Managing Your Time

Brian Tracy

Perhaps the greatest single problem that people have today is “time poverty.” Working people have too much to do and too little time for their personal lives. Most people feel overwhelmed with responsibilities and activities, and the harder they work, the further behind they feel. This sense of being on a never-ending treadmill can cause you to fall into the reactive/responsive mode of living. Instead of clearly deciding what you want to do, you continually react to what is happening around you. Pretty soon you lose all sense of control. You feel that your life is running you, rather than you running your life.

On a regular basis, you have to stand back and take stock of yourself and what you're doing. You have to stop the clock and do some serious thinking about who you are and where you are going. You have to evaluate your activities in the light of what is really important to you. You must master your time rather than becoming a slave to the constant flow of events and demands on your time. And you must organize your life to achieve balance, harmony, and inner peace. Taking action without thinking is the cause of every failure. Your ability to think is the most valuable trait that you possess. If you improve the quality of your thinking, you improve the quality of your life, sometimes immediately.

Time is your most precious resource. It is the most valuable thing you have. It is perishable, it is irreplaceable, and it cannot be saved. It can only be reallocated from activities of lower value to activities of higher value. All work requires time. And time is absolutely essential for the important relationships in your life. The very act of taking a moment to think about your time before you spend it will begin to improve your personal time management immediately.

I used to think that time management was only a business tool, like a calculator or a cellular telephone. It was something that you used so that you could get more done in a shorter period of time and eventually be paid more money. Then I learned that time management is not a peripheral activity or skill. It is the core skill upon which everything else in life depends.

In your work or business life, there are so many demands on your time from other people that very little of your time is yours to use as you choose. However, at home and in your personal life you can exert a tremendous amount of control over how you use your time. And it is in this area that I want to focus.

Personal time management begins with you. It begins with your thinking through what is really important to you in life. And it only makes sense if you organize it around specific things that you want to accomplish. You need to set goals in three major areas of your life. First, you need family and personal goals. These are the reasons why you get up in the morning, why you work hard and upgrade your skills, why you worry about money and sometimes feel frustrated by the demands on your time.

What are your personal and family goals, both tangible and intangible? A tangible family goal could be a bigger house, a better car, a larger television set, a vacation, or anything else that costs money. An intangible goal would be to build a higher quality relationship with your spouse and children, to spend more time with your family going for walks or reading books. Achieving these family and personal goals are the real essence of time management, and its major purpose.

The second area of goals are your business and career goals. These are the “how” goals, the means by which you achieve your personal, “why” goals. How can you achieve the level of income that will enable you to fulfill your family goals? How can you develop the skills and abilities to stay ahead of the curve in your career? Business and career goals are absolutely essential, especially when balanced with family and personal goals.

The third type of goals are your personal development goals. Remember, you can't achieve much more on the outside than what you have achieved on the inside. Your outer life will be a reflection of your inner life. If you wish to achieve worthwhile things in your personal and your career life, you must become a worthwhile person in your own self-development. You must build yourself if you want to build your life. Perhaps the greatest secret of success is that you can become anything you really want to become to achieve any goal that you really want to achieve. But in order to do it, you must go to work on yourself and never stop.

Once you have a list of your personal and family goals, your business and career goals, and your self-development goals, you can then organize the list by priority. This brings us to the difference between priorities and posteriorities. In order to get your personal time under control, you must decide very clearly upon your priorities. You must decide on the most important things that you could possible be doing to give yourself the same amount of happiness, satisfaction, and joy in life. But at the same time, you must establish posteriorities as well. Just as priorities are things that you do more of and sooner, posteriorities are things that you do less of and later.

The fact is, your calendar is full. You have no spare time. Your time is extremely valuable. Therefore, for you to do anything new, you will have to stop doing something old. In order to get into something, you will have to get out of something else. In order to pick something up, you will have to put something down. Before you make any new commitment of your time, you must firmly decide what activities you are going to discontinue in your personal life. If you want to spend more time with your family, for example, you must decide what activities you currently engage in that are preventing you from doing so.

A principle of time management says that hard time pushes out soft time. This means that hard time, such as working, will push out soft time, such as the time you spend with your family. If you don't get your work done at the office because you don't use your time well, you almost invariably have to rob that time from your family. As a result, because your family is important to you, you find yourself in a values conflict. You feel stressed and irritable. You feel a tremendous amount of pressure. You know in your heart that you should be spending more time with the important people in your life, but because you didn't get your work done, you have to fulfill those responsibilities before you can spend time with your spouse and children.

Think of it this way. Every minute you waste during the waking day is time that your family will ultimately be deprived of. So concentrate on working when you are at work so that you can concentrate on your family when you are at home.

There are three key questions that you can ask yourself continually to keep your personal life in balance. The first question is, “What is really important to me?” Whenever you find yourself with too much to do and too little time, stop and ask yourself, “What is it that is really important for me to do in this situation?” Then, make sure that what you are doing is the answer to that question.

