Does how you spend your time refect what is personally important to you?
Too many of us spend our lives unaware of how we really spend our time. Days, weeks years drift past and the things we have promised ourselves to do fail to materialise. One of the things which we seem to forget is that the time we have is finite .and none of us really know how long we have got.
If you hear yourself saying I don't know where the time goes, or I just don't have the time. Then maybe you should try the following simple and I promise, not time consuming exercise.
When you have a few moments write down the areas of your life that are personally important to you, in your life, right now, and where you feel you should be focusing your energy. Then taking your diary work out where you spend your time. Include things like commuting, sleeping, work, housework, socialising, time with your partner, children or close friends. Then refer back to your original priorities.
Do you know where you spend your time?
Does your time reflect what is personally important to you? I have done this exercise with a number of clients and they are really astounded when they see in writing how they spend their time.
Often it is not on the things which you think it will be, or on the things which it should be. Worse than that, the people and things which you rate as a priority in life, actually feature much further down the list, than they had ever realised.
All of us will have different priorities at different times in our lives. Sometimes there is a work project that means you have to work late to get it completed. Other times you may need to spend time decorating or getting your house in order.
However if your children or partner are your highest priorities it is important that they do not end up down the bottom of the list all the time.
Sometimes we are so caught up in day to day activities we fail to notice this. Having an awareness of how we spend our time can be a very valuable tool and help highlight when our lives are not reflecting what is personally important to us.
