Off Center of Focus, Too big a Centre of Concern

Today I was pondering why is it that I have divided life into roles earlier and I still fail to get most of the things done.

As the book “First thing first” puts it, after a while where you don't meet the goals that you set, you start to bash yourself up.  Although I like his “Balance of Roles” chapter, I felt that the examples given were really limited? Like exercising and spending time with family, yeah I thought of that already. 

The greatest key is really to reject things and put efforts into things that matter. The worse matter is that there are so many wonderful things worth doing/nice to do: Such as gathering up all my blogs, make a distinction between my delicious and diggo blogs.

It seems that although I applied the roles concept, I tried to do it in month and didn't conscientiously apply to it. Things could have been very different if I plan in a week and ask myself what are the one, two things that if I have done in each role will make the greatest difference.  It is very crucial because when I do have the time, instead of planning the week ahead, I am wrapping my books - meaningful but trivial task.

Photo right from book cause I can't find a good one online

At times too, it seems that I have allowed my center of concern overwhelm my centre of influence. That is the thing about reading TIMES magazine, and many other books. Aptly put in the book, things of concern may include the president's nuclear policy. Hahaha. Just like mine would be the debt condition of US.

Well, it does seem that all those people who aren't that interested about general knowledge in the first place got it right!! They are all focusing on what in life that really affects them, such as their family and friends.

I can't deny that it has made me a much more knowledgeable person, but yet I do feel rather overwhelmed at times.  It does seems that I want to write a review for every book or every Times magazine that I read.

Hence what I do like about the book in “ First thing First” is having “perhaps” list - or all the things in the world that you may want to do.

It is just like tracing the journey of my blogs over the years as well. When I first started it, I thought of sharing all my experiences and knowledge. It is like believing if people learnt about the environmental state of the world, they will see the need to protect the environment. If they watched Who wrote the Bible, they may have second thoughts about religion. If they read Guns,Germs and Steel and A Brief History of Nearly Everything, they will have more faith in science to explain most of the state of the world.

As I have come to appreciate this year, I spent most of my life making myself more capable but the hardest skill to learn is people skills.

Another thing that I like in Steven Covey's “First thing First” – Listen to your conscience.  It is hard to do with so many interruptions in the modern age. I used to like having my smart phone to clear my work and Gmail, but now I resist it. I just want to be alone and think, think and think. Allowing my thoughts to percolate from deep inside to the surface.