It’s TV time

Let’s face it, the TV is a dominant force in our lives. I am a rather partial to watching it myself, particularly when it is baseball season. So, I am absolutely not knocking TV, it can be very educational and certainly helps us to wind down at the end of the day.

However it can be a time stealer. There are a lot of us today who struggle for time. One of the most common responses I hear (and give!) to the question “How are you?” is: “Very busy”. When I talk about balance the issue of time always comes up - “I would love to do that but it is a case of finding the time”

I would like to tentatively, and with no judgement, suggest we all look at our TV time in connection to our values and our goals. If you particularly value personal growth, or connecting with people, how can you incorporate the TV into those values? Possibly there is something else that you could be doing with that time that gets you closer?

As I say, this is not an axe that I particularly want to grind, nor is it an evangelical call to ditch the TV (as I say, I like it myself), but I would like to suggest it is an area where you might be able to find that elusive 30 minutes that would really help you connect with what’s most important.

 

What is your role?

Maybe that sounds like a deep question for this time of the morning! In all areas of life we perform many roles. These roles are not intrinsic to who we are, rather they are functions that we perform in everyday life.

These roles are not always easy to identify – for example, what are the roles that you play as a family member, a father say? Well there can be many – playmate, disciplinarian, bread winner, teacher, mentor, coach, confident, friend etc.

In thinking about roles it is worth looking at different aspects of your life. Typically these include: Health, Career, family, Significant other, Personal growth, wellness, Money etc. It can be anything that is important to you. This compartmentalization of life is artificial of course because all aspects inter-relate but it is useful to finding priorities and identifying where we can make the most impact.

Within each of these “life sections” think about how satisfied you are in each area – scoring your satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10 can be useful here. Thinking about the roles you play can help to identify where you can REALLY impact your life satisfaction, either by doing more of it, less of it, or doing something new.

For example: In the father example above it may be that a lack of satisfaction can be tagged to lack of play time with your kid(s) – in other words the playmate role is not being satisfied. Now we are in a position to identify how we can find more time to address that and, by the way, the time required is normally relatively short.

So, thinking about the roles that you play in all aspects of your life can help identify the areas that can make the most impact in your life when addressed.