November 2009

Beat the Clock

Without the ability to honour our selves we will fall at the first hurdle when it comes to effective self management. It boils down to character and proactive growth. In particular –discipline.

No one like this word, especially self – discipline. Apparently the word derives from disciple meaning the follower of a leader, teacher or philosophy. So in order to be an effective manager of self you need to be a disciple of your own philosophy or beliefs and values. Since you have already decided what your own philosophy, values and beliefs are, you can now live a life that follows through.

For many this is the hard part! It’s often easier to the find quick fix or solve an immediate need/problem than be true to what we really believe is the best course of action of our lives.

This is where integrity is vital if you are going to be true to yourself and fulfill your potential.

Steven Covey’s 1V quadrant system

Rather than focusing on things and time, Covey realises it is far better to concentrate on relationships and achieving results.

With this in mind he has devised the four quadrant method

Time is spent in one of two ways: Urgent and important

Urgent:

Telephone calls
Visible
Insist on action
Often popular with others
Easy
Fun
We react to them!

Important:

Results based
Contributes to your mission and values
High priority goals
Require more initiative and proactivity

If we don’t know what is important, of the outcomes we desire in our lives, we are constantly side tracked by urgent.

Who lives in a house like this?

Quadrant 1:

These people are consumed by crises or problems. Let’s be honest here, we all have situations like this in our lives at some time. But a typical quadrant 1 dwellers are crisis managers, problem minded people and deadline producers.

As long as you keep the focus on quadrant 1, the crises and problems keep getting bigger and bigger. Rather like gigantic waves, one after another knocks you down. Eventually you cannot keep on getting up.

The result:

Stress
Burnout
Crisis management
Always putting out fires

The only escape quadrant 1 dwellers have is into the not urgent nor important activities of quadrant 4. Here they find rest and relaxation away from the stresses of quadrant 1 activities.

Their time matrix is composed of around 90% in quadrant 1 and 10% in quadrant 4. Very little time is spent in quadrants 2 or 3.

Quadrant 3:

So how do quadrant 3 dwellers spend their time? They mistakenly believe that they are in the first quadrant dealing with urgent and important activities. In reality they are actually managing urgent but non important activities.

Reacting to circumstances usually originating from the priorities and expectations of others they live in false reality. They tend to have a short term focus with a crisis management mentality. Not having their own mission statement and value system they exhibit chameleon qualities in order to ‘improve’ their reputation. They see goals and plans as worthless and often feel victimised and out of control. Shallow and or broken relationships seem to be the norm.

Quadrant 4:

You can spot these people a long way off! They have a poor work ethic and seem totally focused on enjoying themselves. Have a little thought for others yet are often dependent on others or circumstance to feel good about themselves.

The result of quadrant 3 and 4 living:

Total irresponsibility
Fired from jobs
Dependency on others and circumstances/institutions

Where do effective people choose to live?

They avoid quadrants 3 and 4 like the plague and minimize quadrant 1 down to size! They understand that just because something is urgent it may not be important. Spending more time in quadrant 2 enables them to minimize what happens in quadrant 1.

At the heart of an effective persons home is quadrant 2. Here they can dwell with a personal management system that are not urgent but are important. These things include:

Building relationships
Writing a personal mission statement
Long range planning
Exercising
Preventative maintenance
Preparation

The result:

Vision and perspective
Balance
Discipline
Control
Few crises

None of this is new. You knew this already but because it wasn’t urgent you didn’t do it!

The thinking of a quadrant 2 person:

Be opportunity minded not problem centered. Think preventatively. Remember the old saying feed a fever starve a cold? Change it to feed opportunities and starve problems. (Peter Drucker) You won’t stop getting a cold but you will start to be more effective and less stressed!

Exercise:
1. What one thing (that you’re not doing now) could you do that if done regularly would bring about positive change in your personal life?
2. What one thing in your professional life would bring about similar change

Are they quadrant 2 answers?

Remember the 80/20 rule: 80% of the results from 20% of the activities.

Exercise:

Which activities are in each quadrant in your life in terms of:

Work
Personal life
Household

Steps to move into quadrant 2:

1. Start packing

Making a start by saying ‘no’

You will probably be thinking that it’s impossible to find the time to start working on quadrant 2. Here’s the trick. The time has to come from quadrants 3 and 4 to begin with. In order to do this you will need to work on your skills of saying ‘no’.

