Cloud points out that in today’s work environment, work expands to the time allotted, and now there is no allotment. It is infinite. Anytime, anywhere, you can be working—if you have no boundaries and structure of your own. He offers several instructive suggestions:
1. Recognize that you are a cause, not a result. You will be empowered by your choices and your actions to bring about the results you want in your work and in your life, as opposed to your work and your life bringing about its results on you.
2. Your ability to set limits & boundaries is paramount to being a successful person. To be able to draw the line and say, “I will not go past here” is critical. Cloud points out that he has never seen a long-term successful person who did not have a good sense of personal limits. If you find it difficult to say “I won’t” or “no” then you are subject to being drawn into many destructive patterns, including everything from simply overextending yourself, to downright illegalities. It is important to remember a basic law of the universe when thinking about limits: You get what you tolerate. That law holds true in relationships with a puppy, a child, a direct report, or a spouse.
3. How you are spending your time is exactly that—you spending your time. You are choosing to do with it whatever you are doing with it. Your time is your life. Period. How you spend it ends up being what your life is. Ask, “Am I the one deciding what I am going to be doing and by when?”
4. You would do well to have a vision for your career and areas of your personal life. Once you do, then how you spend your time should reflect investment in that vision, spending the resources of time and energy to make it come true. If you can’t define what you want in life, then you are going to find yourself getting leftovers in many situations.
5. Are you giving your best (time, energy, and resources) to your highest priorities? There are activities that are vital to your business, your vision, your mission, your health, your goals, your soul, your relationships, your family, your future, and your life that you can ignore and not feel any immediate consequences. The tendency in life is for the urgent and comfortable to always vie for your best—and first—attention. You are probably involved in and attached to activities that are good, but they are keeping you from having time and energy for activities that would be the best for you. Be careful with those choices. Wise people are not smarter than other people; they have just learned from experience or they listen to the experiences of others and believe it.
6. How do you set your priorities? There are a lot of different methods for prioritizing what gets done when. The one Dr. Cloud likes best is a weekly and daily planning meeting with yourself to figure out what agenda you must move ahead in that time. I am finding that to work well for me too.
Cloud wraps up the book with a quote from Heraclitus, who said more than 2000 years ago, “Character is destiny.” Where we end up has a lot to do with who we are…
May you find the right One-Life Solution as you shoot for the stars!