WIZE TIME MANAGEMENT

How Do You Know Which Values Make You Tick?

Do you care?  Does it matter to your life?

Have you ever thought about it very carefully?

Personally, I never paid much attention to my values.  People talked about values in passing.  In the many programs I took, values were mentioned but not much time was spent on them and certainly no one explained why knowing my values was so important.  The exercise was repeated so often without direction, it became meaningless.

Why?  That’s the question – Why Does Someone Need to Know and Understand Their Values?

Recently, I’ve been involved in a program and the issue of  identifying values came up again.  Yes, yet again.  The difference this time?  The facilitator gave us the reasons why understanding our values is mandatory in conducting our lives to cohesively achieve our dreams.

Helen Dewar  made it abundantly clear the reason for taking the time and the energy to define our values.  She took the time to explain “the value” of values.  How do we use our values to live our lives, to make the choices we need to make and to be true to ourselves.  Are we living in alignment with what we value?

Never before has someone explained it so clearly and so emphatically how values affect everything we say and do in our worlds.  She also explained how we are led to believe things about ourselves which are untrue all because we reacted in defense of those values.  Not everyone shares our set of values – in fact, it’s rare that any two people have exactly the same values or live out their values the same way.  Hitler had values and so did Mother Teresa – what do you think they were?

What Are Your Values?  Do You Really, Really Know What They Are?

You can find a lot of lists on the internet and you can likely come up with about 50 values you “think are a good idea for you”.  Can you really serve all those masters?  Of course not – what are your core values?  Here are a couple of places to begin?

http://www.livingmore.org/wp-content/lm-documents/ValuesList.pdf
http://www.gurusoftware.com/GuruNet/Social/Topics/Values.htm#Values_of_Society

Please note:  often values are mixed in with skills.  Values are far bigger than skills.  Think of values of overall compasses of your life – North, South, West and East, Center

Helen has us boiling it down to five.  5 – try it – you’ll be amazed how difficult this exercise is.

How do you know what your values are?

Watch yourself.  How do you spend your time?

Let’s say that most of your time is spent on family.  You have a job which pays the bills with a little left over for savings but the bulk of your time is spent with family.  You spend a lot of time with your kids, you organize family events all year round and people gather at your house every Sunday for Sunday dinner.  Your home is filled with relatives and friends all the time and you’re talking on the phone with a large collection of family and friends.  Your Facebook account is buzzing with the latest pictures, stories, meetups, etc.

If you value a success in your career,  you spend the majority of your time thinking about your career. You’re constantly thinking how to enhance your career – what can you do next to build that career?  A job is not a job to you but a very important way for you to achieve fulfillment.  You have a coach and a mentor.  You ask questions about getting ahead and you mingle with people you admire.  Jobs are not jobs to you but a stepping stone to greater success in the scope of work.  You spend a lot of time working, thinking about strategies to get ahead and continuously networking.  You’re constantly upgrading your skills and your education to give you the edge.

If you have a value of health, you watch every single bite you take, you exercise almost daily and you do and learn everything possible to stay healthy.  Health seems like an obvious value for all of us, however, that’s not the case.  Most people don’t value their healthy until they lose it.

Where do you spend your time?

What Ticks You Off?

Another way to tell, is what ticks you off at work or when your around other people in your personal life?  Do you react strongly to unfairness or bullying or pet abuse?  The stronger your reaction, the higher your value.

It takes time to decide what your values really are.  It takes a lot of digging.  The first two might not be so difficult but the others will likely cause you to ponder the realities of your being. 

Define what each value means to you.

Why Are Values So Important?

Values are the foundation of who you are, the reality of knowing yourself and the building block for everything else in your life – your career, your relationships, your decision-making, choices you make about everything in your life and the knowing what is right for you in the seemingly complex and confusing parts of your life.  If you know your values intimately, your life will be a lot easier to navigate.

What’s the Alternative?

Chaos.  Lost opportunities.  Working for the wrong organizations.  Putting your trust in people who don’t value what you value.  Hurt.  Anxiety.  Stress.  Disaster.  Dissatisfaction.  Lack of self-esteem.  Name it for yourself -

How Do You Know What I’m Saying is Right?

Because you’ve experienced the results of going against your values.  All humans have.  If your value is family, have you ever fought with someone in your family to the point that you destroy that relationship, you are no longer welcomed in the family unit?  How does it feel?  Feels quite awful because you’d like to keep the family unit whole and happy.  What happened?  You let something get out of hand and went against your family value.  Was it worth it?  What will you do about it?  If you truly value family, you’ll resolve the issue.  If not, then family is not truly a priority, not truly a value but likely someone else’s value or a value that is not all that important to you.

