How do you make decisions about what to work on? and how do you evaluate things?
Everyone knows this Stephen Covey’s time management matrix. That we should focus on the important and not the urgent and unimportant.
But I think the “important” should go one step further than that.
One of the biggest things I’ve noticed about people who are successful vs those that are not successful is that they focus on activities that put them in a better position in the future.
It sounds so obvious, but in some ways it is counterintuitive, because in order to really understand it we need to have a long term time horizon.
On a day by day the effect is not so big. Eg., I can do this activity today that will give me more time, money or choices in the future. If I keep doing activities like this, then I my time, money and choices will continue to grow.
If I do things that reduce my time, money or choices in the future, then my life will get worse.
It works in the same way as compound interest which is a finance term. Just like investing in something that gives 10% interest per year, the interest compounds on itself.
There are some activities that we can do today that will free up our time in the future. There are some investments in time we can do that will give a positive in the future. There are also things we can do today that will have a negative effect in the future.
Some examples of things that will have a positive future effect are:
PositiveMeditatingMaking money…Events – meeting new peopleThinkingFitnessSpending less than you earnEating wellEducation – learning a language, developing thinking skills and other skillsCreating content onlineHiring great people
Some examples of things that will have a negative effect are:
NegativeHiring bad peopleBeing rude / treating people badlyLosing cashDrinkingEating badGoing in debtNot sleepingBad / average relationshipsUsing Social mediaTVOpportunity cost of not doing positive things…
So it is important when making decisions to look at the choices that are going to have the biggest future impact. It might have no result in the present, but if it can free up our time.
