I, Sloth

I do this too much. One of my biggest struggles is distracting myself from the task at hand with busy work, or pseudo work.  In March I had a breakthrough in what I focused on and pay attention to and where my mind and heart are at as I go about my daily workday.  And I have kept with that breakthrough so far. But I have found I still get busy wasting time and I believe it hinders a number of efforts I am making in my life and career.  So, I am making progress, but wish I was making it faster.

Stephen Covey, in his book ‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ has what he calls the ‘Time Management Matrix’. Here it is. It’s helped me in the past. I still have a card with it on it, that sits on my workdesk.

If you haven’t ever read Covey’s book, I highly recommend it.  You can find it at any bookstore, library and probably most of your friends’ houses. Ask, I bet they will let you borrow it. Quadrant II is where I need to spend more time.  I am relatively good at the relationship building and learning/developing but I tend to get excited about new things and forget about the things already in the pipeline. I also tend to procrastinate when it comes to planning.

What I am committing myself to is be more diligent and focused on that quadrant. What quadrant causes you issues and what are you doing about it?

In the meanwhile, you should go to Sid Savara’s blog posting that discusses this same thing. It’s funny with cartoon illustrations but still gets the seriousness of the ideas across.

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Drawing and commentary by Marty Cole…oh look, a sloth!

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