A thought about commitment and time

"Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality. It is the words that speak boldly of your intentions. And the actions which speak louder than the words.

It is making the time when there is none. Coming through time after time after time, year after year after year. Commitment is the stuff character is made of; the power to change the face of things. It is the daily triumph of integrity over skepticism."

- Author unknown (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)

The part that hits me the most: "making the time when there is none..."

My results reflect how I allocate my time, that most precious of non-renewable resources...

A thought about time (and the importance of NO)

"Success depends on getting good at saying no without feeling guilty. You cannot get ahead with your own goals if you are always saying yes to someone else’s projects. You can only get ahead with your desired lifestyle if you are focused on the things that will produce that lifestyle."
- Jack Canfield

We all know the importance of budgeting our finances. But in many ways, I think that making a money budget is a waste of effort, because we can always generate or borrow or otherwise increase our money resources.

The resource that is really the most limited, that is not renewable or storable, is time.

Do you use this most precious of resources in ways that are profitable, to create the results you really want?

Instead of budgeting your finances, I believe you will be way better off budgeting your time, sorting with a critical eye the activities that are important for others (what is urgent) from the activities that move your own goals forward (i.e. what is important).

A balanced time budget will allocate time everyday for your personal priorities, that which moves your desired result forward. An optimal allocation is one hour, enough to get something done and see a tangible result, and not too long to get bogged down.

This important personal priority can be related to your business project or to your health and self-care (which are also related to your business success). Allocating precious time to yourself first will reduce your stress and give you better control over your day. I prefer dedicating my mornings to my important personal priorities, which include writing, and my daily jog (or weight session or spinning, depending on the weather). Also what is good about setting aside the morning for important personal priorities is that I am not as interrupted by others.

Every morning, at the stroke of midnight, I get 86400 seconds, the same allocation as everyone else, whether they be prince or president, plumber or pauper. This asset has the unique property of evaporating in the next twenty-four hours, never to be seen or used again. How will you invest this most precious resource?

Tempus fugit

I'm doing some planning for my 100 day challenge to write 100 articles in 100 days, and I now realize that when they call it a "100-day challenge", they mean 100 calendar days (7 Feb to 16 May) - not 100 weekdays. EEEK!

I guess it makes sense - as a solopreneur, my "business" is actually my "life" - a life project, integrated into who I am and what I do. I'm on duty 24/7 (or is that 27/8?) Why?

That means if I miss a day, that day is gone... I have to work twice as hard to catch up. Miss two days in a row, I have to work three times as hard...

No wonder sometimes people feel overwhelmed because their "to do" list never gets "ta done".

Moral of the story: Time does not wait until things are "convenient"

Bonus moral of the story: Money is flexible, you can always generate or find more. Time is inflexible, once you've spent a minute, you can never replace it.

And extra bonus: don't let things pile up because it gets harder and harder to catch up. Just like mortgage payments...

From the time calculator at www.timeanddate.com:

From and including: Thursday, February 7, 2008
To and including: Friday, May 16, 2008

It is 100 days from the start date to the end date, end date included

Or 3 months, 10 days including the end date

100 days can be converted to one of these units:

• 8,640,000 seconds
• 144,000 minutes
• 2400 hours
• 14 weeks (rounded down)

And as sayeth ol' Benjamin Franklin:

" Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day."
- Benjamin Franklin