The major sources of life’s joys are loving relationships with other people.
The great aim of Time Power is to enable you to get more happiness and joy with the people you care about the most. Keep your life in balance by asking yourself on a regular basis, “How would I spend my time if I only had six months left to live?”
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Once you have decided how you would spend your last six months on earth, you can then ask yourself, “How would I spend my time if I only had six weeks left to live?”
Think about how you would spend your time if you only had six days to live? Six hours? Finally what would you do, who would you want to talk to, what would you want to say if you found that you only had 60 minutes left to live?
If you only had a short time to live, the only thing you would think about would be the most important people in your life. If you only had a short time left to live, there is nothing that would be more important to you than to reach out and communicate with them in some way. Whatever you would do if you only had a short time left, be sure to include those words and activities into your daily life. You never know.
Think About Your Values
To keep your life in balance, continually review your values, and what is most important to you. You will always feel the happiest, and enjoy the highest levels of self-esteem, when your goals and day-to-day activities are congruent with your values. When what you are doing on the outside is perfectly aligned with the very best person you could possibly be on the inside, you will always feel better than at any other time.
Define and determine your ideal lifestyle. If you were financially independent and you could organize your life in any way you wanted, what 360
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would you want to do differently from today? Imagine creating your perfect calendar, week-by-week and month-by-month. If you could design your year from January 1st to December 31st, how would you want to spend each day and each week? Where would you like to go? What sort of vacations would you like to take with your family? If your life were ideal, what time would you go to bed, and what time would you rise? If you were completely free to choose, what changes would make in your lifestyle starting today?
The greater clarity you have regarding your ideal lifestyle, the easier it is for you to make the decisions in the short term that will assure that you create that lifestyle sometime in the future. Clarity is everything.
Four Ways to Change Your Life
There are only four ways that you can change your life. First, you can do more of some things, the things that are working well for you. Second, you can do less of others things, those things that are not working in your work and personal life. Third, you can start doing something that you are not doing today. And fourth, you can stop something altogether.
In bringing your life into better balance, the first questions you ask are,
“What should I be doing more of, or less of, to improve the quality of my life?” Almost invariably, you will decide that you need to work more efficiently so that you can spend more time face-to-face, with people you care about the most.
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Then ask yourself, “What should I start doing that I am not doing today if I want to improve the quality of my life?” Finally, you should ask, “What should I stop doing altogether if I want to have more time to do more of the things that are most important to my life and goals?”
Sit down with your spouse and children and ask them for their insights and opinions on these four questions. “What would you like me to do more of, or less of?” Ask them, “What would you like me to start doing, or stop doing?”
They will give you ideas and opinions that can have a profound effect on the quality of your family relationships.
Divide Your Life into Two Parts
Divide your life into two main parts, work and family. Priorize almost all other activities as secondary to these two primary concerns. Instead of doing your work, plus a whole series of other activities, and then giving your family the crumbs that are left over, put your family and your relationships in the center of your life. Organize your work and all of your other activities around them.
When you work, work all the time you work. Don’t waste time. Don’t chat with co-workers or sit around drinking coffee and reading the newspaper.
Don’t surf the Internet. Don’t take long lunches and coffee breaks. Don’t start late and finish early. When you work, work! Keep repeating to yourself,
“Back to work! Back to work! Back to work!”
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When you are with your family, be there 100% of the time. Do not read the newspaper, channel surf the television, talk on the phone or play with your computer. Instead, spend more time face-to-face with the most important people in your life.
Time Is the Measure of Value
The quality of a relationship is largely determined by the amount of time you invest in that relationship. You can only increase the value of a relationship to you, and the value of yourself in that relationship, by spending more time with that person. This is as true at work and with customers as it is with your spouse and your children. The more time you invest in them, the deeper and richer will be the quality of your relationship. There is no substitute for time.
Your Highest Goal
Peace of mind is the greatest human good, and the goal of all human activity. You should select peace of mind as your highest goal and organize your entire life around it. It is only possible when your life is perfectly in balance. You experience peace when you are doing what you were meant to do, with the people with whom you were meant to do it.
To achieve greater peace of mind, listen to your intuition. Trust your inner voice. The more you listen to the “still, small voice” within, the better and more accurate guidance you will receive. As you follow the guidance of this inner voice, and this higher power, you will be directed and prompted to do 363
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and say the right things in the right way at the right time. Men and women begin to become great when they begin to trust their inner voices.
Two Types of Time
Work and family require two different types of time. Work requires quality time. This is where you set priorities and discipline yourself to focus on the most valuable use of your time. Work is aimed at achieving concrete, measurable results for yourself and other people.
Relationships however require quantity time. They require long, unbroken periods of time, in thirty, sixty, and 90-minute chunks, or even longer, where you allow ample time for the relationship to unfold and develop. You cannot rush an important relationship. There is no such thing as an efficient family life.
To get the most done at work, you must set clear goals and objectives, organize clear priorities, overcome procrastination, work on your most valuable tasks, and press forward to completion and closure.
To get the very most out of your family and relationships, you must create a large periods of unhurried time where the most pleasurable and enjoyable moments can occur unbidden and unexpectedly.
Take Care of Yourself
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Keep your life in balance by investing time in physical fitness, in walking, running, swimming or golf. Every joint in your body should be articulated everyday. Every muscle should be flexed and stretched everyday. You should engage in aerobic exercise three times per week to maintain maximum levels of physical fitness, and to perform at your best.
If ever you feel that you are too busy to exercise, it means that your life is out of balance. Whenever you feel that you are on a treadmill that you cannot get off of because you have too much to do, it means that you are approaching the breaking point. Whenever you feel that you cannot stop, Nature is telling you that you must stop as soon as possible.
During the working day, take frequent breaks to stretch, go for a walk, and change your space. Going for a walk during the day will do more to assure that you are alert and productive in the afternoon than almost any other activity.
Maintain High Levels of Mental Energy
In Texas, they say, “It is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.” In keeping your life in balance, a paraphrase of this statement would be, “It is not the number of hours you put in, but the quality of thoughtfulness and alertness that you out into those hours.”