, I started to log my time and activities, partly to prove that I didn’t need to do it. Although at first I forgot to log everything, as I persevered I soon got into the habit of it. Boy, was I in for a shock. I would have said that I knew how I spent my time and that it was all effective. I didn’t waste much time and people often comment how much I manage to fit in. However I’d also become complacent and stopped looking for ways to improve and manage myself.

When I’m working with clients, one of the areas we cover is how to get in touch with present reality. If you don’t know specifically where you are now, it’s harder to see what needs to be worked on and to plan future steps forward. The time log demonstrated to me that I was quite out of touch with the reality of what I spent my time on. As I continued with the time log, I could see a much clearer picture. Seeing it in black and white left me in a better position to make choices and changes. You’re not able to make effective choices if you don’t fully appreciate what’s happening. Whereas I thought that some things took me 30 minutes to do, the reality was nearer 90. I was then free to choose whether these activities were the most effective use of my time. I was able to see what else could be delegated; especially the things I’d convinced myself took only a couple of minutes. The time log also gave me the opportunity to identify the times when I was inspired by my vision and taking action from there and the times when I wasn’t. I could see clearly that these actions were more effective when I was inspired by my vision and this encouraged me to be with my vision more.

Being aware of what you spend your time on is an ongoing process and with the speed of change that occurs now, it’s something you need to keep a regular check on. And remember it’s often the simple and basic things which we’re not always implementing. What I want is for you to be clear about your present reality regarding your use of time.

Wendy Hearn works with business owners, professionals and executives to discover and unlock their own inspiration, to effortlessly take the actions required to have the success they desire. To receive Wendy’s free newsletter, send an email to: newsletter@wendyhearn.par32.com http://www.Business-Personal-Coaching.com Copyright 2003, Wendy Hearn. All rights reserved.