Manage time with "everyday value"

Feel like you're bad at managing your time? Maybe there is something wrong with your values. Don't think I'm making a fuss: your value system determines how you approach problems.

US President Eisenhower once established a code of conduct that became a standard of value for military personnel in stressful situations. No one will forget that in the most difficult war years, this set of values pointed out the direction for everyone to strike and counterattack. This incident shows that people's active behavior under the predetermined value system is powerful.

Does this Code of Conduct have anything to do with you and your work? Innumerable. Not the code itself, but responding according to the value system is a powerful management style.

Values Affect Time

Every day you face challenges at work and in life. Employee issues, productivity issues, and customer relationship issues are not issues you expect to have but have to deal with. How to deal with it? Is it to stick to the usual way, or to rely on the instinct at the time? If you want more control over these issues, addressing them in terms of a value system can help a lot.

A value system gives you a sense of right and wrong in your actions. Your culture and past experiences will allow you to subconsciously construct a model of your value system against which you compare all your behaviors and choose how to respond to everyday activities and challenges. If you act in a certain way, you will get the desired experience and feel "right"; if you act in the opposite way, you will feel "not right." You may not realize it, but you have to take this model against your own behavior several times a day.

As subconscious models, value systems affect behavior indirectly, that is, directly over time. The stronger your value system, in other words, the more accustomed you are to experiencing the "right" emotions that come with your behavior and avoiding the "wrong" emotions, the greater the impact of your value system on time. When your value system and the surrounding culture coexist in harmony, your behavior will not create friction with the people around you.

And vice versa. If your value system is weak, you tend to be more chaotic in behavior and choices, which leads to friction with people around you, and even means direct conflict with the prevailing value system of your environment. If your values are at odds with those of those with whom you have a close relationship, this can lead to broken relationships; if not in harmony with job goals, it can lead to lost jobs; if not in harmony with customer needs, it can lead to lost business. Do you think these will affect your time?

The "everyday value" method of controlling time

If values depend on the emotions you wish to experience, then creeds are the rules or standards that determine whether your actions generate an inner emotion. In other words, they are "if-then" model relationships in the value system. Everyday Values is a time control tool that allows you to design the most important values and beliefs of your daily life, creating the primary basis for everyday decisions.

Creating and using your "everyday values" is as simple as following these 5 steps:

Brainstorm to get the values you want every day. Take 5 minutes to brainstorm what you want to achieve every day. These are the standards you want to follow every day you face challenges. Ask others for advice, don't worry about listing too many or too few, the key is what you really need for the job you're trying to accomplish.

Select the most important 3-5. Pick 3-5 from your brainstorming list and make them your first-line values for making decisions every day. Don't make the list too long, especially if you're just starting out with the tool. Once you're comfortable with this tool, you can continue to add to the list. Create a positive daily creed for each value. Now that you have chosen a set of values to guide your daily behavior and responses, for each criterion, write your creed in the format, "When I..., I feel..." For example, "When the team faces Challenge, when I stimulate the maximum energy of each team member, my blood boils." Don't worry about writing well, write down your creed first, and then change it later.

Review the values and creeds daily. Take a look at your "Daily Value" every day and remind yourself that this is what you're going to do today. Literal creeds and values will gradually become incorporated into your own behavior and character. Rome wasn't built in a day, but with diligence and patience, you will see results. Trust the process.

Re-evaluate monthly and update as necessary. Look back at your "everyday values" every month to see if you need to change or keep the status quo. As you develop this tool, you will need to revise your values and creeds from time to time.

If you use this simple tool to improve your behavioral system, you will find more fulfilling, productive time and less wasted time each day; if you use this tool to improve your performance , you will continue to find that you get more and more things done in less and less time, with more energy and motivation.

Original text adapted from The 26-Hour Day: How to Gain At Least 2 Hours a Day with Time Control by Vince Panella with permission. The book is published by Career Press Inc., Franklin Lakes, NJ, USA, and the author is copyrighted in 2002. Translated by Hong Jing.