Living each day with a sense of urgency

When it comes to time management, there are three kinds of people: a) Those who abuse time as if they live forever, b) Those that live with a sense of urgency, and c) Those in between. I have been in these categories at some points in my life. What about you? In which category do you find yourself in this season of your life?

Time is one of the scarce resources in this world. We all have 24 hours per day and how we spend it determines our status in life now, and most importantly in the future. Paradoxically, whether we are rich or poor, educated or illiterate, known or obscure, we all have equal amount of time per day. If we lose the time we have today, we lose it forever. No rich, title, money or recognition can buy us back a fraction of second we have already spent.

On the other hand, if we lose our money, friendship, or health, we may get it back. That is not the case when it comes to time. Time is none renewable. That is why we need to enter into a sense of urgency to use our time on a daily basis wisely, effectively, consciously, and by pursuing those important things in our life, for which we care deeply.

We should also know that there is a direct correlation between using time efficiently and success. Successful people live with a sense of urgency and as if each day is their last. Accordingly,

1.   They allocate the chunk of their best time towards the accomplishment of those things they care the most.

2.   They don’t just make the time available though; they maximize it by investing their scarce resources.

3.   Not only that, they remain continuously aligned with those main things closer to their heart and exploit the time they have now and today regardless of so many distractions they may face every now and then, especially in this information age.

Unfortunately, we don’t find many people living each day with a sense of time. The majority of us fail to adopt this lifestyle and remain there for a very long period of time. There are, at least, three compounding factors that may disallow us from living each day with a sense of emergency and at the end of the day deny many of us success, significance, and most importantly fulfillment in life. These triads include but not limited to:

1.  Preoccupying with the past in the expense of the moment at hand. Talking, celebrating, or complaining about the past takes the majority of our time, focus, and energy. 

2.     Procrastination. By waiting too long until pursuing those crucial things in our life becomes too late or impossible. We pause or slow down today for better days ahead.

3.    Skepticism about the future. Some people have a very gloomy picture about the future that they forsake making each day count.

But, we should be careful from making a big mistake in the name of living each day with a sense of urgency. We shouldn’t make a blunder of entering into a pseudo sense of urgency. Therefore, we should familiarize ourselves with what is not a sense of urgency? For instance, sense of urgency doesn’t mean, we:

1.     Do things with a fast pace and all the time, without rest, and by ignoring some important tasks such as learning and growing on a daily basis. Sense of urgency doesn't mean that we do certain things in a fast paced without rest & in the expense of other important aspects of our life.

2.     Avoid our obligations in serving our communities, churches, and nations.

3.   Undermine other important aspects of our life such as our relationships, health, spirituality, and social life.

In conclusion, time is none renewable resource that we should maximize the time we have at hand and each day towards those things that are at most urgent in our life, things that matter the most. Yet, we should be cautious not to enter into a state of pseudo sense of urgency. We should also know that our success here at Toastmasters is determined by how much time we allocate for it and whether it is one of our priorities. We should also use every opportunity here in our club to improve our skill on how to use time wisely.