Making The Time

Hey All -- trying to make up for some lost ground here!

Well, the Games have ended for USA Hockey.  They jazzed us a week ago with that shootout victory over the host nation, but something in them sort of . . . died once the medal round started.  Good luck to Canada and Sweden in the Gold Medal game, nice re-match from 1994 in Lille-hammer.  For us?  Let's just get back to the regular NHL season and all of its unfinished business.

Ever get stuck in a rut?  Just no time for anything because you're too busy doing everything else?  Don't lie and say no.  :)

Those of us who have stressful jobs seem to do nothing but that job, relax from the work week, and rinse and repeat forever.  Those of us who are raising young families have that to an even higher degree.  And 8 hours of sleep a night?  Some of us have just given up on that!

But maybe some of us just make it work through something called "time management."  Instead of feeling overwhelmed that time is overwhelming them, and they'll never get to things they need, they actually find ways to make time work for them instead.

How?  Here's what I see them doing:

(1)  SAYING NO.  If someone other than their superior authority figure tries to interrupt their work, they politely and firmly say, "Not right now," "Come back later," or "I have something to finish."  If someone calls them at the last minute with a gotta-go-here, gotta-go-there idea, they turn them down.  If they've already checked their e-mail or social networking within the last hour, they don't check it yet again!  If they already know that there's something ahead that will WASTE their time, CAUSE unpleasantness, and PREVENT them from doing that which is necessary, they turn it down.

(2)  PRIORITIZING:  If something has a shorter deadline than anything else, that can't be missed, it gets top billing.  NOTHING else gets placed above it, no matter what.  Everything else gets listed in descending order of importance, and gets handled likewise.  Unless there is an unavoidable emergency, NOTHING on that list gets altered.

(3)  LEAVING NOTHING UNFINISHED:  Yes, you can negotiate this a little, but if you can't finish the whole thing in a single sitting, have the good grace to finish a clearly-delineated portion of it, so you'll know exactly where you left off.  Other than symphonies and works of art left undone by the composer's or artist's demise, NOTHING is good enough when it's not really finished.

(4)  PUTTING IN EXTRA HOURS WHEN NEEDED:  We do not only live between the hours of 9 and 5.  If something requires additional time beyond the traditional day, you put in that time.  If you don't want to burn the midnight oil doing it, then boil the morning coffee instead and do it early.  Or just do what we all did in college and put in a good old-fashioned all-nighter, allowing yourself to make up the missed sleep later.

What's that, you say?  You don't want to do it on the all-important weekend?  Oh gee.  What if you have no plans during that all-important weekend?  Do you realllllly need to see who's hosting Saturday Night Live?  I doubt it.  That show has gone south ever since my woman Kristen Wiig left it!  Why not take that extra free time that you're not being paid for someone else's bidding or running some silly household errand and move a little closer to actualizing your dreams?

Oh noooo, you're a man about town, maybe you do have plans on the weekend?  How's about right before you dream on, dream away to slumberland, you make the time to make it real?  Or maybe at the crack of dawn before the rest of the world starts its wacky schedule, you start your own?

This is just another way of claiming your life, your dreams, and your goals for your own, and not to have others continually and eternally dictating them to you.  If you make them matter enough, then nothing -- not Great Aunt Tilly's 86th birthday party, not your friend's children's Sunday school graduation, and not that person at work who alllllllways "a little question," can shut 'em down.  Ya dig?  I dig more.

And by the way, without admitting or denying, confirming or rejecting, yours truly may or may not be doing the same.  ;)

Enjoy our early spring thaw, all!