FranklinCovey Blog

Time Management: Getting Back to the Basics

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 | FranklinCovey News | 2 Comments

On November 18, 2009, Sue Shellenbarger, Work and Family Columnist with The Wall Street Journal, featured FranklinCovey’s time management workshop, FOCUS:  Achieving Your Highest Priorities in her column entitled, “No Time to Read This, Read This.”  

She said “FOCUS . . . helps users jettison busywork and wasted time and devote themselves to their most valued pursuits.”  She said she found she was spending one-third of her time on unimportant stuff. To fix that, she spent a half-hour in a planning session to identify her values, roles in life and associated goals – those things most important to her. She blocked out time in advance to pursue them and entered tasks day-by-day on her calendar, prioritizing them based on importance.

She said, “By week’s end, I am surprised at how much calmer I feel, as I let insignificant stuff slide; in a spillover benefit, I am able to help my teenage son see that his race to finish a college research project early isn’t truly urgent. Also, in pursuit of the value I place on generosity, I start working early on a holiday gift for my extended family, a photo calendar; not only do I take more pleasure in making it, but I know it won’t be the usual slapdash, last-minute affair. She concluded that in an era when values are often neglected, the FOCUS system is a worthy antidote.

Shellenbarger’s article has reminded me of my own need to reconnect with what is truly important in my life, especially with the holiday season approaching, which of course, means more events added to my schedule, more tasks on my task list and not enough time to accomplish everything.

So, I plan on taking Shellenbarger’s advice and re-identifying my values, my most important roles and relationships and associated goals. I’ll spend some quality time in weekly and daily planning so I am clear on what matters most, not just during the holidays, but always.

Have you seen a difference in your days and weeks when you plan based on your values and goals?

What planning tips do you use to keep you focused?

Author: Debra Lund, Director of Public Relations at FranklinCovey

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2 Comments to Time Management: Getting Back to the Basics

sabrina
December 26, 2009

I love you title, “Getting Back to the Basics”. That is where I am right now. I think something slipped when our phones became everything and we gave up our paper planners. I always had my mission statement, roles, goals and all of that “good stuff”. I certainly kept it up with my Palm device but somewhere along the line we all jumped into a new world of busy that we had never dreamed of or imagined. I wish with all of my heart that a Franklin Covey store was still in my city. I don’t even have a store in any of the surrounding states! It was so calming to shop in a store and really focus and talk with an expert. This is a really great blog entry and today I will pull out my old Franklin Covey sheets and do a new mission on your website mission builder and refresh the 7 habits (the basics) I will also follow you on Twitter and Facebook (the new basics). Keep the conversation coming….

Michelle I Taming Time
February 2, 2010

Like this post brought out – it doesn’t do to lose sight of why you are bothering to manage your time in the first place. Hopefully it is to do the must-do’s more efficiently so as to have more time for the “want to-do’s” and enjoyable’s (such as family time etc.).

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