Are You Really Wasting Your Time?

Is what you are doing right now aligned with your mission and your purpose? Is it something that moves you closer to the ultimate outcomes you need to achieve? Or, is it something less than that?

Is what you are doing important? Is it something that matters? Is it the proactive work that moves the needle on your overall results? If what you are doing isn’t going to make a difference were you not doing it, is it the best use of your time?

The goals that you have written down require that certain actions be taken, in most cases, with a discipline that ensures they are achieved. Is what you are doing something that is so closely tied to those goals that anyone watching you right now would immediately understand what you are doing, why you are doing it, and what your long-term goal is? Or would they be confused by the incongruity of your written goals and your current actions?

When you complete what you are doing right now, are you going to be proud of having done so? Will you point to what you are doing right now as an outcome that was worthy of your time and effort, assured that it made some contribution to the project or outcomes that are most important in your world?

Should someone else really be doing what you are doing now? Does the task or the outcome belong to another person who is really charged with this responsibility? Would someone else create a far better outcome than you when they to do what you are doing now?

Is what you are doing trivial or meaningless? Is it a distraction from what you should be doing? If you weren’t doing it right now, would you have time to do more important and more meaningful work? Is it stealing your time from more difficult, but more important work?

In the future, will you wish that you hadn’t spent the time doing what you are doing right now because some other outcome could have been obtained?

If you are grateful for the time you have, you will recognize how short that time is, and you will use it to do what’s important.