What is a basket of time?
And why is it important?
Well, finding time to reach your goals, or to make your dreams a reality requires making lots of (sometimes difficult) time choices and developing good, substantial time boundaries.
Basket of Time
One of the metaphors that I like to use when describing time is to think of it as a basket. The basket represents the time that we have to work with. Each thing that we put into the basket, obviously, takes up space. This limits what we can include.
One half of knowing what you want is knowing what you must give up before you get it. Sidney Howard
Most of us probably have baskets that are full right now (if not overflowing). What that means in practical terms is that in order to add something new, we need to take something out to make space for it. This can be a very difficult choice to make, but making it consciously is a great gift we can give to ourselves.
Overflowing…
Not making a conscious choice about removing something means that your basket will overflow. Because time is concrete and absolute, there is no way around this. Things will begin to fall out of your overflowing basket, and this, in turn, will add to your stress level. With way too many tasks and priorities to juggle, you begin to forget things and drop the ball on commitments, decreasing your effectiveness and efficiency even as your stress skyrockets.
So, as challenging as it can be, it is vital that you remove something from your basket of time when you add something new to it. Whether you are looking at BIG long term goals, or planning your time for a particular day, making conscious choices about your time boundaries enables you to move ahead on your most important priorities.
How about you?
How full is your basket of time? Is there something that you could remove, right now, to make room for your top priorities? What do you think? I’d love to hear!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up and download The New Finding Time Boundary Template. It’s FREE, and when you sign up you will also receive (if you don’t already) my FREE, weekly Finding Time Tips and my FREE, monthly Award-Winning Finding Time E-zine!
Let’s explore time together …
Hi Paula,
I think you’re so right about taking something out when you add something in. Recently, I’ve taken the big step of letting go of a networking group that I loved, but was taking too much of my precious time. It felt liberating to wake up last Friday morning and know I could focus on what’s most important. Just one more small step in the right direction of managing my time.