A friend asked me the other day if I’d read Brian Tracy’s book, Eat That Frog!, Tracy is a personal effectiveness expert.
Her question reminded me of one very important principle Tracy and so many other effectiveness and efficiency experts talk about.
It’s called the law of forced efficiency. It says: “There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing.”
Interesting law and well worth applying.
The fact is that the average person today is working at 110-130 percent of capacity. And the jobs and responsibilities just keep piling up. One recent study concluded that the average person has a backlog of 300-400 hours of reading and projects at home and at the office.
What this means is that you will never be caught up. Get that out of your mind. That’s a hard one for me and sometimes I think I write about what I most need to learn!
All you can hope for is to keep on top of your most important responsibilities. The others will just have to wait.
If we follow that reasoning, the key question we can ask is: “What is the most valuable use of my time, right now?”
Every hour of every day, there is an answer to this question. Your task is to ask yourself that question, over and over again and to make sure you’re always spending your time working on whatever is most important at that particular moment. Right now for me it’s writing this article and enjoying my coffee! See? It’s not all bad!
The more accurate your answer is to this question, the easier it will be for you to set clear priorities and overcome procrastination. It helps you stay focused and you’ll not only get more done faster, but you’ll also get the right things done! Getting things done is great….but getting the RIGHT things done is even better!
