Make the biggest difference in a finite amount of time

Photo by Hanny Naibaho on Unsplash

Life is short. We don’t know how short but it is definitely short and counting.  Many of us have some sort of vague wish to “make a difference” in what we do, and to the people we love and care about, to the community we are associated with.

 

As most often is the case, it is in execution where not much forward motion happens. And this execution really is dependent on how we see the scarcity of time.

 

Once we identify what is the thing we need to do (frequently we can easily list down the things we need to do or which we feel we need to do) to “make the biggest difference”.

 

It could be going deeper into relationship with certain people, or master a hard to master skill, or visit a tough country, …….or any number of things which are hard to start, let alone to tenaciously do.

 

The most important thing to do is to start. And to start we need to schedule a start. So either start within 30 seconds, or schedule the start within 30 seconds. For anything to be successful, it has to be done with total deep focus for a pre scheduled amount of time.

 

So:  Start time and   (solid focus) x (amount of time)    are the most important urgent decisions to be made.  You can do the maths, with the scarcity of time not just a vague notion or concept, but a practical issue of finite actual available time to do solid focussed work which “makes a difference today”, we can see on a spreadsheet that it is a really limited amount of time available today, and tomorrow and for the rest of this month. And for the rest of this year.

 

Once we put all this down onto a spreadsheet and actually be precise how much time we have left this month, we really get moved to immediate action and to shut off and eliminate other distractions that keep from doing our work which we want to do with purpose, to make a difference.

 

There is only one way to start. And that’s to start! And to be stingy with your time.