The second question is, “What are my highest value activities?” In your personal life, this means, “What are the things that I do that give me the greatest pleasure and satisfaction? Of all the things that I could be doing at any one time, what are the things that I could do to add the greatest value to my life?”

And the final question for you to ask over and over again is, “What is the most valuable use of my time right now?” Since you can only do one thing at a time, you must constantly organize you life so that you are doing one thing, the most important thing, at every moment. Personal time management enables you to choose what to do first, what to do second, and what not to do at all. It enables you to organize every aspect of your life so that you can get the greatest joy, happiness, and satisfaction out of everything you do.
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Brian Tracy is a leading authority on personal and business success. As Chairman and CEO of Brian Tracy International, he is the best-selling author of 17 books and over 300 audio and video learning programs

Menuju Tatanan Dunia Baru

Selasa, 18 November 2008 | 01:10 WIB

Oleh: IVAN A HADAR

Krisis keuangan global kali ini telah mengubah konstelasi penguasa dunia. AS terpukul dibuatnya. Pada saat sama, China bersiap menyangga perekonomian dunia dengan paket stimulus fiskal sebesar 586 miliar dollar AS.

Hal ini tentu akan memberi peran penting dalam proses pengambilan keputusan global. Sementara itu, Eropa bersuara lantang menginginkan perubahan lembaga keuangan global. Selain saling tuding (Kompas, 14/11/2008), KTT G-20 di Washington dan pertemuan lanjutan bakal menjadi ajang negosiasi dan tuntutan bagi terwujudnya sebuah tatanan dunia baru, khususnya terkait sistem keuangan dan perekonomian.

Pertanyaan terpenting, apakah posisi AS akan sekadar menjadi salah satu negara di antara negara-negara lain? Meski jawabannya ”tidak”, tetapi tidak dapat dimungkiri bahwa peran utama (termasuk ”model”) AS dalam perekonomian global mulai dipertanyakan.

Tiga model ekonomi pasar

Kini, setidaknya ada tiga model ekonomi pasar yang bersaing merebut posisi terdepan.

Pertama, kapitalisme Anglo-Saxon ala Reagan dan Thatcher yang diwarnai pasar bebas dan laissez faire.

Kedua, pasar bebas sosial yang banyak dianut negara-negara Eropa.

Ketiga, kapitalisme otoriter ”model Asia” seperti yang dicontohkan China.

Dalam persaingan ini, menang-kalah ditentukan oleh kekuatan. Pertanyaannya, ketika perannya sebagai panutan mengecil, apakah AS bakal kehilangan kekuatan ekonomi? Ada pendapat yang menengarai berakhirnya imperium AS. Krisis keuangan, blunder Perang Irak disebut-sebut sebagai indikasinya. Parag Khanna menggambarkan AS sebagai raksasa yang sedang mempreteli diri sendiri.

Namun, pakar sejarah dari Harvard, Niall Ferguson, mengatakan, setiap kali terserang krisis, AS berhasil bangkit kembali karena memiliki dinamika yang jarang dimiliki negara lain. Terpilihnya Obama sebagai presiden AS memperkuat asumsinya. Terasa sekali optimisme yang merambah mayoritas rakyat AS saat ini. Suatu Lebensgefuehl (optimisme kehidupan) yang diyakini merupakan kekuatan dahsyat bagi pembaruan.

Dengan tingkat produktivitas 4,1 persen, AS masih menempati posisi puncak dunia. Begitu pula dengan persentase (11,8 persen) penduduk yang mendirikan perusahaan. Selain itu, dalam krisis indeks Dow Jones yang menjadi indikator kepercayaan investor pada perusahaan AS, masih lebih baik dibanding bursa saham China dan Rusia.

Peran China

Meskipun demikian, bisa dipastikan, tatanan baru dunia tidak akan sama dibanding sebelumnya, saat segalanya nyaris ditentukan AS sebagai satu-satunya negara adidaya ekonomi-politik- militer. Kemungkinan besar akan terbentuk sebuah ”multipolar” yang memberi peran dan suara bagi kekuatan baru, seperti China yang memiliki cadangan devisa terbesar, Rusia dengan cadangan gas alam berlimpah, Amerika Latin dengan kekayaan sumber daya alam dan negara-negara Teluk Persia dengan Petrodollarnya.

Ini semua bisa terjadi sebab dalam beberapa waktu ke depan ekonomi AS akan mengalami pelambatan. Pada saat sama, ekonomi China yang memaksimalkan intervensi negara serta peningkatan konsumsi akan tumbuh 7-8 persen per tahun. Dengan cadangan devisa sekitar dua triliun dollar AS, China memperluas pengaruhnya di seluruh dunia. Dana berlimpah China yang lama dicurigai Barat, kini mulai diminati. Bagi Bank Barclay yang menjadi sponsor Liga Inggris, dana dari China menjadi penyelamat kondisi darurat. Ternyata, pemicu krisis keuangan AS juga disebabkan batalnya rencana investasi China ke Lehman Brothers pada saat-saat terakhir.

