Time Management Expert, Event Speaker: Mark Lamendola |
Productivity Case Histories | Productivity improvement articles | Time Tips Articles |
Don't lose sight of your real purpose.
If you are the most efficient person in the world and yet the sum of
your efforts defeats your larger purpose, your time is simply wasted.
Think about this experiment, and apply the lessons to your own life.
A group (let's call them ACME) did a study at a seminary. This involved seminary students (seminarians), each approached separately. The seminarians were to give sermons on the Good Samaritan. Not all of our readers are from Western culture, so here's a summary of that story (which is from the New Testament). In the time of Christ, people who lived in Samaria were deemed low-lifes by the mainstream folks. If you've read redneck jokes, you get a feel for how Samarians were thought of in those days. An injured man lay by the side of the road, and all of the "good" people walked past him and left him there. But, a Samaritan stopped and gave the man extensive assistance. At the seminary, ACME called each of the seminarians one at a time. "Sorry, there's been a scheduling error. We need you to give your sermon ten minutes from now. You'll have to hurry to make it here in time." Without exception, each of the seminarians walked around, or stepped over, an actor hired by ACME to play an injured man in need of assistance. This was an object lesson. The seminarians were so caught up in meeting an obligation to talk about helping a stranger that they neglected to live the very words they were supposed to speak. How well do you manage your time?
You can come up with many other examples and situations. Remember that when you sacrifice the larger goal to meet immediate needs, you are usually shooting yourself in your proverbial foot. Take better aim. |
Do you want to radically improve how well people in your organization make use of the limited number of hours in each work day? Contact me to arrange a time when we can talk about a presentation: mark@mindconnection.com. Why arrange a time? So I can give you full attention during the call. There's a really powerful time management tip. Ask me why it works. |