Time Management

In keeping with the leadership skills line of thought I thought I would talk this week about time management. Anyone who knows me very well knows that I find myself frustrated QUITE often. It seems as though I am always finding something fun that I do not have time to do. Recently that something has been my photography. I am in a very demanding graduate program... I find myself needing to go into work for something almost every single day... (it has become a bit of an inside joke in fact my last day off I found myself in there 3 different times). There is always a meeting to attend or a schedule to pick up or drop off or a class I need to take. I write things in my calendar and each level of task priority has its own assigned color... RED for high priority, BLUE for mid level priority and GREEN for things I need to get done but it does not have to be today. I find that most of my tasks end up to be written in RED and I often find myself wondering "how the heck am I going to get all of this done today?" But my photography is never in RED... in fact it rarely makes it to the list at all. Well the other day I made a point of putting it on the list... IN RED! As a mater of fact it was the ONLY thing that was on my list that day. I set my alarm for 3:30 AM so I could be sure to catch sunrise and the golden hour. I got up threw on some deodorant and clothing made a cuppa coffee grabbed my gear and hit the road. It had been raining off and on for a few days so there was hope that the cloud patterns might make for a captivating shot. I headed out in the dark for a place I seldom get a chance to go but decided on this day that would be my destination. I found my spot just in time for the sun to start warming up the sky and sat waiting... and waiting... and waiting. It ended up the sun and cloud cover did NOT make for a captivating shot... they made for a gradual easing into the day that often happens when the sun never peaks through the clouds. I continued to sit there camera in lap... listening to the birds as they began their day... watching the bats return from a night of keeping our desert somewhat bug free... listening to the silence you find when you have chosen to beat the rest of the world to their day. I found myself so relaxed that I did not even care that my photos were not spectacular. As it turned out I should not necessarily have entered photography in red on my date book but rather "connect to self by disconnecting from all of the MUST DO's" I learned a great deal about time management on that day... it turns out that when you make the time for yourself your desire to make time for others increases.
Take the time to stop and listen to the symphony that plays all around you everyday while you are rushing to complete your 'Tasks"