Right NOW is the Most Important Moment of Your Life.
Just down the street is an empty vacant lot. It’s been there for a while. It’s close to downtown, so I imagine there’s a ton of potential uses for the property. So, how much is the property worth?
When it comes to appraising real estate, there’s a concept called “Highest and Best Use” which states that the market value of real property is based on the highest and best use of that property. Highest and best use is always that use that would produce the highest value for a property, regardless of its actual current use.
What is the Value of Your Time?
Have you ever thought of what the highest of best use of your time might be?
Every morning you wake up with a vacant lot of time. In the course of the day you must develop that lot—you must build something. You must use your unique talents, skills, and experience to produce value for you and for others.
Can you imagine what your personal ‘time city’ would look like if you were driving down the street past each day—one after the other? What would each lot look like?
How Are You Using Your Time?
Do you sometimes feel like you spend all your time managing crises? That your life is basically spent putting out on proverbial fire after another?
At the end of the day do you feel completely sapped and drained of energy, and yet can’t point to anything you accomplished of real significance?
Then you are probably confusing the urgent with the important.
Learn the Difference Between What is Urgent and What is Important
An urgent task requires immediate action. They’re the ones that shout “Now!”
Important tasks contribute to your long-term goals, values, and mission. Sometimes an important task can also be urgent, but typically, they’re not.
The problem is when we believe that all urgent activities are also important. Unfortunately, we now live in a continuous, always-on state with stimulus-producing technology that treats all information as equally urgent and pressing. In such a state, it’s easy to lose sight of the distinction between the truly important and merely urgent.
The ability to filter the signal from the noise, or distinguish between what’s urgent and what’s truly important is an essential skill to have.
Right NOW is the most important moment in your life, as is the next, and then the next. The realization that here and now is the only place in which you can take action is simple and profound.
As you choose to spend most of your time working on Not Urgent but Important tasks, you’ll feel a renewed sense of calm, control, and composure in your life. You’ll feel like you’re making real progress and developing the highest and best use of your time.
