Читать книгу Getting Things Done - Rus Slater - Страница 8

Imagine you have an account at a bank where you automatically get credited each morning with $86,400. Every evening the bank takes back whatever part of the balance you failed to spend during the day. Nothing can be carried over or transferred. What would you do? Well, I’d try to spend every cent, and I bet you would too!

You do have such a bank account; at the ‘Bank of Time’. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it debits whatever portion of this total you have failed to invest to some ‘good’ purpose.

“The Future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is” C.S. Lewis, English author

“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for time is the stuff life is made of.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–90), a Founding Father of the USA

If you fail to use the day’s deposit, the loss is yours. There is no going back. You need to use this deposit wisely so as to get from it the utmost in business success, health and happiness. Use it so as to get the most done.

The clock is running, and you need to make the most of your time. Think about the value of these units of time:

• The value of one year. To recognize the value of a year, ask a student who failed to achieve the grade.

• The value of one month. Ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.

• The value of one week. Ask the person who edits the weekly newspaper.

• The value of one hour. Ask the people sitting waiting for someone vital to join a meeting.

• The value of one minute. Ask the person who just missed their train and so failed to make an important presentation.

• The value of one millisecond. Ask the person who won the silver medal.

If you should have done something and you didn’t, you can’t have the time back! So learn to make the most of it.

Remember that time waits for no one.