Monday Mush -- There is no time!

“If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” – John Wooden

The number one complaint that I hear is – We don’t have enough time!  When would I have time for that?  I like the idea/strategy, but there is no time to do it!  Can we have more planning time?  We need time without the kids to get ready?  There is just not enough time in the day!

There are about 1.3 billion variations on that complaint.  We hear it everywhere…  “How are you doing?”  “Oh, good, just so busy there is just no time” …. “Where did the time go?” …. “I need more hours in the day!”

So, we get lost in the cycle of rushing through things because we need to…we need to make up time…we need to gain back time…we need to increase our urgency.  But, when we rush, we never do the job as well.  I would venture to say we don’t do the job right.  How many times have we lectured our kids about a project or assignment that they have to redo.  “If you would have just done it right the first time, you wouldn’t have to waste your time now fixing it or doing it again.”

Do we take that advice?  Do we slow down enough to do it right the first time.  To give 100%, so that we don’t have to fix it later.  If we burn through something teaching-wise or planning-wise, we may feel that we got it done fast to gain time.  But, what happens when the lesson didn’t go quite right, or some learners didn’t quite understand.  We have to re-teach, re-plan, and redo. 

I would bet that we always save time by slowing down and giving 100%.  By making sure you dedicate yourself to the task.  If you aren’t dedicated to doing it, then maybe it isn’t worth doing. 

This week I was hanging some hooks for my wife’s necklaces in the closet.  I had to screw so hooks into the wood of some shelves.  I knew the right way was to drill a pilot hole, and then they would screw it easy.  It would be the right way.  But I was in the closet, and the drill was packed in the garage.  It would take too much time to find the drill and the bits, right?  So, I spent 5 minutes on the first hook…trying to get it started in the wood while grabbing that stupid sharp hook.  Ok, fine, I need to find the drill…3 minutes of looking…2 minutes of getting the bits and walk time to the garage.  14 more installed in 3 minutes.  So not taking the time to get set up the right way would have been 75 minutes worth of work….taking the time to prep took 8 minutes total.  Planning time matters…doing the job the right way matters…having the right tools for the right job matters.

You are great a what you do…I wish I had a time machine…one that creates time, not one to time travel…I appreciate how hard you work.  I hope this week, we can focus on how to do it right the first time to save time in the end. 

Happy Monday!