In my twenties I started using a little pocket calendars to keep track of my life. It had full year. It helped me keep track of my life. After four years I moved to a Franklin day planner and then the Franklin Covey Planner.
I went to the denist just before Christmas. He was giving away little pocket calendars. I took some and gave each of my daughters one for Christmas. For the last week we've been getting together for about fifteen minutes to plan the day. We talk about upcoming events and what we want to do each day. I have them build a list of activities they want to do, and then prioritize them. Right now I'm just trying to get them in the habit of using task list to stay focused and accomplish the things they really want to get done.
There have been some sweet moments. My youngest daughters built a very short list the first time. It had things like help mommy and hug daddy. She was done with her list an hour later.
I have a lot of respect for Stephen Covey. I've read his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People a couple times. And I've my oldest daughter reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Stephen's son. If you have never read The 7 Habits book, I strong encourage you to read it.
While looking through Reddit I was pleasantly surprised today to find that Stephen Covey has a blog! A recent post addresses How to strike a work and life balance. In response to the question "What does it mean to have work/life balance?" Stephen says:
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This is a very personal thing and it is different for everyone. Generally speaking, having a good work/life balance means that your actions and priorities are aligned in a way that is taking care of what is really important to you.
Today the average college student or corporate worker considers themselves a “multitasker”. It’s not unusual to meet people in their 20s who are working, going to school, starting their own company, married, raising kids and enjoying hobbies. They end up with a huge list of things that fracture their attention. This isn’t wrong in any way–for the most part it’s admirable–but there is an old saying: to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To a chronic multitasker, everything is a task. Soon, the things in life that are really important to them are in the same list as everything else, and the only tasks that get done are the ones that have become urgent, but often aren’t very important.
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I think the whole post is worth reading.
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Technorati tags: life, balance, life balance
2 comments:
In 1995 when I got a job promotion, the corporation made me (and others doing certain jobs) take the official class that went along with training people to use the Franklin Planner organizer (later Covey bought that company). I had never thought about the theory they used behind the philosophy, the planner/organizer/calendar was not just a 'to do' list or a calendar but we had to set up our values and then we were to apply our values to our tasks.
It really taught me some good things. I learned to decline new tasks if I was already too busy in order to stay true to wanting to be responsible and trusted, so on and so forth.
When tempted to pick an easier task off the 'to do' list I asked myself which was more important to others and to the organization, then picked the right thing to do rather than the easiest.
This philosophy has helped me a lot since that time, even after I was a stay at home mom.
I think it is a brilliant idea to teach kids about time management and planning.
Lastly once I saw Stephen Covey on Oprah and he was speaking of how at one point he realized he was a workaholic and was not seeing his family much. He then blocked off Sunday's for family time and spoke at length of the value of family and enjoying time with our loved ones not just working at a job.
I respect what Covey writes and I also read his books.
Thanks for blogging about this!
"Thanks for blogging about this!"
Thank you. I'm glad you found it useful.
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