There is no royal road to anything. One thing at a time, all

things in succession. That which grows fast withers as rapidly;

that which grows slowly endures.

J.S. Holland

My granddaughter Zoe was about 3 when I was spending an afternoon with her. When it was snack time, I gave her a glass of cranberry juice, She took a swig, shuddered, scowled and said dramatically, “Bitter.” 

Although I was surprised that “bitter” was iin her vocabulary, I’d seen that shudder and scowl before. From adults. In seminars. Certain words and concepts often produce such a reaction. Two big eliciters of scowls are “patience” and “small steps.”

What so many fail to realize is that a vision, by its very nature, demands that we be willing to patiently take small steps. A vision shows us what’s possible, not what’s already accomplished. Being willing to become the person who is living that vision requires leaving behind the person who isn’t. It’s starts by understanding and accepting that any vision or dream is first of all a call to growth. Accepting that call doesn’t have to be intimidating if you approach it in the right way.

My friend John is an avid collector who has spent that past several years building an impressive collection of old radios. “I found another treasure today!” he’ll announce after one of his estate sale hunts. People who collect are always on a quest and know that the fun comes from never being quite sure when or where the next treasure will be found.

Have you ever thought about taking a collector’s approach to accomplishing your dreams? Success is a cumulative process and keeping that in mind can make getting there a perpetual treasure hunt. The trick is to notice and celebrate little bits of progress, not just major advances.

Even more valuable is putting into practice what I call The Law of Gradual Increase. I learned this one from my brother Jim. On a visit to California one winter, I noticed that Jim was looking remarkably fit and trim. There was no middle-aged potbelly or sagging muscles to be seen on him. When I commented on how terrific he looked, he said, “I just did 64 sit-ups this morning.”

“How did you arrive at that odd number?” I asked.

“Well, a few months ago,” he explained, “I heard a speaker talking about fitness. I had gotten lazy about regular exercise and was finding it hard to get going again. He suggested that we start doing two sit-ups a day for a week and then add two more the following week and so on. At the end of a year, he pointed out, we’d be doing 100 sit-ups every day. I decided to take his advice and it’s been easy to build up little by little.”

Reverend Robert Schuller often reminds his readers and listeners, “By the inch it’s a cinch; by the yard it’s hard.” This is more than a catchy phrase, however. Using the Law of Gradual Increase transforms the impossible into the ridiculously simple. 

The road to success can not be traveled in seven-league boots. While we may be impatient for our vision to be realized, keep in mind all of the people who have received success before their self-image was ready for it. Where are they now? 

If you see your vision as an invitation for you to discover and become your best, most fabulous self, you’ll awaken to the fun of the journey. You’ll rejoice in going just a little bit farther week by week. You’ll build something strong, lasting and rich.  Because, in the end, visions aren’t really about having; they’re about becoming.

Plan Ahead

Stephanie Winston’s Getting Organized is another source of time tips. Gather your tools, equipment, research or whatever you need to complete a project before you start, Winston recommends. You lose both time and momentum if you have to keep stopping to search for something necessary to completion.

Learn to use little bits of unexpected time, too. Carry a memo pad and a book you want to read with you at all times to take advantage of those minutes when your doctor keeps you waiting or your lunch date is stuck in traffic. In fact, give up waiting time altogether by using  these gifts of time to create or learn. 

Work Smarter

If your work area is a mess, start the new year by enlisting the aid of a professional organizer who can help you put things in order. Clutter and messy work areas cause confusion and irritability. Give yourself the advantage of working in an orderly environment.

Know your own energy patterns and schedule creative work when your energy is highest leaving routine chores for your less energetic moments. 

Become a consolidator. Return all phone calls during a specific time period rather than responding to each one. Combine errands. Keep file folders you use most often at your fingertips.  

While some people schedule every moment of their life, it makes more sense to use a diary or calendar to make dates with yourself alongside necessary appointments and deadlines. 

Super Smart

One of the very best things you can do is create at least one profit center that requires a minimum of your time and attention. While the popular term for this is passive income, it’s a term that sounds slothful to me. The concept is brilliant, however. Whether it’s collecting royalties on intellectual property you’ve created, rental income from property that you own, or affiliate income from recommending someone else’s products on your Web site, the idea is to have an income source that’s nearly automatic. It’s as close as we can get to buying time.

“People assume that they can find many ways to save time,” says management expert Merrill Douglass. “This is an incorrect assumption for it is only when you focus on spending time that you can begin to use your time effectively.” That’s the smartest tip of all.

Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can
do to keep in the same place. If you want to get to somewhere
else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!
from Through The Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

We Librans pride ourselves on being serenely balanced. No wild extremes for us, is our motto. Then why was I waking up with my Things To Do List flashing through my mind before my eyes were even open? Why had I written, “Get Oil changed” on my weekly list five weeks in a row? Why was I repeatedly telling friends, “No, I can’t come out and play”? How had my life gotten so out of control?

Procrastination was not the cause of my downfall. Underestimating the time it would take to complete several projects had been my undoing. I needed expert advice in reclaiming my time and I needed it now! Fortunately there are a number of writers who have given time management a great deal of thought and it seemed a good use of my time to consult them.

Prioritize

Alan Lakein’s classic book, How To Get Control of Your Time and Your Life, introduced me to the notion of determining priorities. His system is simple and works wonderfully. Once you’ve created a list of things you want to do, you rank them in order of importance using only the letters A, B or C. This system is designed to keep you focused on the most important things in your life, but it only works if you also understand consequences. In determining what item deserves an A, you also ask yourself, “What are the consequences if I don’t do this?” Often you’ll discover that in answering that question what first looked like an A item is actually a C.

Along those same lines is an idea I got from Charles Handy that has made an enormous difference in my life. That concept, which he writes about in The Hungry Spirit, is the idea of determining what “enough” means to you. He says, “My wife and I, since we became self-employed portfolio people, have regularly sat down each year and worked out what we need to live on. Since our standards of comfort and future financial security are quite high, so are our levels of enough. The simple act of doing this removes the temptation to maximize our income by working around the clock and the calendar, which is the dilemma of every self-employed person. This process has freed up a lot of our time because once the enough is guaranteed, there is no need or desire to spend time on making more than enough.”

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

New month, new theme. We’ll be spending the month of December Closing the Gap as I explore ideas, resources and tools for getting from where you are to where you want to be.