What Good Will It Do To Know These Values?

You’ll be able to plan accordingly.

If you are applying for a job, you’ll take the time to research the companies to which you are applying.  You’ll talk to current employees, you’ll talk to clients and you’ll explore the internet to find everything you can about how they match your values not only in value statements they make but how they honor those values.

You’ll stop yourself before you behave in ways which will contravene your values.  If you value friendships, you’ll forgive transgressions more easily or take the time to resolve any angst or you’ll drop relationships which don’t work for you without regret.  You’ll spend the time building your positive  friendships.

Are Values Critical?

You bet.  Without knowing what they are, you’re a sailboat without a rudder – you’ll wonder all over the place not understanding why your life is not working so well.  The wind and tides of life will send you adrift in a maze of confusion and dissatisfaction.

Is It Too Late?

NEVER.  It’s never, ever too late – that’s a myth perpetuated by society  – nothing is too late as long as you’re alive and functioning.

There are hundreds and hundreds of values – by the time you have selected your top 5 and defined them for yourself, you’ll truly understand the very core of your being.

Methodology

1.  Look over the lists.  Pick out the ones that resonate with you strongy.  Write them down.

2.  Run down the written list, eliminating some.  Then do it again and again and again until you arrive at 5.

3.  Go through each one and ask yourself why you believe it is one of your values.  Write it down.  Then, ask, “Is that true?”.  Give yourself an example how you exhibit that value in your life.

4.  Leave the list alone for a day or so.  Observe yourself.  Hear yourself. Does what you say and do align with your values?  If not, you’ll have to go back to the list and eliminate what you “thought” was a value and, through self-observation, you now realize is not such a strong value after all.  Give yourself no longer than a week to get to complete your list of 5 values.

5.  Write your 5 values on a card and put the card in your wallet.  Put the list up on your computer.  Keep a list by your bedside.

6.  Test the list.  Are the values you have listed truly your values?  How you behave, especially in crisis, will definitely show you whether you are kidding yourself or not.  It won’t take long.  A crisis doesn’t have to be life or death.  It can be any discomfort we experience.  Notice how differently you make choices now.  Notice the clarity with which you conduct your life and how constructively you face disagreements.

Will the values change?  Yes.  As you test the list, you’ll likely amend it.  As your life changes, your values may change.  For instance, if your top value is money, it could very well be that at a stage in your life, you’ll begin to replace that top value with another value which has become paramount such as community.  Community may have been fifth on your list but now it rises to the top and since one of your values is money, you’ll focus on making the best use of the money in your community towards achieving the most impact.

Values do work together though it may not always be obvious.

What are your values?  Have you wondered why you felt like a boat without a rudder?  Think values first.  Decide.

When will you begin to change your life?  Today would be good, right?

Lorraine Arams
http://www.wizetime.com

Does technology save you time?  What do you think?  Do you really think so?

Part of a sociology course involved analyzing the  impact inventions had on people’s lives.  A simple example was given:  vacuum cleaners.

Prior to the vacuum cleaner, people had rugs and they took those rugs out and beat the dust out of them,   low tech – time consuming and they mopped the hardwood and linoleum floors under and around those rugs.  The vacuum cleaner changed all that.

Then people wanted carpets in their homes because the vacuum cleaner would help with the maintenance.  But then instead of laying down a floor like hardwood or linoleum which lasted decades, there was underlay, carpet, the vacuum cleaner and, of course, then cleaners for the carpet. !  And, of course, since time is money, carpets wore out much faster than hardwood and linoleum so it cost more time to earn the money to replace the carpets.  Then, there was  getting rid of parasites which loved the wonderful hiding places carpets provided, the anti allergy medications or air purifiers to counter some of the chemicals used in the carpet making process, buying bags for the vacuum, etc. -  all of this to replace the mop! In the end, carpets actually cost people more time and money for the convenience of cleaning rugs!

So it is with technology – we had a problem – it was so difficult to find data, crunch stats and find information.  So the computer came along to share information and crunch numbers.  Great!   It saved hours and hours and hours of boring, manual labor. It also costs jobs.

But then we wanted the computer to do more – we wanted it to help us with office jobs, connect to each other and entertain us. Computers did all that too.

