Things My Father-in-Law Taught me about Business and Life.
Schedule everything, the man had every thing scheduled. Check his diary you would know what he was doing at what time and you could find out what he was planning to do for the next week at least. This was both a blessing and a curse.
The Blessing:
This made him really prepared for the week and relieved him of any anxiety that usually comes with the unknown. It ordered his life in such a way that he was able to live free.
The Curse:
If you think that the schedule is your life, your life will become stiff and your interactions seem less than compassionate. Not that he was like this, the man was always happy. Others however may have a challenge with the schedule and discount it because of their own selfishness. Heck they may even critique and criticize the idea of a schedule. But what do they know. Their lives are a sea of confusion and crazy stuff they call exciting. They feel constantly pushed and not in control, although they my think they are in control by “doing as the please” and “relaxing”. They continue without purpose or direction and therefore never come remotely close to their potential, or for that matter any real joy. Lesson use a schedule or more correctly, leverage the understanding of a schedule its not your life you choose.
The Balance:
The Schedule rightly used orders your time yes, but it also lets you put the things that are important to you in a specific space so they can be addressed. #gamenight #datenight #daddydaughtertime So it begs the question. How do you build a schedule?
Context IS KING!:
Steven Covey in his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, shares some insights to what is needed to actually build a useful schedule, task list, order your life kind of approach.
Order your life by what you are or more correctly who you choose to be. (Best done with Spiritual Insight, just saying). This provides the foundation of who and what is important to you moving forward.
Purpose:
The next area of importance is purpose. Hmm everyone is talking about purpose but what is that really ?? Simon Sinek in his work on “Start With Why” gives a clear framework for purpose. It’s the idea of why something exists. Like a kid when he or she approaches their parents the question of why continues for several iterations until a satisfactory understanding of the question posed is achieved. It’s usually about 3–5 cycles i.e. “5W’s” type thing or until an appropriate framework of understanding is built.
This is what then causes the child to move on to the next issue. It frees them. So it is with the idea of a schedule. It then frees the mind to be able to engage spontaneously in life. As Jordan Peterson would say “Make a schedule!” he also adds some clarity on the idea of the schedule. “Its not a bloody prison!” . The schedule allows you to put first things first. You lay out the most important things that you must to do that answer your why, your purpose.
So try it, make a schedule based on who you are, and what you need to do to become that which you know you are designed to be.
References: Simon Sinek — https://simonsinek.com/ , Stephen Covey https://www.franklincovey.com/the-7-habits.html , Jordan Peterson https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/
Roger St Hilaire — Is a business owner, father of 3 wonderful young ladies and husband to the sweetheart of my youth. You can check him out on linkedIn or on on his business site https://www.reshglobal.com/
