Continuous Learning

*This is the 5th article in the New Year’s Resolutions series*

In the last article you have learned how to determine how much your resolutions are worth, and now it is time to overcome the second challenge - how to ensure you have enough time to work on your resolutions. In order for you to achieve your resolutions, you need to ensure you give it proper time and effort, but you need to do so without causing your life to get out of balance. In other words, we need to rebalance your life’s priorities so you can find time for the resolutions without compromising your other existing commitments or cause priority conflicts.

You must reserve time for your resolutions. If you are unable to secure time for your resolutions, they will suffer stillborns. In the last exercise, you have determined how much your resolutions are worth, and that should provide you with a guidance on the amount of time you can dedicate. Your challenge now is to find the necessary time within your 24-hour days.

For some resolutions it will be very easy to balance, if the resolutions are to discontinue or change some of your life routines that take time. Your challenge in this case is to find activities to replace the existing activities, and you might be able to take on another resolution to fill the void.

However, for some resolutions it will be more difficult to balance, especially if they can cause priority conflicts with your other major commitments currently in your life. For example, you might consider going back to school for MBA, which can take a lot of effort and interrupt both your work and your leisure time. In such case, it is important that you consider all angles, and triage with others in order to balance your life.

Many people work on their resolutions without balancing with the rest of their lives. They believe they can work harder to handle the additional loads, and yes, in this case, they are working harder, but not smarter. As we’ve noted earlier, everything has an opportunity cost. Given that everyone only has 24 hours a day, one cannot work harder without sacrificing other parts of their lives. People either take time away from leisure or work, and neither is the answer. Leisure and rest is essential for maintaining long-term performance, and reducing rest will have long-term impacts.

Some will decide to take time away from work, but that also is not a good choice. Generally others will notice the performance drop, and that impacts reputation, which in turn impacts long-term opportunities.

Both above scenarios are of course suboptimal. Instead, what you strive for is an optimal balance based on the combination of new and existing priorities. This would require the following from you:

• Prioritize all of your existing commitments
• Rebalance your existing and new commitments
• Triage with Others as Necessary

Prioritize Existing Commitments

Take a stock of what you do on daily basis and estimate how much time they take. What you spend time on are your existing commitments. To you they are important, consciously or subconsciously. Now, you might question whether they are all important, because some might just seem routine, for example, sleeping, commuting, brushing teeth, etc. To help you think of them in proper context, realize that these are supporting functions to help your achieve your objectives.

Because these are existing commitments, determining their priority takes a different method, i.e. you are not giving up anything to figure out their worth, instead, you are looking to see what can be “replaced” or “modified”. Tasks that cannot be replaced or modified have High priority, ones that can be modified have Medium priority, and ones that can be replaced have Low priority.

Rebalance Commitments

Once you have the priorities for existing commitments, you can try to insert your new commitments into the picture. Of course, the existing High commitments cannot be replaced or modified, so you can’t start there. Instead, focus on the Low and the Mediums. The objective is to create enough time slots (and in as few chunks) so you can dedicate that time toward your resolutions.

One thing to think about as you do this is how to rearrange your schedule so you can create a solid block of time rather than creating multiple small chunks of time. Of course you know this is due to that context switching consumes time, and one solid block of time will reduce context switch and provide you with better focus.

Triage With Others as Necessary

Some of your Low and Medium commitments impact others because they involve others, and you cannot just change your commitment there without causing an unanticipated or unwanted repercussion. For example, if you decide that you will start showing up later to work because you need to go to exercise in the morning, you might surprise your coworkers unpleasantly if they expect you to show up by an earlier time.

I know what you are thinking - this is a difficult task. After all, you might not even have good relationship with your coworkers. Sharing your resolutions with them? No way.

I can probably write many articles about how candid communications can help improve your relationship with others such as your coworkers, but that’s probably not going to help you right away if you are not on good footing with them. So instead I will give you a tip that can help you ease the pain and secure the change more easily.

Try to work with the others to come to a temporary arrangement so they will more readily agree to the change. Make sure that both you and they understand the change IS temporary, and both can revisit at the end of the arrangement to see if things work or not. That way neither of you will be compelled to make a bigger decision that will take longer to consider, and both of you have an option to go back to the way it was before if things do not work out. For example, you can negotiate with your boss to come to work 30 minutes later (you might agree to finish all of the assigned work on time and/or leave work 30 minutes later) for one month. You will both revisit at the end of the 30 day to decide whether to continue or go back to the previous arrangement. That way neither of you have to commit more than necessary, and can recommit as you see fit. It is a win-win situation.

There you have it. We will talk about how to ensure you can plan appropriately for tasks you do not know in the next article. Your homework assignment is try to apply this article toward your resolution. Hope you find a happy balance!

New Year’s Resolutions Series

1. Secrets to Successful New Year’s Resolution - Intro
2. New Year’s Resolution II - The Intuitive but Incomplete Approach
3. 3 Reasons Why Your New Year’s Resolutions Fail Even If You Are Good Project Managers
4. Finding Your Truly Important New Year’s Resolutions
5. How to Find Time for Your New Year’s Resolutions in Your Busy Life
6. Effective Planning for Your New Year’s Resolutions