Higher Value

So my week of training on Lean Principles of Manufacturing is completed.  Overall not a bad way to spend a week learning.  The thing that this has brought home to me is the importance of making the most of the time that have - not only by trying to do things more efficiently and effectively, but by choosing the right things to be doing.

This is nothing new, of course - Stephen Covey made a career (well deserved because he was a fine communicator) around these concepts:  Figure out the important things, then do them.  I have read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People several times yet in never really seemed to take hold.  That is beauty of universal concepts though:  one can keep trying different venues until you find something that clicks.

That said, what are my higher values?  I confronted this issue on the weekend when, after having accomplished a great deal on Saturday, I still did not feel like I had "done" anything.  When asked by Snowflake, I commented that I felt that I had not done the highest value things I could have accomplished that day.  I did a little better yesterday (interestingly, a higher value activity seems to be planning, something that we always justify not making time for) but still did not get everything done I should have gotten done.

I need to work on this (obviously).  Time is the great limiting factor and large chunks of my time (at least right now) are taken up with things that I would argue do not have the highest value in my life (other than paying the bills, of course).  That is okay, maybe for the first time in a long time:  I now have a rubric whereby I can take the activities, judge them, and then figure out how to make them even more beneficial to me.  If, as was presented, 50% of the activities at any company are waste (not value added, not improving the product, not willing to be paid for by the customer) can this be any less true of my life?

One goal:  Every time I undertakes something from now one I need to ask myself:  is this the Highest Value Activity I can possibly be doing right now for the product at hand - ultimately, my life?

Let us make it a goal never to spend our time on lower value activities again.  Life is too bereft of time, the stuff of which life is made.