Navigating a Whackadoodle World: Episode 63, The Power of Vacuum, or Your Sister Eats How Many Plants a Week?
A Whackadoodle discussion in which my student and I discuss why and how to MASTER your goals, including a PDF Time Audit for your time management pleasure.
I looked down at the list of goals that she had presented to me with a grunt.
It was the week of Guidepost Six, the Power of Vacuum, and it was time for my student and I to look at how we budget our time. Most people are pretty good at budgeting money simply because if they over spend, their money runs out before the next paycheck. The lack of money stops the spending. (Unless they are living off credit cards. You know the ones that start with no interest charged, but after a year the interest charge jumps to 28% or more. That’s like adding a 28 cents tax to every dollar you spend. Living off borrowed money is a trap that I wish on no one.)
Time is different from money though. You can’t save time, despite what all those modern timesaving devises claim. You can’t get a raise in time. You are given exactly 1,440 minutes to live each day and how you chose to spend those minutes is up to you. You can waste your time. You can allow others to steal your time. You can also chose to share your time with others. You can even hire others and gain a bit of extra time that way. But try as you might, you will never have more than 1,440 minutes of time each day to spend on yourself.
That being said, I have found that doing an occasional time audit can be immeasurably helpful when it comes to getting the most out the time you have. A time audit is exactly what it sound like. You simply keep a record of how you spend your time for a week, so you can look back on that record and make informed choices about spending your time in the future.
Being the week of Guidepost Six, the time had come for my student and I to conduct another time audit. Last week, I had asked her to review the article we’d written about the value of auditing our time, and to perform a time audit herself before our next session. She had faithfully fulfilled my request. I encourage you to do the same, and I’ve include a link to the article, along with its link to a PDF Time Audit Worksheet, at the end of this discussion.
Okay, so now that I have caught you up on our earlier lesson, let me just say that one look at my student’s MASTERed goals told me that she had not yet mastered the concept, and I could see that more explanation was required.
“The audit looks great,” I told her, putting the good news first. “Thanks for taking the assignment seriously.”
“I always take your assignments seriously.”
“Did the audit reveal anything to you?”
“Humm,” her lips scrunched up as she considered. “I was a bit surprised about how much time I spend on my iPhone, what with friends, and games, and research. I also suspect that I might be using my phone a bit to avoid doing other things.”
“Like what other things?”
“Well it’s fun catching with my friends and playing games, but I tend to get caught up in that and put off my homework and chores until the last second. I’m thinking that’s not a great habit.”
“I would agree. But the thing I’m noticing is that you don’t have a lot of time left for stuff that is important to you. In fact, I don’t see much marked important at all.”
The scrunch in her lips traveled to her brows. “Yeah, I noticed that too.”
“I do see that you’ve practically eliminated the all the peer pressure stuff we spotted last time you did an audit. I don’t think I see anything here that you’re doing just because your friends expect it of you. That’s excellent.” The crease in her brows lifted a bit. “However,” I continued. “These goals of your are not really MASTERed at all.”
Her browns bent again, “You’re always on me about MASTERing my goals. I really don’t see that it makes all that much difference. A goals is a goal, you either keep it, or you don’t.”
“A MASTERed goal can always be kept,” I said sternly. “Because a MASTERed goal is always measurable, accountable, specific, timely, exciting, and realistic.”
“I still don’t see the difference between that and what I wrote.”
“Okay let’s take this one,” I pointed to her list. “Find a part time job on or near campus. Excellent objective. Piss-poor goal. You have absolutely no accountability when it comes to getting a job.”
“Yes I do.”
“No, you don’t,” I shook my head firmly. “You may have influence over that job hunt by having a great resume, a perfect interview, the required skills and experience, but you will never be totally accountable regarding whether or not you get hired, so finding a job is not a MASTERed goal.”
“So how would you MASTER it?” Her voice held a challenge.
“Well let’s see. How many applications do you think that you could realistically send out in a week? Keep in mind, researching the job, submitting the application, possible getting an interview. How many applications could you realistically submit while also maintaining your ‘goal’ of getting straight A’s this semester?” I used air quotes around the word goal because the goal of ‘getting straight A’s’ had not been MASTERed either.
“I don’t know,” she considered my question. “Maybe three.”
“Okay, we start with three. So the MASTERed goal would be, ‘I will submit three applications for a part time job, on or near campus, this week. With that as your goal, whether you find that job or not, you can still keep the goal because you are accountable for submitting the applications, while you are not accountable for whether or not those applications result in an interview, let alone a job offer. Make sense?”
“I guess so.” She sound unconvinced.
“Okay, let’s take this one about getting straight A’s. Yes, you have influence over how well you do. You can increase your study time. You take better notes. You can finish projects in a timely manner, but are you ever accountable for grading yourself?”
“No,” she admitted.
“And who is accountable?”
“The teacher of course,” she was getting impatient with me.
“So where is your influence? Your accountability?”
“It’s like you said. Impressing the teacher. Doing well on the tests. Getting to class on time. Taking good notes. Turning my assignments in.”