This isn’t something new. Ask the question ‘by saying ‘yes’ to x I am saying ‘no’ to y. By saying ‘no’ to some of the urgent stuff in quadrant 1 and ‘no’ to some of the pleasant activities in quadrant 4, you will begin to create the time needed to address those important things in quadrant 2.
Remember that ‘the enemy of the ‘best’ is often the ‘good’’ Steven Covey

Exercise:

What can you begin to say ‘no’ to this week?

Step 2: Load the van

Use a principle centered source as the basis for your house move into quadrant 2. You will then need:

An ability to prioritise
An ability to organize around those priorities
And the discipline to follow through

I.e.: a balance between increasing our production and our production capability.

Remember unless you have that bigger ‘yes’ burning inside you will be pulled back into quadrants 1, 3 and 4.

Loading gear:

Without the following tools you will not be able to make the move into quadrant 2

Harmony: this is vital if you are going to have a quality of life and enjoy the journey. There must be coherence between your purpose and plans, your roles and responsibilities and your desires and discipline.

It may help to keep a copy of your mission statement in your journal/planner to keep the balance at the forefront of your mind.

Balance: What’s the use of having success in one area if there is repeated failure in another? A successful career doesn’t really compensate for a broken marriage, poor health or a character weakness/flaw.

Correct specs! It’s all about focus: remember the lock on lock out tool where you discovered it was much easier to focus on a goal/topic when you locked onto it and locked out that which didn’t contribute? Use it here. Forget daily planning and focus instead on scheduling your priorities. It is then much easier to slot in first those activities which are important and match your mission, as well as the urgent.

People power: effective schedules require effective people. A principle centered person remembers to invest in people. Schedules and crises are not more important than the people who mange them. Value and encourage those around you rather than create guilt when a schedule is not met.

Pliability: think of your schedule as your servant not your master. It is there to help you not create more stress! It must reflect your particular style and methods.

Portability: An organizer needs to be mobile so you can have it with you at all times. Imagine you are stuck in traffic, that’s an ideal time to review your mission statement. Maybe you need to reschedule, you can if you’re away from the office and have your particular device with you.

Step 3. Moving in

So the van’s loaded and you’ve arrived at your new destination of quadrant 2. The following will help you unload and settle into your new home.

What’s my role?

Think about the roles from your mission statement. Think about where you spend time during the week.

E.G Yourself. Wife, mother, daughter, job title, community/voluntary, church

Goals:

Consider what you want to accomplish during the week in each area. Link these short term goals to your longer term ones and your mission statement. Ensure quadrant 2 activities are included.

Summary: You can beat the clock as you:

Operate self discipline
Live according to your mission statement
Move into and enjoy living in quadrant 2

Beat the Clock Read More »

Jesus may have visited UK

UK msn.news has reported today that a new film suggests Jesus may have come to Britain, as described in the hymn Jerusalem, its director said.

The documentary, And Did Those Feet, explores the story behind the legend which survives in the hymn, for which William Blake wrote the words.

The legend claims Jesus visited several places in the West Country, such as the Roseland peninsula and Glastonbury, with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathaea.

In the film, Scottish researcher Dr Gordon Strachan said it is plausible Jesus may have visited Britain to further his learning.

Ted Harrison, the film’s director and producer, said: “There is a very much closer connection between early Christianity and the classical Greek and Roman world than previously thought.

“If somebody was wanting to learn about the spirituality and thinking not just of the Jews but also the classical and Greek world he would have to come to Britain, which was the centre of learning at the time. But there is nothing specific by way of archaeological finds; Jesus’s shoe has not turned up.”

Dr Strachan, a Church of Scotland minister who lives in Edinburgh, lectures on the history of architecture at Edinburgh University.

The film also explores how St Augustine heard the legend of Jesus’s visit when he came to England around 597AD. He heard that Jesus built a chapel in Glastonbury and wrote to the Pope to tell him about it. Mr Harrison said: “The concrete evidence is this reference by St Augustine that at Glastonbury there was a small building or church that was put up by Jesus, built by the hand of the Lord himself. But the medieval Glastonbury Abbey has been built on top of it.”