Now, though, technology is costing us both in time and money, especially time and sanity.  We have Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, My Space —- texting —- Google, Firefox, Chrome —– anyone, anytime access to each other —– Flickr, Photobucket, Google images —-  email —– and a proliferation of software on the internet to do every single thing there is to do —–  and it all costs you even more time -

• searching thousands of sites to find the tiniest bit of information – because everything now is so  narrowed,  it takes searching multitude of sites for a collection of useful information
• texting – it’s become an addiction. People are willing to die or kill others to view and send a message.  Like the cell phones, everyone is accessible day or night – all day — all night — and at the price of ignoring the people they are with too. How can anyone think about what they need to get done when so much time is taken with trivia?
  
• social networking chews up a lot of time - connecting with friends and family – none of you are on the sites constantly so there’s frequent treks to see what has been posted instead of the occasional call or email
• search engines are many and Google may be great, the other ones may be better for you. For instance, Firefox has a lot of plug-ins which can make your particular search easier and more accurate.  Of course, a person needs to research and find out what those plug-ins are and what they do for you.  As search engines come on board, there’s another learning curve – what do they do and how do they do it?  Takes up loads of time
• anyone can reach us anywhere, any time which means we cannot have down time. It’s like putting someone in “locked chamber” – there’s no escape.  And people feel they can’t shut off their cells “in case there’s an emergency” – it’s interesting what people define as an “emergency”.  That kind of pressure weighs on the mind – people can’t relax as they are in a constant state of expectation.
• there’s an expectation that people post images for one another - great to share but how many? If you have 150 people in your group of  friends and family, how much time it would take if you view pictures from all of them?

Ask yourself:

• Is it necessary?
• What if I got rid of my cell phone or PDA other than for work or emergencies? What would happen?

• What if I went to the library to research instead of online?  What kind of experience would that be?
• What if I paid attention to the people I was with instead of paying attention to each call or text message – would my relationships improve?
• What if I shut off my cell phone or PDA, would I have some quiet down time for myself?
• What if I didn’t use my computer, cell phone or PDA for an entire day, what else could I experience?
• Would anything serious happen to anyone if I didn’t text them back or update my Twitter or called them three times on any particular day?

• How much would I save by managing technology rather than technology managing me?

Does technology save time?  Like any other tool – yes – if is properly managed and controlled by the person using them, understanding that technology is only a tool, not the  lifeblood of your life!

Lorraine Arams
More thoughts and tips at

http://www.wizetime.com

How do you master time management?

Is it by using the lastest and greatest system?  Is it by having a very long to do list?  Is it by using the latest software?

Time Management – what is it really?  What exactly are you trying to accomplish by learning to manage your time?

Time Management is simple really – you have 24 hours every single day, 168 hours every single week, 8760 hours every single year – lots of time – so what’s the problem?  You make a decision about what to do with each one of those hours.  Why do so many people feel so much pressure and why do many people, because of the pressure, often make themselves very ill?

The answer is simple and straight forward:  self-mastery.  That’s it!  It’s not any more difficult than that.  It’s people who make time management difficult.  Why?  Because of fear.  People are afraid.  They’re afraid of failure and afraid of success.  They are afraid of making poor choices.  They are afraid of what might happen if . . . . ? 

And so they hide – they hide behind time.  If they’re too busy, they have the perfect excuse!  The perfect excuse – “I don’t have the time”.  But people have all the time in the world – no more and no less than those people who utilize good time management.

What’s the difference between someone who has adopted good time management and someone who is overwhelmed?  People with good time management practices put themselves first  AND those without good time management skills put others first. first.  Less effective time management is governed by such notions as: “trying to look good” or “managing what others think of them” or “following the rules” or fulfilling the notion of  ”I’ve been brought up that way” – can you see the common thread here – it’s called people pleasing.  I can say one thing for sure:  you cannot please anyone but yourself.  That’s the only person you can please.  Others may be pleased with something you do but, in the end, the one and only person to please is yourself!

Shocking?  It is to most people.  As simple as this concept is, it is the most difficult one for most people to adopt. Why?  Because we’ve all been taught from a very early age that “people pleasing” is the name of the game – that means that other people are in charge of your time!

A guarantee:  if a person puts themselves first, time management issues will disappear. Why?  Because that person will do everything in their life that is good for themselves by fulfilling their dreams. And everything will fall into place.  Do you really know what you want?  That’s a whole other topic. 

Lorraine Arams
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