I’ve always tried to fit what I do professionally into my family, rather than the other way around. – Adam West
How busy are you? As busy as a unicycle riding juggler? Perhaps it’s time to take a breath and prioritize…
What does that mean?
This quote is about keeping first things first. It’s about determining what means the most to you, and protecting that time. Some people put career over family. Occasionally it works, usually it leads to all kinds of problems within the family.
In this quote, he says that family is more important to him than his work. He figured out how to fit his professional life around his family and their needs. While not everyone has the ability or flexibility at work to make this kind of arrangement, it’s great for the family, if you can get it.
We all have decisions to make, and priorities to sort out. Perhaps you can’t make every Little League game, but you can probably work your schedule around one each week. How important is it, and how hard are you willing to push to make it work?
Why is setting priorities important?
What comes first in your life? Family, friends, social organizations, work, or…? If you don’t know, how do you decide what to do next, or which tasks you will drop in favor of another request? I don’t expect it to always work, and there are always exceptions, but having a framework of priorities really helps.
Without priorities, I found that I was always putting out fires, and never making any progress. There were always things that were HOT HOT HOT! and needed to be dealt with right this second! It’s so hot it’s on fire! I got to do it right this second. Pretty soon, fires were interrupting fires. That’s not good.
With priorities, you can make a quick decision that some new draw on your time, your attention, your energy, or your cash (to name a few) is or is not worth interrupting what you are presently doing. It also helps you determine what to do next when you finish your task.
Where can I apply this in my life?
Start by working on a list of what is important to you, and then rank the items. Grab some paper and make a list for each aspect of your life. Home, work, family, friends, social groups, and anything or anyone else who requires some of your time, your attention, your energy, or your cash.
When you have the list, sort it by the normal priority in your life. Then start trying to figure out, across the categories, which are your top three priorities. You might want to have a couple additional ‘occasional’ priorities, for those times when an emergency might elevate the priority to the top of the list.
What are your top three priorities, according to your list? How often do you honor them in that order? How much of your life is busy-work, full of low priority activities? What, truly, is important to you? How can you untangle yourself from the other activities so you can focus on what is important?
That’s not to say you’ll never do something low priority again, it’s just that it will wait until you have the time, and have all your high priorities squared away. The same can be said as the old expression “business before pleasure” right?
The final thing to do is to develop some discipline about prioritizing. Practice saying “Let me finish this first,” or “I’ll get to it after I’m done with the other things already on my list.” What else could you say? Practice saying it, out loud and in a mirror. Practice telling someone else that they have to wait a little bit.
Don’t despair if you have trouble saying “No” at first. Old habits can take a few tries to break. It might help to consider what the rest of your life would look like if you didn’t get some discipline. Would you ever get the things you want done? Or would you always be running around, accomplishing nothing? Is that motivation for you? It was for me!
In the end, it’s up to you. Decide what is important to you, and how important it is compared to the other things in your life. Then you will have to develop the discipline to prioritize and stick to it as much as possible. Try it, I highly recommend it!
From: Twitter, @therealadamwest
confirmed at : http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/adamwest381042.html
Photo by Elsie esq.
Happy Birthday to Adam West, star of Batman (the 60’s TV show and movie) as well as a regular on Fairly OddParents (as the Crimson Chin) and Family Guy (as Mayor), and spots in about a zillion other movies and shows! Truly a hard working man! Born 19 September, 1928.
