No clear time and agenda? I’m out.

My time is valuable. Your time is valuable. Remember that time you were called into a meeting under the impression it would last 20 minutes but it kept going for another hour. This will happen at work, at home, with sales people, and in personal relationships.

At Work

I’ve been fortunate as it does not happen very often because outlook is used to schedule meetings. However when meetings did run over, I would say “Sorry guys, I have another meeting coming up”. That’s an honest statement because I did have other commitments waiting that day, but the meeting started eating away the time allotted for those other commitments.

In Relationships

Face it, you have to ration your time when seeing many wonderful people in your life. If you don’t ration it, there just won’t be enough time for certain people who you’d really like to spend time with. Ration wisely.

It’s okay to break the rules

Obviously certain rules are meant to be broken. You can’t be a walking time checker. You’re a human being and you don’t strive to be a machine. Certain things in life grab you like nothing else. You want to see the dawn. You want to feel the touch of a woman. You want to taste a succulent Chinese meal. You want to be present at joyous moments. Give yourself permission to do so and forget about the time.

In a Nutshell

At the end of the day, it is easy to say “Where did all the time go?”. Having a clear agenda and a given time slot keeps you focused and prevents one scheduled event from eating up time of other events that day. Time will slip if you’re not aware of it. Become aware of it by scheduling it. Although sometimes, don’t.

Originally published at www.basicdrop.com on October 8, 2014.