The Balanced Life
Time
Management
Time Management
Time
Management
Strategies (< 5 years)
Long-Term Goals (> 5 years)
Personal Mission Statement
Personal Values
Personal Values
• Worksheet:
– List your values
– List your roles in life (student, son/daughter,
friend, employee, husband, wife, etc.)
– List goals for each role
– Write your personal mission statement
Personal Mission Statement
• I will endeavor to be the best husband that I can,
cherishing my wife and always being a good
listener, enjoying her presence. I will encourage
her and help her achieve her goals and
aspirations.
• To my children and step-children I will seek to
always set a good example, provide leadership,
and to always be a friend.
• As a church member, I will support its programs,
leaders, and members with enthusiasm and a
cheerful heart.
Personal Mission Statement
• As a teacher, I will be a mentor and leader of my
students, caring for them as individuals, and
helping them to succeed in my classes and in
life, and to become the best person they
possibly can be.
• As a Christian, my number one mission is to
“finish the race and keep the faith.”
• Finally, I will seek in every way possible to show
grace and encouragement to all that I meet
regardless of the circumstances or their actions
towards me.
Begin With the End in Mind
• Your personal mission gives your life direction:
 What is my destination?
 Am I getting closer or further away from my goals?
 Is what I’m doing now consistent with my values?
• Avoid the “Activity Trap”!
• Avoid “success” at expense of health, family, or
friends.
• Be sure your ladder is leaning against the right
wall.
Two Creations
• All things created twice:
• First Creation: In the mind (visualized)
• Second Creation: In actuality
Two Creations
• By Design or default
“If we do not develop our own self-awareness
and become responsible for our first creations,
we empower other people and circumstances to
shape much of our lives by default. We are
either the second creation of our own proactive
design, or we are the second creation of other
people’s agendas, of circumstances, or of past
habits.” (Covey)
Two Creations
• Either you have your own values and goals or
others will impose their values and goals on you.
If you are not the leader, be sure those you
follow share your values!
• Self-awareness is the key. “Through
imagination, we can visualize the uncreated
worlds of potential that lie within us.” (Covey)
Time Management
Overview
What one thing could you do (that you
aren’t doing now) that if you did on a
regular basis, would make a tremendous
positive difference in your personal life?
Your success as a student at NMU?
Time Management
Overview
• Principle centered not activity centered
• Put first things first!
• Activity Matrix and Activity Trap
Time Management
Matrix
Urgent
I
Crises
Pressing problems
Deadline-driven projects
Not urgent
II
Prevention
Relationship building
Recognizing new
opportunities
Planning, recreation
III
IV
Interruptions, some calls
Trivia, busy work
Some mail, some reports
Some mail
Some meetings
Some phone calls
Proximate & pressing matters Time wasters
Popular activities
Pleasant activities
Time Management
Procrastination
• The habit of procrastination takes a two-fold toll on
its victims. First, important work goes unfinished;
second (and more importantly), valuable energy is
wasted in the process of putting off the things that
remain undone. Procrastination results from an
individual’s short-sighted attempt to postpone
temporary discomfort.
Time Management
Procrastination
• Procrastination creates a senseless cycle of
1. Delay followed by
2. Worry followed by
3. A panicky and often futile attempt to “catch up.”
• Procrastination is, at its core, a struggle against
oneself and the only antidote is action.
Time Management
Procrastination
• Once you acquire the habit of doing what needs to
be done when it needs to be done, you will avoid
untold trouble, worry, and stress. So learn to
defeat procrastination by paying less attention to
your fears and more attention to your
responsibilities. The world punishes
procrastinators and rewards those who “do it now.”
Life does not procrastinate, neither should you.
• “Not now” becomes “never.” Martin Luther
The Weekly Schedule
Roles
Goals
Week of:
Sunday
Weekly priorities
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Today's priorities
Appointments/Commitments
Time
8am
9am
10am
11am
Noon
1pm
2pm
3pm
4pm
5pm
6pm
7pm
Evening
Time Management
Weekly Schedule
• Daily and weekly evaluations
- “Were my actions today (this week) in consonance
with my values or in dissonance?”
- What changes are needed in the schedule
- What changes are needed in me (discipline?)
• Plan the next week
• Activity Matrix and Activity Trap
Time Management
Annual Update
• Get off someplace by yourself.
• Ask hard questions:
- Have my values changed?
- Have my roles changed?
- “Did I get closer to my goals or farther away”. If
farther away, what action is needed?
• Revise personal mission statement as needed
You Can Change!
“What we learn to do, we learn
by doing. Excellence, then, is
not an act—but a habit.”
Aristotle
“One necessary
precursor to
change, though,
is often a change
in attitude.”
User’s Guide to the
Brain, p. 356