On time and priorities
I have developed a new metric: If you have to depend on guilt-tripping to pressure me into what should otherwise be a mutually beneficial transaction (join your group, attend your event, buy your product), then your system has bigger problems than my involvement will fix.
In tangentially related advice, a friend posted this to Facebook this morning:
Instead of Saying “I Don’t Have Time,” Say “It’s Not a Priority”
http://lifehacker.com/5892948/instead-of-saying-i-dont-have-time-say-its-not-a-priority
This is another really important principle that I have derived for myself over the past year or two. You always "have" time. The determining factor is what you choose to do with it. In some cases, of course, there are major constraints already in place, but those, too, derive from your own choices. This isn't to say that you should be wiilling or able to "make time" for everything -- you can't and you shouldn't. But I know that for myself, it's all too easy to hand over that control to some set of outside forces and cast myself in a chronically passive role. Reclaim your agency.
Note that several of the comments to that article (I know, never read the comments) take the stance "Oh, yeah, if I tried that at work I'd get fired, stat." Which is true enough -- and in the workplace, especially when your role is to serve other constituents, that's a matter of tact and diplomacy. What's more relevant here is the story you tell yourself about what you do and don't find the time to do.
N.B.: Cross-posted from Dreamwidth; click to view or comment on original post.
In tangentially related advice, a friend posted this to Facebook this morning:
Instead of Saying “I Don’t Have Time,” Say “It’s Not a Priority”
http://lifehacker.com/5892948/instead-of-saying-i-dont-have-time-say-its-not-a-priority
This is another really important principle that I have derived for myself over the past year or two. You always "have" time. The determining factor is what you choose to do with it. In some cases, of course, there are major constraints already in place, but those, too, derive from your own choices. This isn't to say that you should be wiilling or able to "make time" for everything -- you can't and you shouldn't. But I know that for myself, it's all too easy to hand over that control to some set of outside forces and cast myself in a chronically passive role. Reclaim your agency.
Note that several of the comments to that article (I know, never read the comments) take the stance "Oh, yeah, if I tried that at work I'd get fired, stat." Which is true enough -- and in the workplace, especially when your role is to serve other constituents, that's a matter of tact and diplomacy. What's more relevant here is the story you tell yourself about what you do and don't find the time to do.
N.B.: Cross-posted from Dreamwidth; click to view or comment on original post.