23 de agosto de 2015

Your most difficult tasks will have the bigger impact in your life

Time management is basically about life management. If you read the whole article, you will learn how to identify high value activities.

 Picture this:
By doing a couple of activities from your daily list, you will accomplish 80% of your results. Now, I will tell you how to identify those activities.

Below I will tell you about:
  1. The Pareto principle: 20/80 rule.
  2. Time is the best resource you can save.
  3. Successful a happy people.
♦♦

The Pareto Principle: 20/80 rule

This rule began in economics,  
Pareto noticed that people in his society seemed to divide naturally into what he called "vital few", the top 20 percent in terms of money and influence, and the "trivial many", the bottom 80 percent.
Then, a fifth from your tasks are the "vital few".

People had applied the principle to time-management (we, humans, are very smart). Such as,
  • 20% of the things you do, grand you 80% of your results.
OK, 80% of your results is a great deal of accomplishment!

So, choose right on what you do. That 20% are your high value activities.

To begin using the 20/80 rule, write down all the things you have to do, then pick the ones that would have the most impact in your life. Those activities will be your "vital few".

Once I applied the principle to life.

I thought: "In a relationship, 20% of what you do will give you 80% of the satisfaction". It is a funny analogy.

♦♦

Time is the best resource you can save

I'd like to cite to Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe:
We always have time enough, if we will but use it aright.
Great man, great quote.

Maybe he learned to tackle high value activities first, for he accomplished so much.

I can think of stuff that I want to have time enough:
  • enough time to love
  • enough time to have fun
  • enough time to sleep well
  • enough time to meditate
  • enough time to exercise
  • enough time to grow
These are the important stuff for me.

I don't want to put effort in low value activities because at the end time would pass anyway. 

A week has 168 hrs. 

Seven hours per day to sleep, to keep a healthy brain (49 hrs/week).

Thirty minutes per day to exercise, to keep you energize (3.5 hrs/week).

Fifteen minutes to meditate daily, to calm your mind (1.75 hrs/week).

Maybe you work 8 hrs a day? Then, 40 hrs/week.

Don't forget the time to get clean, eat, commute (reduce this to the minimum), etc.

There is plenty of time left right?

You have plenty of time left from a week to spend with your love ones, to pursuit a hobby, to learn something new, and to have fun.

I think we do have enough time.

There is one thing I fear the most. It is the fact that I would really work hard and achieve very low (in all aspects of life). 

"First my high value activities". Apply it when you write your daily list.

♦♦

Successful and happy people

I want to clear something, and read carefully.

Successful and happy people are as normal as you and me.

Now, some theory.

Imagine:

→ All your tasks take the same amount of time to finish.
→ Only one or two will give you the most of the results.

Here is the irony of life,
The tasks that give you the most results (high value activities) are usually the most difficulties ones. Those are your ugliest frogs!
Please, resist the temptation to begin with simple tasks.

If you begin with the easiest ones, you will be procrastinating on the most important ones.

There is a say, the hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place.

It is all about getting your mind get used to begin. Begin and you have almost all the work done.

Successful people are the ones who always decide to work hard on their ugliest frogs.

Happy people are the ones who always decide to work on their important tasks.

♦♦

I still find it difficult not to procrastinate on high value activities.

As I finish to watch my 5th episode in a row of How I Met Your Mother, I remember about the Pareto principle. I think about how I should save time and create happiness.

At that point I got back on track, but sure I will go back to procrastinate.

That's life. Is chaotic and that is OK.

Focus on activities, not accomplishments. Or as Dr. Barbara Oakley said: focus on the process rather than the product.

♦♦

This post originally appeared at: Grad life au Canada

In this post I put down some own comments about the thrid chapter of the book mentioned below.

Author: Brian Tracy
Type of book: Self development, time-management



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