When you think about all that you must do and know you need to do, how do you make sure that you complete your priorities? Do you have a set scheduling system or do you just wing it? Now, if you’re the type of person who doesn’t like scheduling things you may just wing it. However, winging it or seeing what happens is one way you waste time. Yes, it may seem convenient, but I’ll give you 3 reasons why it’s a bad idea.
One, you risk not getting tasks done.
When we wait until the last minute to do things, we are in essence saying our tasks are not priorities or that we don’t have any priorities. Now, clearly, that is not the case, but the mindset that we can continuously put off doing work until the last minute and still get everything accomplished doesn’t make any sense. Life is not at our disposal.
Yet, some of us have the habit of procrastination, which makes that procrastination habit of I’ll do it later, turn into I’ll do it never. And to never get your priorities complete is bad business. Whether it’s work related or your personal affairs your priorities are important. At least they should be because remember a priority is something that is necessary for us to complete.
After all, that’s why we call them priorities, they take priority and precedence over other things and that’s what makes them critical to our day. So, it’s ironic that we can say we have priorities, but not dedicate the proper amount of time to ensure that we complete our priorities before we do anything else. In fact, it’s the equivalent of saying one thing, but doing something else, and wondering why we don’t have the intended result we wanted.
Two, you create situations where your tasks have poor quality.
In the world we live in getting something quickly means nothing if the quality is poor. Just think when you go to your favorite restaurant and place your order you do want your order to come quickly, however, aren’t there times when the staff served your order quickly, yet it wasn’t up to your standards.
And if you’re like me, you did your own quality control check and once you found an issue, inform the staff that they needed to fix your order. Hmm mm, I know, and some of us, help us, because we don’t just inform the staff of the issue, but go in with a fired-up tone, like don’t play with me in these streets, I’m serious about my money and my order!
You need to get it right and put some respect on my name! Hmm mm, I know, and on a side note, that’s why customer service jobs aren’t as easy as some people think. Because dealing with the public in a professional and kind manner can be a challenge, especially when the matter doesn’t involve you or is out of your control.
In fact, I was just at Subway the other day, when a customer was going off about the cost increase of their food. Now, mind you the menu had the prices listed, yet the patron didn’t evaluate that before ordering and when it came time to pay, he was not happy to say the least…
Anyway, as I was saying about waiting until the last minute – it doesn’t do you or me any favors. Although it seems there’s often not enough time during the day or work week to get all the things done that we need to do. For the most part, it’s waiting until to the last minute that keeps us with incomplete tasks or tasks completed with poor quality.
And just like receiving an order not up to your standards should disappoint you, living life completing tasks with poor quality should also make you reassess how you spend your time and how you go about planning to get things done.
Three, you invite unnecessary stress in your life.
Yes, I say you invite it. And I know none of us want to think that we invite something like stress into our life. But, I’m here to tell you that we sometimes do. As Benjamin Franklin said by failing to prepare, you are planning to fail. And we do it without even thinking twice. We go into situations with no plan of action, or a plan of action that lacks substance and then find ourselves looking around crazy when we’re stressed out.
We must stop this. We must take ourselves and our time seriously. It’s not about being spontaneous or fun, it’s about being effective and maximizing our productivity, so we can live life without unnecessary stress. Imagine I walked up to you and ask you to be stressed out. Really imagine that. You would be looking at me like seriously, what are you thinking lady.
No! No, I don’t want to volunteer to have any additional stress in my life. However, what you may not realize is not managing your time and keeping a watchful eye on completing your priorities, is just that. Signing up to be stressed out for no good reason. If you know that you have things that can make or break your day or work week, then to put them off, or not take the time to ensure you get them done, is you signing yourself up to be stressed, when you don’t have to do so.
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Each of us has the authority to choose how we want to manage our time to get things done. Recognizing whether we do things in a timely manner is the key to understanding where we are as it relates to being an excellent steward of the time that we have.
If you find yourself constantly feeling you don’t have enough time to get things done or always in crisis with unexpected circumstances coming up and disrupting your day, then I encourage you to document your priorities and chart how much time you spend on getting them done. Because just then maybe you’ll see a pattern of you waiting until the last minute. And if that’s the case, then identifying the issue will equip you with the insight that you need to do something about it.
Timeliness is an asset that pays dividends when you use it wisely. ~Coach Sam
~EXALTED ROYALTY~ A C. E. SAM COMPANY
