How to Focus Your Time To Finally Fulfill Your Goals...

By Audrey Seymour

A recurring theme for many people is the challenge to stay focused and on course when there are many competing demands on their time.

If you feel that you're treading water or even losing ground, it's time to step back and take stock of what matters most. Once your priorities are clearly reestablished in your mind, you can compare them to how you are spending your time.

Without aligning your daily actions with your deepest values, your goals will not be reached.

Whether conscious or not, every day you are choosing how to spend your time. What are you saying "Yes" to and what has been a "No"? The following exercise suggests a way to start matching your choices with your priorities.

Find a time when you can have an uninterrupted half-hour.

1. What are the major projects and activities occupying your time? Make a list, and estimate what percentage of each week is spent on each one. Don't forget to include household and family commitments as well as work and self-renewal. Group by categories if your list gets longer than about 6 items.

2. Next, reorder them in terms of your real priorities as you see them today.

3. Are there any discrepancies between the order of your priorities and how you spend your time? What items on that list are not getting the attention they deserve? You are essentially saying "No" to these things.

4. If some items that you've treated like "No"s are genuinely no longer important, it's time to delete them from your list and make room for something else.

5. If you'd like to change any "No" to a "Yes," what do you need to give up in order to make room for that "Yes"? It might be an activity, an outgrown commitment, or even an obsolete identity.

It's important to be ruthlessly honest with yourself here. What sacrifices are you willing to make in order to go for the gold? If a goal isn't worth your giving up what you are doing instead, then it's time to re-examine that goal.

6. Go back to your list and make any changes that fit your new perspective. Post it where you'll see it every day, and refer to it as you schedule your time.

There's nothing wrong with going off course --- continually making mid-course corrections is part of being alive. All you need to do is remember to keep coming back --- come back to noticing where you are now and where you want to aim for next. Then the spirit of discovery will naturally keep your goals as dynamic and alive as you are.