Dibanding China dan negara-negara Teluk Persia, bagi AS Eropa hanya investor kelas dua. Meski demikian, Eropa — terutama presiden Perancis Nicolas Sarkozy — berharap memperoleh dukungan atas ide pembentukan tatanan baru global. Kelemahan AS diharapkan memberi peluang bagi model Marktwirtschaft an der Leine — ekonomi pasar terkendali ”model” Eropa. Dengan kata lain, sebuah negosiasi terkait lembaga Bretton Woods, koordinasi global atas kebijakan ekonomi dan keuangan global. Harapan Eropa, bisa menarik Barack Obama akan menjadi sekutunya. Dalam kampanye pemilihan presiden, Obama menjanjikan proteksionisme, termasuk menegosiasikan ulang Kawasan Perdagangan Bebas ASEAN (AFTA) dengan Meksiko dan Kanada guna melindungi pekerja AS.

Memang ada persamaan pemikiran, tetapi dalam perannya sebagai presiden, bisa dipahami saat Obama mengedepankan kepentingan AS. Meskipun demikian, tatanan baru dunia tidak akan mengikuti modus lama saat dengan mudah AS menggiring negara lain menuruti polanya. Sebaliknya, usaha mengembalikan peran dominan Eropa akan gagal. Kekuatan baru ingin menentukan sendiri aturan mereka. Sesuatu yang ”menjadi hak mereka”, kata Ha-Joon Chang, dari Cambridge University.

Tanpa itu, tiada kesempatan bagi negara-negara berkembang dan emerging markets, termasuk Indonesia, untuk menapaki tangga kemajuan karena Barat akan ”menendang tangga yang telah membawanya ke puncak kemakmuran”, tulis Chang dalam buku Kicking away the Ladder.

Sebagai bukti, Chang menunjuk sejarah Eropa. Jalan yang membawa Eropa pada kekayaan, bertolak belakang dengan apa yang disarankan kepada negara-negara berkembang. Menerapkan model ”Old Europe” pada zaman sekarang, diyakini tidak akan berfungsi lagi.

Satu hal bisa dipastikan. Tatanan baru dunia memunculkan pelaku, aturan, dan kelembagaan baru. Meski pemimpin Bank Dunia masih menjadi jatah AS dan Eropa mendapat IMF, sejak tahun ini, chief economist Bank Dunia adalah seorang warga negara China. Pada saat sama, ketua Komite Reformasi IMF yang ditengarai merupakan posisi penentu masa depan IMF adalah seorang warga Afrika Selatan. Inikah tanda-tanda menggeliatnya sebuah tatanan dunia baru? [IVAN A HADAR Analis Ekonomi-Politik, Tinggal di Jakarta]

Napoli, Udinese, Fiorentina Tumbang
Hattrick Kejutan

Serie A 2008/09 terus menyajikan persaingan antartim yang kompetitif. Semua klub mampu saling mengalahkan, tidak peduli ada di mana peringkat mereka. Sejak giornata pertama sering muncul kejutan dan tren itu terus terjaga sampai sekarang.

Di giornata 12, Minggu (16/11), kejutan yang terjadi tidak tanggung-tanggung. Tiga tim kuat mengalami kekalahan dari lawan yang di atas kertas bisa mereka atasi. Napoli takluk 1-3 di tangan Atalanta, Fiorentina dikalahkan Cagliari 0-1, dan Udinese tumbang 0-1 di kandang sendiri saat menghadapi Reggina!

Di partai away, Napoli memang tidak sekuat jika bermain di San Paolo, tapi tetap saja kekalahan dari Atalanta terasa mengejutkan. Pasalnya pada lima pertandingan sebelumnya Atalanta hanya bisa meraih dua poin. Nyatanya formasi baru 4-3-1-2 yang dikembangkan Luigi Del Neri bisa efektif menghentikan kecepatan pergerakan Napoli.

Fiorentina takluk di Sant'Elia, padahal dari segi kualitas tim mereka ada di atas Cagliari. "Fiorentina adalah tim kuat pertama yang bisa kami kalahkan. Kemenangan ini membuat kami pantas merasa percaya diri melihat perjalanan musim ini," kata pencetak gol Cagliari, Robert Acquafresca, seperti dikutip Calciomercato.

Cagliari kini sudah mulai masuk ke papan tengah klasemen. Mereka surplus lima poin dari zona degradasi.

Kejutan terbesar terjadi di Friuli. Sebelum giornata ini, Udinese belum pernah kalah di kandang sendiri. Sebaliknya Reggina selalu tumbang di pertandingan away musim ini.

Perjudian pelatih Reggina, Nevio Orlandi, yang memainkan sebuah formasi baru tanpa satu pun striker murni dalam starting XI berbuah manis. Dua trequartista yang disulap menjadi penyerang, Franco Brienza dan Francesco Cozza, menjadi penentu kemenangan Reggina. (wid)

Vid :
http://www.videoku.tv/action/viewvideo/204/Michael_learns_to_rock_That_s_Why_You_Go_Away/?ref=Belajar777