Here are some excerpts from Time for Success that will help with your TIP:
SELLING TIME
When
you go to work or school, you agree to allocate a specific amount of
time to activities determined by your involvement with an organization.
In return, the organization to which you allocate your time agrees to
compensate you with a specific amount of money.
In
making this exchange, you place a dollar amount on the time you sell to
your employer (or client). Selling time activities are those which
generate benefits recognized in the marketplace; the currency of selling
time includes money, grades, professional development, and prestige.
Working
is a clear illustration of selling time. However, we engage in many
"selling time" activities without even thinking about it. If an
executive goes to the dentist, and picks up a business magazine because
he sees an article about his company's main competitor, is he selling
time? You bet.
Because an activity is defined by the
benefit it provides, selling time is not limited to work. Attending
school, studying, and reading trade publications are all examples of
selling time. Even reading the newspaper or watching TV can be examples
of selling time, if they help us make money, get grades, or advance our
professional development.
GIVING TIME
This
category of time use involves creating and maintaining relationships
with other people. Human beings are social animals, and we depend on
interaction with others for our emotional and social well-being.
Giving
time refers specifically to the activities that create and enhance your
personal relationships: friends, family, loved ones.
Many
people believe they are giving time when they're working. However,
when they are asked in confidence, many coworkers confess that they
would not socialize with each other if they didn't work together.
The
times when you interact with family and friends create warm feelings of
affection, belonging, and love. Our need for these feelings is
intense, and yet we often find it difficult to reserve time for these
activities. When I was young, I wondered why my grandmother ran around
with the camera at family events. Now I know she was trying to capture
the feelings of those all-too-rare moments.
Advertisers
understand this dynamic, and they try to convince us that our giving
time needs can be met through buying things. We are bombarded with
information on products that will supposedly enable us to create and
sustain relationships. But there is no over-the-counter solution. As
the saying goes, if you want to dance you have to pay the band. And, if
you want communicative, loving, honest relationships, you have to
invest time in them.
Activities that yield social benefits
include conversations, writing (in any channel), or sharing memorable
events. On a broader scale, you can also give time through volunteering
and community participation.
SPENDING TIME
When
we sell or give time, we focus our attention outward, toward the
marketplace or other people. Spending time addresses our individual,
internal needs. We spend time on things we love, things we do for free
when no one is watching, things that make us better people.
Spending
time activities may include spirituality, hobbies, talents, or
passions. You can spend time through meditation, or prayer, gardening,
exercise, woodworking, playing a musical instrument, scuba diving,
painting, skiing, or thousands of other activities.
Spending
time is as individual as the person who does the spending. When he was
alive, my Uncle Charles spent many hours with his stamp collection (*he
was the world's leading authority on Maltese stamps). He also composed
music (that was played at Albert Hall in London) and he played the
violin and piano-- when he wasn't treating patients in his dental
practice. He proficient in these and other areas of his life, but it
was really the stamps that brought him joy. He would spend hours poring
over auction catalogs. Why? Not for the money. Not for the company.
Uncle Charles collected and curated stamps simply because it fascinated
him.
PASSING TIME
Passing
time is a misnomer. We do not pass time. True, there are times when we
choose not to do something active, but that is when time passes us.
In
terms of achieving our goals, passing time helps us indirectly. We
need the opportunity to rest and recover, so that we can approach our
next activities with renewed energy. The value of rest is evident
throughout history, as in the concept of the Sabbath.
Selling,
giving, and spending time all have directed purposes. Passing time
activities are designed to distract us from the concerns and pressures
of the real world. Entertainment products such as TV shows and movies
typically relieve us of the need to think, worry, or actually do
anything. (NOTE: video games can fall into this category, but often they
exercise more of our brains than we think, and so may be more
accurately categorized as spending, giving, or even selling time
activities.)
Goal-oriented people typically pass time
only for the purposes of getting relief or recharging their batteries,
perhaps at the end of the day or during the weekend. It is worth noting
that people who have a keen sense of the future do not pass much time.
Our awareness of the consequences of our actions, and of time's rapid
progress, compels us to achieve our goals (or feel stress if we are
unable to take action).
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