“And getting all A’s requires doing that in all five classes,” I reminded her.
“Yeah,” she said carefully, then added in a huff. “Are you trying to make me feel overwhelmed?”
“No, I am trying make your goals more realistic. I am trying help you MASTER your them so that you will always be able to keep them.” I hoped my voice sounded reassuring. “Whether your goals succeed in obtaining each of your objectives remains to be seen. You can always adjust your strategy if the goals aren’t working, but the simple little acronym of MASTER is there to remind you that goals should always be…” And I began my list one more time: “Measurable, so you can check the box and celebrate whenever you’ve have achieved one. Accountable, so nobody but you is responsible for your achieving it. Specific, so it’s a clear action you will take, and not some vague hope. Timely, so you have a realistic deadline to take that action. Exciting, because it is always easier to take action when you are excited by the result. And finally, Realistic, so you aren’t asking so much of yourself that you start to feel overwhelmed.” I leaned in a bit too earnestly to ask, “Am I making sense?”
“Yeah,” she sounded a bit more enthusiastic. “I suppose I get it. I mean, I have to admit that my wanting to eat healthier and avoid sugar doesn’t get me very motivated.”
“Being healthier and living longer is the motivation,” I agreed. “People are generally not motivated to remove all sweets, especially since completely removing sugar from your diet is kind of unrealistic. Sugar in various forms is everywhere. Some forms are considered healthier than others, but sugar is everywhere. And when you consider that carbohydrates break down into sugar…” I didn’t bother finishing the sentence.
She grimaced, “Not very specific, is it? Telling myself to avoid sugar.”
“Not specific at all,” I agreed. “If you are wanting to stop eating so much sugar, you might try a MASTERed goal like eliminating between meal snacks. Although that’s not really exciting is it? It’s so much more fun to add things rather than to avoid them.”
“No way to no snacks anyway,” she jumped in to say. “I need my pick me ups during the day.”
“Okay fine,” I laughed. “Then don’t make that one of your goals.”
“Better believe it, I won’t.”
“Hum,” I suddenly remembered this MASTED goal that my sister had shared with me. “If healthier eating is the objective you’re after, you might try doing what my sister’s doing. She’s made it a goal to eat thirty different plants a week. She’d got the idea from this recipe/instructional book ironically called How to Eat Thirty Plants a Week. I like it because it’s such a MASTERed goal. She likes it because it keeps eating fun, almost like a game, plus it ensures that she’s getting a wide variety of natural nutrients each week. It’s supposed to be really great for your digestive system and overall energy level.”
“Sound easy enough for her, but I’m on the school meal plan,” she complained. “One or two vegetables at every meal, that’s it.”
“But plants are much more than just fruit and vegetables,” I exclaimed. “You could eat nuts, seed, pulses, grains, herbs, spices, chocolate, even coffee. They all count as plants according to this particular eating goal.”
“What the heck are pulses?”
“They’re all the foods that come in pods, like beans, lentils, chickpeas.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And I could count my coffee as one of the plants?”
“Yes, you can count your morning coffee as one plant, but you can’t count it more than once just because you have more than one cup a week.”
“Coffee one day, and tea the next would count as two plants?”
“Yes.”
“Humm,” she seemed to be actually considering giving the goal a try. “Would purple potatoes count as one vegetable and russet potatoes count as two different plants?”
“If those were the rules you set for yourself, yes. And before you ask, iceberg lettuce and butter lettuce are two different plants. Throw in some cabbage, a few sunflower seeds, a couple of raisins, and you have different five plants in one bowl.”
“Might be more fun than simply trying to eat healthier,” she mumbled to herself.
“And much more MASTERed,” I encouraged.
This time she actually cracked a grin. “Okay, I’m beat. I’ll try to figure out some MASTERed goals for getting straight A’s as well, and run them by you.”
“You don’t need to run anything by me. It’s just that whenever you set a goal, you should ask yourself if it is measurable enough for you to know when it’s completed, accountable only to you and not dependent on anyone else, specific enough for you to take action, timely enough for you to accomplish it, exciting enough for you to want to accomplish it, and realistic enough for you to expect it of yourself.”
“What? I can’t delegate anything?” she teased.
“Being able to delegate successfully is a special skill that we can talk about some other time,” I sighed. “In the meantime, you had better not be considering delegating your homework to anyone but yourself.”
“Me?” she said in mock surprise. “I would never.”
“Glad to hear it,” I grinned, and handed her audit sheet back, adding. “I also see that you had a date last Saturday. Wanna share any details?”
“And have you type them up here for all to see? Not on your life.”
She forced me to close my laptop before even sharing his name, but not before I had a chance to add the article and PDF I promised earlier. Hope you fine them helpful, and yes, she had a marvelous time.
Navigating a Whackadoodle World: Episode Six
A Whackadoodle conversation with my student on what it takes to budget your time, why recording your schedule helps to eliminate waste, and how you can MASTER your goals.