The documentary also claims Britain was at the forefront of learning and scholarship in the first century AD, particularly in mathematics. And it looks at the maths involved in structures such as Stonehenge and the standing stones in Calanish on the Isle of Lewis, and relates it to mathematics in the Bible, medieval cathedrals and the modern-day credit card.

The 45-minute film will be launched at the British Film Institute in London on Friday.

Jesus may have visited UK Read More »

Ask Alison November 2009

Today the government announced that they want to teach school children, from the age of five, how to prevent abusive relationships. Some of you might find this a little alarming.

The statistics on domestic violence may surprise you:

1 in 4 women will suffer from domestic violence at some point in their lives. (British Crime Survey 1998)

Two women a week are killed by their partners/ex partners

Each year 45% of female homicide victims are killed by present or former partners. (British Crime Survey 1996)

The chances of a child being hit is 4-9 times higher where there is adult violence ( Moffit and Caspi 1998)

These are alarming figures aren’t they? Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security that just because you’re in church these figures don’t apply- THEY STILL DO!

Domestic abuse doesn’t just come in the form of the obvious physical or sexual, it can be far more subtle. Here are some other ways that inappropriate power and control can manifest itself:

Emotional: putting her down, making her feel bad about herself, playing mind games, humiliating her, making her feel guilty

Minimising or denying the blame: not taking her concerns seriously, shifting responsibility or saying she caused it

Using children: using the children to relay messages, threatening to take them away

Using male privilege: treating her like a servant, making the big decisions, being the one to define men’s and women’s roles

Using economical abuse: preventing her from getting or keeping a job, asking her for money, taking her money, not letting her have access or know about family income

Using threats: threatening to hurt her, leave her, commit suicide, report her to welfare or making her do illegal things.

Using intimidation: making her afraid by using looks, actions or gestures, smashing things, destroying her property, abusing pets, displaying weapons.

If any of these things ring alarm bells for you or someone you know, be very careful how you handle the situation. If there are just a few minor areas of concern it may be appropriate to talk it over as a couple and /or seek the advise of a trusted friend or minister. Where there is more serious behaviour, confronting the perpetrator can actually make matters worse. It might be more beneficial to encourage the person concerned (I mean the victim here) to seek confidential, professional help from a trained counsellor such as those with Relate, Respect or Women’s Aid. See below for contact numbers.

For many men and women, the verse in Ephesians 5 ‘wives submit to your husbands’ can be misinterpreted. It does not mean you have to suffer any of the behaviour mentioned above. Let’s look at the verses in context to see what Paul really meant.

22: ‘Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.’

23: ‘Husbands love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husband ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.’

In a nutshell, Paul describes a relationship where the wife submits to a husband who loves, cherishes and respects her. The instruction is clear to husbands to love their wives in a self sacrificial way, not with an abuse of power or control. When Paul’s instruction is followed, the wife can then love, respect and admire her husband.

I truly hope this hasn’t been too heavy for you girls. This month I have come across two relationships in church where some kind of abuse is occurring. Both women thought it couldn’t happen to them because they were with a Christian husband. My heart is to make you aware of God’s desire for you in relationships. You are worth so much in his eyes, (he even sees us without wrinkles, I love that bit!) you deserve the love of a man who values your contribution to the relationship, where there is equality, shared responsibility, trust and support. Next time we’ll look at what makes a really great relationship.

If you have any concerns and want to discuss them with me please get in touch via the Activate website.

Relate Response: 0300 100 1234

Respect Phoneline: 0845 122 8609

Women’s Aid: see your local phone directory

Ask Alison November 2009 Read More »

Concert with a difference- Hazel Grove Sign Choir

Thursday 26 November at 8pm.
We are really thrilled to have Diane Mallon and the Sign Choir to entertain us. The music, singing and pictures will have a real Christmas flavour and it will be fascinating and captivating to see how a deaf person uses sign language to communicate. Men invited also. Tickets £5 available from 0161 485 1539 or contact Ann Green 0161 439 6629 or anngreen@totalise.co.uk for more information.

Concert with a difference- Hazel Grove Sign Choir Read More »

Scroll to Top

By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information

The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.

Close