What Everybody Should Know About Time Management and Getting Things Done

Let’s think about time management and getting things done for a minute. Aren’t we always trying to get organized and manage our time more efficiently? What about looking at it from a new perspective, the one where we slow down.

If you’ve tried recently, or even not so recently, to “get organized” and “manage your time,” you’ve probably noticed that it just isn’t that easy. You feel like you’re getting more done, and done faster, but you’re not feeling any better. You’re just working harder and faster, without seeing any real change in your life, at least not any positive change.

I suggest that what you need is not just to come up with a way to organize your life and time, but a way to slow down.

What? Isn’t this all about getting more done, and getting it done faster?

Not really. What it should be about, and will be if you use my strategy, is to increase our creativity, make us more productive, let us enjoy our lives and help us feel more fulfilled. In this case, we’re not slowing down because we don’t want to do more – we’re slowing down because we do want to do more.

Let’s take the example of a problem or challenge. You want it solved fast. But if you can take some time and bring a different perspective or a new insight into it, you can creatively solve the problem, get things back on track, and move forward in a brand new direction you may not have imagined before.

So now, with your new slower speed, you’re taking more time to make decisions, and making them thoughtfully and with your life purpose in mind.

You’re thinking honestly about where your life is taking you, and where you want it to take you. You spend time thinking about how to get where you want to go, and you get more focused and directed.

By slowing down, and doing things more deliberately, you have the time to ask things like Am I happy? Am I excited about my life? Am I fulfilled? What do I want? Is this it? And you have the time to do those things because your schedule is not crammed full of things that don’t matter.

If you’re just doing more and faster, you’re not savoring your life and enjoying it.

What I suggest is to Slow Down Fast. Think about what you’re doing and why. Just stop to think. Stop, think, act, and then live fully in the moment. Do what needs to be done. Don’t procrastinate; that’s just deferring your life. Do what is in front of you to do, and get it done.

Take time to look at your life and make plans and decisions. Take time to realize you can’t have it all NOW, but you can have what you really want if you’re willing to do what it takes, when it needs to be done.

In other words, slow down. And do it fast, because your life is passing you by. You’re so busy being faster and more efficient, that you’re just forgetting to live and take care of your life as it is and as you want it to be. So Slow Down. FAST.

To Slow Down Fast:

1. Really think about whether each thing on your schedule needs to be done, and done now.
2. Eliminate, after thinking about it, anything that does not move you toward where you want to be.
3. Start taking time each day to think about your life’s direction.

Thanks to Positive and Successful Lifestyle Tips for including this in the Carnival of Inspiration and Motivation, and to Energies of Creation for featuring this in the Carnival of Creative Growth.

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