Welcome to the first of 7 messages in which I will be unpacking the 7 Keys to Living a Productive Life that form the basis of my book: The Productive Life. Whether you have read my book or not, these messages will inspire you and give you lots to think about. We start with Key #1: Live Your Mission.
Let’s pretend that we are having coffee and I learn forward and ask you: “What is your mission in life?” How would you answer me? Take a moment to think through your response…
I have a distant memory of the first time that I was asked that question and remember struggling to answer it. I recall saying things like: “I am a youth leader”, “I am a guitarist”, “I am an IT specialist”, etc. I sadly can’t pin-point the exact moment when I crafted my first mission statement but it set me on a journey to not only know my mission but also to take every step possible to live it out through every area of my life.
Once I had consumed every book that Stephen Covey had written I get to a place where the pieces came together. Some year later I discovered a tool that gave me a simple framework to write a short but comprehensive mission statement that supplemented the process that Stephen Covey suggest in his book: First Things First. He speak about identifying your mission and then identifying the roles you play in life, then creating goals for each of the role and finally using a Weekly Planner where you schedule activities into your week so that you get the Important things done and you don’t spend you whole week chasing after Urgent things that demand your attention.
In Key #1: Live Your Mission, I guide you step-by-step through a process which will not only get you to refine your own life’s mission but it will give you a tool to use with people around you who would benefit from knowing and living their mission. I honestly believe that this one tool alone will make your investment in buying my book worthwhile.
I also explore the value of using a weekly planner and you will be able to download my version of this tool from the folder of downloadable resources you get with the book.
One other highlight of this Key is that I share my top 13 Personal Management Secrets that help me to stay on top of every area of my life whether it is my work or home life. These secrets have helped to earn me the reputation of being highly organised and efficient – the person you go to if you want something to get done and who does not let you down when he says he will do something for you. Here are a few of my secrets that I included: Take time to give time; Handle paper once; Confirm appointments and Work two thirds of the day.
There is a valuable tool to evaluate priorities in your life that I did not include in my book. I refer to it as Covey’s Quadrants Model (it is also known as the Eisenhower Matrix). It is a way of evaluating activities based on two ingredients: IMPORTANCE and IMPORTANCE. (1) Important Activities are your most important things, your first things, any activities that contribute to your mission and your goals. (2) Urgent Activities are pressing things, in-your-face-things, activities that demand immediate attention. We spend our time in one of four different quadrants and each quadrant contains different kinds of activities and is represented by a type of person:
We must figure out where we are spending the most of our time and make sure we are spending more time in Q2 by doing these 3 things: (1) Say No to Q3 activities; (2) Shrink Q1 by avoiding procrastination; and (3) Reduce Q4 time wasting activities.
Here are some more images to understand the model:
One practical application of this model is to use it, you sort your tasks into four categories depending on their importance and urgency:
- Important and urgent – Tasks you will do immediately.
- Important but not urgent – Tasks you will schedule for later.
- Not important but urgent – Tasks you will delegate.
- Not important nor urgent – Tasks you will eliminate.
Be Productive Now:
Reflect on these two questions to become more productive:
(1) What are some of the activities that you engage in that waste your time?
(2) What one thing can you do on a regular basis that will make a great difference in your life?
If you have not done so already, grab a copy of my book on Amazon today (http://bit.ly/TPLBOOK) and get a free Workbook and the Productive Life pPlanner thrown in for free!