That’s the motivation for our post. Only we’re not thinking about leftover food. We want to talk about YOU – your time, your attention, and your love.

___

___

A time trap
This is an easy trap to fall into. See if you can relate to this:

You get up and get ready for work. You grab a cup of coffee for the road and get into your car to drive to the office. Finally, you get to work. Next thing you know, it’s time for lunch. You eat at your desk while you keep working. You look at the clock. Where did the day go? Time to go home. You rush out to your car and hit the road.

It’s late. You’re tired. Better get to bed.

Leftovers and scraps
You may have a different scenario, but is the net result the same? We unintentionally take for granted the people who are closest to us.

Our family often gets our final burst of energy, if we have any energy left at all. They get our leftovers.

But there’s yet another party that we haven’t considered. We may only have scraps left for this party. It’s …

You.

3 tips to give your best to the best in your life

Put it on your schedule
Treat family time like any other important activity – put it on your schedule. When you put it on your schedule, it becomes a priority. If it’s not on your schedule, it’s likely that it will get pushed aside to more urgent, but perhaps less important, activities.

Plan an activity
Now it’s on your schedule. But if you don’t have anything planned, it is easier to push it off to another date and time. So plan to do something, anything. Go to the movies. Play games. Attend a concert. Go to a museum. It doesn’t matter – if you have an activity planned, you’ll be less likely to let the day’s events get in the way of this important time together.

Make it a regular event
Now schedule a regular event every week. For example, a couple could schedule a “date night.” You and your spouse may decide that you’re going to go out on a date every Thursday evening. It may not always happen on Thursday. So “make it up” on Friday. By having it planned regularly, it’s more likely to happen sometime during the week.

We don’t intentionally neglect our loves ones or ourselves. The problem is that we don’t intentionally make time for them. The result ends up being the same.

Instead of giving our leftovers to the most important people in our lives, we should give them the main course by planning time with them just like we do everything else that’s important to us.

___

___

We really appreciate that you stopped by today! Join us next time as we offer up a great reality check for your spending decisions. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00275-112808.mp3

Related posts

Get More Done by Finding Your Energy Source

What We’re Sacrificing to Achieve Work-Life Balance

Why Work Life Balance Doesn’t Work

(Image by Marshall Astor, CC 2.0)

You don’t think anymore about it. The weeks turn into a month. You get an e-mail reminding you of the first committee meeting. You’re just as busy now as you were when you committed to it. But now you have yet another obligation – you have to serve on this committee.

___

___

The future becomes the present

A study done a while back showed that we do have a tendency to think we will miraculously be less busy in the future than we are today. So we say “yes” to requests for our time in the future. Then we’re shocked when the future becomes the present and we have even less time than we had before.

We’ve overcommitted ourselves … again!

5 questions to ask before committing yourself

The first question is simply a check. It may be obvious, but we didn’t feel we could leave it out.

• How will this request advance me toward my goals? If it doesn’t, why say yes.

The next four questions aren’t sequential. They should be answered simultaneously.

• If you had to do this tomorrow or next week, would you still say yes? If you can’t say yes to this question without hesitation, why commit yourself? But consider the next question before saying “no”.

• How significant would the impact be on your life if you say yes? You may be willing to pay the price of overextending yourself if the pay off is high enough. If that’s the case, look at the next question.

• How much time will it realistically take? You can only operate in a state of hyper-activity for a short period of time. If it will take a year, you can’t push yourself that hard. So if it’s a long-term project you may have to say no. If it’s short-term you may be able to say yes. In either case, consider the next question.

• What am I willing to say “no” to or put “on hold” in order to do this? You only have 24 hours in your day just like any human. Will you sleep less? Spend less time with your family? Skip your next vacation? Be realistic about what you have to give up. Is it worth the price? 

Once you’ve answered these questions, you’re ready to commit (or not commit) your time in the future. You understand that you won’t have more time then. So you’ll be careful to only commit to those things which will make you a bigg success!

___

___

We greatly appreciate you reading our post today. Join us next time as we look at the difference between being battle-scarred and battle-scared. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00267-111808.mp3

Related posts

Meet Count Clockula

Is Your Schedule Overloaded Like A Dishwasher?

(Image by Undy)

.

.

Sean, you went from being a college graduate to having had more jobs than just about anyone I know. And you did it all in a year!

.

Exactly! That was the problem when I graduated … I didn’t know which job I wanted. My dad gave me some advice my last year of college that stuck with me. He said it didn’t matter what I did as long as it was something I was passionate about. So not knowing where those passions lie, I came up with the idea to go out and try out a whole bunch of different jobs to see what I like and don’t like about different careers. Then I could make a better choice. So I started my web site, OneWeekJob.com, and said that anyone anywhere in the world could offer me a job for one week. Then I would go around for a year and do all these different jobs. It worked out pretty well.

.

Now, at any point, did your dad say … I told you to find your passion, but this is crazy?

.

.

Definitely! When I first thought up the idea, and I told him, he asked if I was kidding him and said I should get a real job … I told him it was his fault!

.

So you basically lived kind of like a vagabond … through the generosity of the people in the town that you were working in, you would have a place to stay?

.

Yeah, people following along on the web site would e-mail to offer a place to stay if I came to their town. Oftentimes, I’d stay with my employer. About Week 5 into the project, a job search engine, nicejob.ca, came on board to sponsor the project – they helped out with some travel expenses as well.

.

Let’s say you were working a job in Arizona and your next job offer was in San Francisco? How would you make it to your different locations?

.

It always changed. Sometimes by bus, sometimes hitchhiking, sometimes flying. That was a bigg aspect to the project – trying to manage all the logistics. There was a period where I was in Denver, Colorado and then I was back in Vancouver for the weekend en route to Hawaii. These are all consecutive weeks. Then on to Los Angeles, then New York, Florida, Wyoming to be a cowboy, and then on to Washington, D.C.

.

Out of all the jobs you’ve had, what was your favorite, Sean?

.

.

I have … maybe a top five. When I was in Hawaii, I was a volcano park ranger. A fashion buyer in New York was really cool, and an advertising executive. I also worked with the Canadian Air Force, and I got to fly a helicopter and a military transport plane. That was a great experience as well. Also a cancer fundraiser – I really enjoyed that job.

.

So do you think that you’ve found your passion?

.

.

Is dad happy yet … that’s what we really want to know?

.

.

I think that going out and trying to find my passion has almost turned into a job all by itself; it’s kind of turned into a passion all by itself in that, it’s helped and inspired others to go after their passions. Now I’m writing a book about the experience that will be out in the Spring of 2009. So I’ll be doing that for awhile, as well as talks. It actually might become a TV show. I’m working on a documentary, so this is going to keep me busy for the next few years.

.

And there’s a way for people to help you get this documentary done?

.

.

My best friend, Ian MacKenzie, came out on the road with me, starting in about Week 19 or so. We started filming video episodes about what I was learning, interviewing my employers, and talking about getting from job to job. So we’re putting it all together into a documentary now. We’re asking for help in raising funds for that. People can become a producer if they’re willing to donate an hour of their wage. Anyway who donates will be a producer of the film and their name will appear in the end credits.

.

What I love is that you’ve created your own job, your own role, your own space by doing this. That’s all right, Sean.

.

Now tell your dad that! We’re impressed by what you’ve done. It’s so interesting … such a cool story. Thanks so much, Sean, for spending some time with us today!

.

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.  

Related posts

Leaping From Place To Place: See The World While You Work

Retire to Work: Live Where You Want Now but Keep Working 

(Images from OneWeekJob.com's photostream on Flickr)