Successful Time Management For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 3

Linking Time Management to Life Goals

In This Chapter

• Seeing the connection between goal-setting and time management
• Putting your goals on paper
• Living and planning large
• Finding the fastest route to achievement

Today, more than at any time in history, you have limitless opportunities, especially if you're living in the United States. However, having so many choices can lead to confusion, distraction, and wasted time. Achievement in anything in life takes focus, diligence, and patience. So the question arises: Can getting a handle on your most precious lifelong dreams and desires help you get more done on a day-to-day basis? Absolutely! Say, for example, you and your spouse have always dreamed of taking six months to travel the world while you're still young enough to hoist a backpack. Such a focus may motivate you to put in extra hours or accelerate your sales quotas at work to build up the necessary funds and time for that adventure.

Even long-range goals can shape the way you use your time in the here and now. Suppose your goal is to retire to a modest cabin in the Smoky Mountains and spend the rest of your life writing the Great American Novel. Even if that goal is 30 years away, your priority now is more likely to be on investing your income and perhaps taking some writing courses rather than on building a 4,200-square-foot home and learning to ski — or it should be, anyway, because the preparations you need to make first and foremost are the ones that'll enable ...