I imagine that good leaders and effective leaders have practical time management skills that allow them a healthy balance of creating/producing, learning/growing, and giving/teaching but I can not imagine what those skills are or how they are implemented. I do not currently have those skills so they are hard for me to even imagine what they are.
I have been fortunate enough to gain insight from Connor's generous bank of knowledge via his online learning channels and it is quite clear he is a very effective leader who is creating, producing, giving, teaching, and still growing, and learning.
I suspect that although he may have natural gifts and talents that predispose him toward these things, they do not just happen without effort and they need to be cultivated and worked on. Is that right? If correct, my question to Conor is how you balance and prioritize your time to give yourself the opportunity to be able to cultivate all of these things in your life for yourself and others?
In today's world we have access to so many opportunities to reach for things that we think may help us grow, learn, develop, and to be able to contribute in meaningful ways to others. What is the one (if there is one, or more if more than one) principle that you use to discern what you are going to focus your time on, and how much time it gets to be cultivated? And what drives that or motivates that decision? Is time itself the determining factor or is there a greater mission so to speak above and beyond time that you use to decide how much time to give things? If there is something more important that time itself how to you decide and determine how to divide the time you have for it and what to fill your time with to divide it by to meet your, well I don't know how to say it but macro or keynote vision?
To get to where you are today have you had to focus your time more on the macro vision to take the steps to get there or the micro vision to achieve the grand scale vision? And how to you delegate the time that you do have as far as taking the steps or creating the vision. Even a number would be helpful a percentage.
For me I spend so much time in my big picture vision, researching and trying to learn and such little time on the steps to create it. I have spent most of my life as a dreamer, researcher, and seeker yet practically that has not gotten me very far and has left me with a very little track record of a giver or producer so far. This is not because I don't want to take the step to get there, or because I shy away at the work needed to do it, or because I don't want to produce meaningful work and give to others, I do! I just don't think I know how. I would like to fix that and I am thinking it might have something to do with how I manage my time. Therefore, I thought I might ask a person like you who has clearly figured some of these things out already how you do it. Maybe I could pick up a clue or two!
I look at you today and I am fascinated by what I read about the course you have traveled to become the individual you are today, who has created for yourself the degree of success which you have developed and achieved in your life.
If I met you in 2008 while you were out walking, and you shared with me your troubles at the time, I would not have told you with confidence that in 12 years you will be an authentic inspiration and landmark for others. I would not have told you that you will be doing important work that would not only create a remarkable life for yourself, but that your presence would reach thousands of other people, in moving and meaningful ways, for good reasons. I certainly may have stopped to chat with you briefly as I passed you by, but I would have had no understanding of who it was that I had just met.
Obviously, I lack vision. Furthermore, I am certain my visions have only grown more restricted since 2008. I wonder what other shortcomings my lack of vision today creates that undermine the people in my life today. And how it prevents me from understanding and appreciating the true value of others in my life today, wherever they are. My vision is begging for a more accurate, a healthier, and more robust view of the integrity, possibilities, and potentialities of others.
It may be imperative that I do something about adjusting my vision of others as I see them today, wherever they are, in order for me to go on without wasting my life and my time away. It may be absolutely necessary for me to improve upon what I see about others, what I believe about them, and what I believe in them for, wherever they are in their life.
I can try to start with that as part of the framework for my plan, I think I should, and than trust in that plan. I would have to be able to trust in that plan for it to work. And try to move forward more like that.
There is part of my hour for the week adjusting and rebalancing my plan. I hope I can put it to work effectively for good.
I look at you today and I am fascinated by what I read about the course you have traveled to become the individual you are today, who has created for yourself the degree of success which you have developed and achieved in your life.
If I met you in 2008 while you were out walking, and you shared with me your troubles at the time, I would not have told you with confidence that in 12 years you will be an authentic inspiration and landmark for others. I would not have told you that will be doing important work that would not only create a remarkable life for yourself, but that your presence would reach thousands of other people, in moving and meaningful ways, for good reasons. I certainly may have stopped to chat with you briefly as I passed you by, but I would have had no understanding of who it was that I had just met.
Obviously, I lack vision. Furthermore, I am certain my visions have only grown more restricted since 2008. I wonder what other shortcomings my lack of vision today undermines the people in my life today. And how it prevents me from understanding and appreciating the true value of others in my life today, wherever they are. My vision is begging for a more accurate, a healthier, and more robust view of the integrity, possibilities, and potentialities of others.
It may be imperative that I do something about adjusting my vision of others as I see them today, wherever they are, in order for me to go on without wasting my life and my time away. It may be absolutely necessary for me to improve upon what I see about others, what I believe about them, and what I believe in them for, wherever they are in their life.
I can try to start with that as part of the framework for my plan, I think I should, and than trust in that plan. I would have to be able to trust in that plan for it to work. And try to move forward more like that.
There is part of my hour for the week adjusting and rebalancing my plan. I hope I can put it to work effectively for good.
If correct, my question to Conor is how you balance and prioritize your time to give yourself the opportunity to be able to cultivate all of these things in your life for yourself and others?
Great question... and I've had various approaches over the course of my adult life.
Initially I tried to be more effective. Waste less time. This can increase your productivity 10,20,50 or even 100%... but eventually you run up to limits on your time.
Then I hit a moment where I realised that the rest of the hours of my life are finite... I will not read every good book, I will not achieve every goal, I will not meet every person... I need to choose.
There are two videos where I share these two ideas:
- on time management https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCyutOd2plc
- on the realisation that time is finite, and you have to let go of 90% of the plans and ideas to focus on what is truly important https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mSsePrgiCw
To get to where you are today have you had to focus your time more on the macro vision to take the steps to get there or the micro vision to achieve the grand scale vision? And how to you delegate the time that you do have as far as taking the steps or creating the vision. Even a number would be helpful a percentage.
On how much time I have dedicated to clarifying my own personal vision...
In 2008-09 my business went bankrupt, family fell apart, health collapsed. End of 2009 a friend of mine dragged me to London for a personal development seminar with Dr John DeMartini... changed my life.
2010,11,12 I spent 10-15 weeks a year alone in a small house on a beach in Costa Brava, about 2 hours from Barcelona. I walked a lot, I wrote a lot, I listened to a lot of audio books. I worked on letting go of the life I had planned and clarifying the life that I really wanted to live. I was lucky to be a teacher in IESE Business School - and I would teach enough classes to just be able to pay the rent, school fees, food. I didn't earn any more money than absolutely necessary to live.
2014 I did another DeMartini course in London, again with my good friend David who had dragged me along before. This course was called "Master Life Planning". 60 of us sat in a hotel conference room in London for 3 days from 8am to 9pm in silence, just writing at our laptops. I finished a 400 page word document called My Life plan. (better stated I finished a first draft of a 400 page plan).
On the current balance of time in a week towards "who am I and what is my vision" vs activity on important projects - my aim is no more than 1 hour on thinking, and the rest of the 168 hours to moving forward on the plan.
The worst thing you can do is have no plan.
The second worst thing you can do is spend all the time working on the plan, questioning the plan, doubting the plan, comparing the plan with others. Trust your plan and trust that 1 hour each week of reflection is enough to detect when the plan needs changing or your life needs rebalancing towards better activities.
