During the past week I attended an online Business Summit. A large number of renowned speakers each talked on their topic of expertise. One speaker Walt Hampton author of Power Principles of Time Mastery: Do Less, Make More, Have Fun spoke on what he calls “time mastery”.
We often hear about ‘time management” courses, but according to Hampton
we all have all the time there is, which just passes us by.
So according to him we cannot manage time, but we can become masters of ourselves to better use time; what he calls “time mastery.”
Busyness
Hampton says that nowadays busyness became something like a badge of honour. We pride ourselves that we are so busy that we are continually on the run to the next appointment. We think that people may be impressed if we can say that we have “back to back” appointments all day long.
Do less
Hampton though reckons that
busyness is a sign that we’ve lost control.
He says that we need to do less. According to him we need to consider the 80/20 (pareto) principle which means that 80% of our time is spent on things that is of 20% importance and 20% of our time on things that contribute to 80% of our success.
He therefore suggests that we should get clear on those 20% of the time things that lead to success and significance and focus on that. According to John Maxwell we need to say no to the not so good and the merely so good, so that we can say yes to the best, to that which really matters.
Therefore we need to be able to say the “difficult no” to some things, so that we can say “yes” to the right things.
# A disconnect
Often there is a disconnect between the things we “say” we value in our lives and businesses versus “how we show up.”
The hardest thing is to say no to the things that do not serve our core values.
FOMO
FOMO (Fear of missing out) is also one of the distractions that make for us to spend much time on things that actually contribute very little or almost nothing to the goals that we would like to achieve.
People pleasing
Hampton also suggests that we should beware of people pleasing. He says that you should
make “no” your default instead of “yes” and then you can reconsider.
He says this will help you to go deep with what really matters.
Biblical perspective
According to Ecc 3:17 “… there is a time there for every purpose and for every work” and Ecc 8:5-6 says “… a wise man’s heart discerns both time and judgment, because for every matter there is a time and judgment.”
David understood God’s ultimate role concerning time when in Psa 31:15 he said “My times are in Your hand”, because “… you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” (Jam 4:14)
A great enabler of the mastery of time is knowing yourself. A Career Direct Assessment is probably the best place to start. It will not only show who you are, but will also help you to appropriately allocate your time.
