We all know that leadership and influence comes with increased demands and responsibilities.
So it follows that if we aspire to be influential leaders in our communities and nations, we need to enlarge our capacity to juggle the various demands that will inevitably arise. A leader can only ever be as great as his or her capacity.
One area that often feels lacking in terms of capacity is time: there never seems to be enough. However, instead of searching for an external fix or blaming the circumstances around us, let’s take a look for a moment at our internal capacity.
I am convinced that time management has more to do with mindset than it does hours in the day. If we see time a resource at our disposal like any other, we will be less likely to use the excuse that we are ‘too busy’, and more likely to take responsibility for how we use, invest and manage this resource of time.
People often tell me that I must be ‘so busy’, to which I almost always respond, ‘yes, life is full.’ It is not just semantics, it is mindset. ‘Busy’ usually refers to a lack of time, which is a disempowering place to start. ‘Full’ on the other hand is an abundant mindset: life is full of the things that I love and am passionate about, and that align with my sense of calling. Yes I am busy, but an abundant mindset allows me to recognise that the tasks that take up my time are ones that I have chosen, either directly or indirectly, and am therefore responsible for. It also allows me to say yes and no to different opportunities, because I realise that my time is mine to manage.
I ask you, are you are manager of your time, or a victim of it? It is your choice.
“The good news is that real time is mental. It exists between your ears. You create it. Anything you create, you can manage.” – entrepreneur.com
This is the first post in a series on productivity in leadership, and over future weeks we will be looking at how to be pro-active rather than re-active in the way that we schedule our time.
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