20 October 2010

Managing your time and priorities

If there’s a clock near you take a moment to look at it ... notice the second hand ticking away, is there anything you can do to make those seconds go any faster or slower, is there anything you can do to manage time?

There is just the relentless ticking of seconds, minutes and hours, which flow past impersonally, consistently and irrevocably.

It does not matter who you are or what you do, you have 24 hours in a day, and the idea that somehow you can make more time is debilitating, because you can’t and neither are you able to speed it along nor slow it down, all you have is the same 24 hours ticking along at the same pace, as everyone else.

I encourage you to let this in, because there is simply no way to manage time, there is no getting a handle on time and there is no secret time management tool, you have exactly the same 24 hours as everyone else.

Freedom from the illusion of managing time is liberating, freedom from the idea that there’s a secret about time which others know and which you don’t is even more liberating, so be free.

You do what IS important to you, and if it’s not important, you don’t.

Over the years I’ve heard my clients say, ‘you know Paul, meditation is really important to me, it really is, and I want to do it and I know I should do it, but I just don’t have time to do it’.

And my response, ‘then it’s not really important to you, which means you don’t really understand it, which is why it’s not a priority, which is why you’re not meditating. So be free from the idea that you think you understand meditation, because if you really understood how important it is, you would find yourself meditating, it would be a natural and spontaneous priority’.

There is a significant difference between noticing a thought a couple of times a day that whispers ‘meditation is important’ and actually knowing that meditation is important. You know you know (it’s important) when you have a spontaneous daily practice of meditation, that’s how you know, you know, otherwise it’s just another random thought, one of the 60,000 you’re prone to having on an average day ...

... because you can think anything, you can think ANY thought possible, you can think that you would like to beat someone, go on diet, learn to play the piano, eat 10 bars of chocolate, sing the Macarena or dance like Shakira, but these are simply random thoughts that fly through your head.

It does not mean you actually want to do any of these things, because if you REALLY wanted to do them, it they were REALLY important, you would be doing them, your behaviour would be showing you that they ARE a priority.

You deceive yourself, you have a few thoughts which you think are beliefs, which they aren’t, you have a few other thoughts about what’s important to you, which they aren’t and you live in a world of these random thoughts and ideas, which have nothing to do with the world of your actual priorities.

If you want to know what’s important to you ... observe your behaviour, without justification and without condemnation, because your behaviour will show you what you really believe and what’s really important to you.

And you do what IS important and therefore IS a priority ... guaranteed.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for that Paul

    Quick question - when is the best time of day to meditate? I would think first thing in the morning, those random thoughts going through my head think the same thing but as yet i have not been able to wake up and meditate. Even though I often go to bed with the motive of waking up and meditating - when i awake the mindset is lost. The only time i have been capable of mediating is in the afternoon and as yet have not made a routine out of it. Any suggestions?

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  2. The best time is early morning, but it's not that important, meditate whenever you can. What's more important is that you meditate for at least 25 minutes per sitting.

    The question is not one of 'how' but 'why', when you understand 'why' you need to be meditating you will find the motivation to work out the 'how'. The Traditional Mindset loves to hide behind the 'how' question, 'if only I knew how then I would do it', but that's crap, if you want to do something, which means understand why it's important, then you'll work out the 'how' very spontaneously.

    Ever noticed that you learn to do what you NEED to do, it's really as simple as that. Spend you time at the beginning learning why you should be doing it, not how you should be doing it.

    I read an interesting quote yesterday - 'If I have 6hrs to cut down a tree, I will spend the first 4hrs sharpening the axe' - Abraham Lincoln

    The first 4hrs is learning the WHY.

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