There’s an old Zen parable that highlights the importance of spending your time wisely.
A man goes to a Zen master and says “I need help. I’m stressed, I’m overwhelmed, my mind races all the time, and it all feels like it’s all too much. What can I do?”
The Zen master tells the man “you should meditate for 20 minutes.”
The man, frustrated answers “but I can’t meditate for 20 minutes. There’s too much to do. I just don’t have the time.”
The Zen master nods his head, closes his eyes, and thinks for a few seconds. He opens his eyes and answers “I see. Then you had better meditate for an hour.”
I love this story both because it’s both funny, and it highlights a hard truth that I regularly forget again and again. The more that you think you don’t have enough time to step back, plan, and reflect—the more important it is that you make time to do exactly that.
The act of filling out a card each day is a great reminder that you should take this time. I have found that the less time I take to think about and fill out my items on the card, the worse my score ends up being. Spending time figuring out what should go on my card today and why is always time well spent. And up to a point, the more time you spend on that, the better your day will go.
Because of how valuable time is, you should always look for wise ways of investing it. The reason I continue to fill out a card every day, and keep score, is that I have realized that the time I spend filling out a card is always a wise investment.
All of the things that you have on your plate may make it seem like you should just jump right in and start doing things. But when you do that, you run the risk of focusing only on what David Allen calls the “latest and loudest” things. And those latest and loudest things are rarely the most important things to do; they’re just what jumps out at us upon superficial reflection.
But constantly doing those latest and loudest things first—rather than stepping back to reflect and build a list of important stuff to work on—will just keep you going through the motions, with little to show for it. You may get a lot done, but you’ll make very little progress on the important stuff in your life. Your bigger goals will suffer because you neglect them for smaller, easier, more nagging little tasks.
Whenever you think to yourself I’m too busy to reflect on my goals, plan, and prioritize today’s stuff—remember the lesson of the Zen master. Spend more time planning and prioritizing. By the time today’s craziness gets under way, you’ll be glad you did.
