Your Time is Your Life: Learners are Leaders
May 16, 2013 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
If we are wasting time, we are wasting our lives. We trade out our energy for time and our life is made up of time. So when we waste our energy, we waste our time, and we waste our lives. What are you doing with your time? What are you doing with your life?
What I’ve found in my years of consulting, working with leaders of organizations, entrepreneurs, solo-preneurs and from self-study is that leaders are learners and those that learn more, earn more. What I believe to be true from my experience is that when you’re done learning. . . . you’re done. I view life-long learning as something to look forward to in the quest for continuous improvement.
Some studies suggest the average American watches 6 hours of TV per day, making the average 60 year old an avid TV viewer of 15 years of his life, a quarter of a lifetime vegging on the couch! So what if we all eliminated 1 hour of TV per day = 365 hours per year, which equals 2 months of additional time. That equates to 9 average 40-hour work-weeks to do what is more important in your life than click away in front of a screen. And many of us wish we had more time to do the things we like to do. May I suggest re-organizing your time?
My experience has also shown that leaders are readers. If we read just 1 substantive book per week, that’s 520 books in 10 years and if those books are in an area of interest where you make your livelihood, that would make you an expert in your field, and experts are in demand. If you’re reading the gossip publications all week. . . that’s another story altogether.
What about the time spent in your car commuting? The average American commutes 30 minutes each way from work which equals 1250 hours in your car in 5 years. That’s enough time spent in your car for a college education. Are you listening to schlock or are you learning a language or something useful to society or your family or yourself? How are you choosing to spend your time and spend your life?
What about delegating the tasks that can be done better by somebody else, somebody you will gladly pay to take the work off your hands. I have chosen in the past to do some home improvements on my own. It somehow always looks better in my mind than in real life; hence the electricians and carpenters parading through my home at the moment. I know my limits and I know what don’t want to do and what I need to be doing. . . . what I do best . . . which is not installing crown molding, or cleaning windows, or doing my taxes. I pay others to have those little pieces of my life back and save a few gray hairs in the process.
What are you trading your life for? What could you outsource that fits somebody else’s genius to save you the stress? How could you better use your time? What are you reading/watching/listening to? Are you moving yourself forward with your choices or are you treading water in your comfort zone and checking out? Learning new things gives us energy, passion, zest and zeal. Teaching does the same. Once you’ve learned something new, why not pass it along to others?
Here’s your challenge: don’t just delegate, eliminate. Create a stop-doing list along with your to-do list. Name your list a “policy” because most of us follow policies and we respond to policies vs. mere suggestions because a policy is a boundary. What is on your stop-doing list?
Put Yourself on a Time Out to Increase Your Energy
May 4, 2010 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
Time outs are not only for unruly children. I believe we all need to call a time out once in a while for our sanity. Taking time to take care of ourselves, our loved ones, our business, our physical bodies, our emotional well-being, our homes, our life or just to enjoy our surroundings near or far, here or on vacations.
I’ve written in prior posts about taking holi-moments when we can’t take holidays. Taking some time for yourself is critical for being the best we can be for ourselves, our work and others. If we are burned-out, rusted-out, worn-out and about to give-out, then we are not any good for others. We can’t give what we don’t have. And that includes our energy.
We must guard our appointments with ourselves to amp up our energy as fiercely as we guard our appointments with other important people such as doctors, clients, family and friends. It’s all about balance and giving ourselves permission to do what feels right and knowing when we need to take ourselves out of the game for a period of time. Call an adult swim and take 10 minutes, or 10 hours, 10 days or 10 months if you need it to come back refreshed and renewed. That’s what sabbaticals are for, or as I call them self-batticals.
One friend calls them ‘rewind days’ where she just takes care of life – bills, laundry, cleaning, letters and other catch-up stuff. I call a housekeeper to do that! 🙂 You may set aside time for physical activity, meditation, dreaming, scheduling, journaling, writing or other rituals that recharge you.
We must serve and take care of ourselves so we can attract others who want to do the same. Our health, wealth and vitality vibrate and resonate with others who are feeling similarly. If you want to attract healthy, vibrant clients, be healthy, vibrant and vital. We attract who we are and not what we want.
I recently gave myself a permission slip to mourn the loss of my only child, my dog Madison. She was my first and only. She was my muse, my heart, my joy, my model and a legend in my greeting card business. She was my daily ritual, my time-out. Even when I wasn’t quite ready for a time-out, she would ever so gently paw at me or just look at me with that face to let me know I’d spent too much time on the computer and it was time to walk and play.
I took a time out last week to allow her play time and allow me to mourn and celebrate her life. We had the ultimate last day for a doggie day: went to the dog park, played squeaky, romped in the people park, drove with the windows down and the wind in our ears, and then took the last drive to doggie heaven. Her spirit is all around and I am reminded to take time out and enjoy the day, take time out for myself even though I don’t have that little reminder nudging me. I took off last week to renew my spirit after she passed and I do it without feeling guilty.
In loving memory of Madison, my puppy-mill-rescued little girl. Take some time out for yourself and go play.
