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TODAY MATTERS – Today’s Priorities Give Me Focus!

Why Priorities Matter

3 Key Insights:

1.Time is our most precious commodity

• To know the value of one year ask a student who failed the final exam
• To know the value of one month ask a mother of a premature baby
• To know the value of one week ask the editor of a weekly publication
• To know the value of one day ask the wage earner with six children
• To know the value of one hour ask lovers who are waiting to meet
• To know the value of one minute ask the person who missed the plane
• To know the value of one second ask the person who survived an accident
• To know the value of one millisecond ask the Olympic silver medalist

2.We cannot change time – only our priorities. You do not manage time!

• Myers Barnes states that time management has nothing to do with the clock, but everything to do with organizing and controlling your participation in certain events that coordinate with the clock.
• Chinese author Lin Yutang states that the wisdom of life consists of the elimination of nonessentials.
• You can have anything that you want. You just cannot have everything that you want.
• Time cannot be managed, you cannot save time, lose time, turn back the hands of time, or have more time tomorrow than today. Time is unemotional, uncontrolled, and unencumbered.
• Since you cannot change time, you must instead change your approach to it.

3.Priorities help you chose wisely

• The reason that most goals are not met is the we spend our time doing second things first (Robert J. McKain)
• The Pareto Principle states that by focusing your attention on the top 20% of your priorities you would get an 80% return on your effort.
• This should be a eureka moment! That being true, then it makes sense to focus on the top priorities of life and release the rest.
• I read recently that the average American spends 4 hours/day watching the TV. Factor in the digital aspects of modern TV such as pointless emails, unimportant tasks, telemarketers, interruptions, candy crush game requests, and cat humping videos, 4 hours/day is easy.
• If done over the course of life you will have wasted 13 years (that is 24/7/TV). If you take the minimum wage over that 13 years, that is over $800K lost income. If invested in conservative instruments that would amount to over $2 million lost income.
• Get your priorities straightened out!

So the question is how do we do this? Here are three piercing questions that demand an answer.

1.What is required of me? You must begin here. What is required to be great spouse, employee, friend? Start with these requirements.

2.What gives me the greatest return? As you move through live you realize that some activities yield a higher return than others. Focus your time on the high-return activities.

3.What gives me the greatest reward? The reward only comes when you manage the first two questions properly. You do not get your cake ahead of the essentials of life.

Develop your strengths and not your weaknesses. People are not going to pay for average!

LINKS

LINKS

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The Today Matters by John Maxwell

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Music: “Gratitude Mood” by David Arivett. You can learn more about his music by clicking on his name. THANKS DAVID!