WORK IN PROGRESS
THE Personal Effectiveness E-zine July 2005

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Please don't disappear!!

Last month more than twenty subscriber addresses were automatically removed from Work in Progress because their addresses were "bouncing" and had bounced WIP at least four times. This means that these people had changed their addresses, or allowed the addresses to become inactive, without advising me of a new address. This is quite separate from a deliberate cancellation. Please do not be one of those who, from my point of view, disappears off the face of the earth! Let me know if your address is changing, and, please, provide me with both the new and the old address. Many of my long-time readers are like old friends, and I truly do not want to lose you!

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Managing our time is all about the ROI

In business terms, ROI refers return on investment, and is thought of in terms of money. How much return does one get for how much invested in advertising? In staff training? In upgrading equipment?

However, the concept of ROI can be a useful one in our lives both in and out of business.

Is there anyone out there who has too much time on his or her hands and not enough to do? Certainly there are such people, and often they deserve our empathy, for circumstances may prevent them from being actively involved in the things that they might dearly love. However, I know that most of the readers of Work in Progress are skimming through this in haste because there are dozens more emails awaiting their attention. Or they are reading it a week or so late because they set it aside to read "when they could find the time."

We all have the same twenty-four hours. Unfortunately, for some of us it seems to scoot by in the blink of an eye, leaving us wondering what we actually did that would move us toward attainment of our objectives.

(As an aside, I'd suggest that a journal or log of what you actually do can be useful. It will either show that you are doing far more than you give yourself credit for, or it will show you where you are wasting time. Or, of course, it could indicate that you are not an accurate recorder of even your own activities ;-) .)

In between all of the things that we absolutely HAVE to do - like sleeping, eating, earning a living, perhaps caring for others - there are many periods of time where we have choices. These are the times about which we need to consider the ROI. These are the time-equivalent of disposable income. What are we getting back from those times? Not getting back in terms of money, necessarily, or "business connections," but what are we getting back that is important to us? Time spent with family probably has a very high ROI, if we really think about what is important. Yet how easy is it to think that time spent with family is expendable? Time doing something that we love is important. Time doing things that make us feel good about ourselves is important. Time doing things that make us feel not so good needs to be examined.

In the years since I started my own coaching business I have joined many organizations. I have also chosen not to renew membership in quite a few of them. Some of them are perceived by many as of high status, or as useful "networking" organizations where I may make important business connections. Yet, I chose to leave them. Why? The simple answer, which leaves some people a little confused, is... "Not enough ROI."

Think about the organizations to which you belong, the meetings you attend, and the time you spend on plans, activities, and events relating to those organizations. Some of them may be vital to your business or career. I personally believe that if there is a professional organization that represents workers in a career field, then all workers in that field have a responsibility to join it so that they may be a part of that representation. However, there are other organizations that fail to provide what we expected when we joined them.

I suggest that if you find yourself reluctant when time comes for the next year's dues, you may choose to make a pro and con list. What are you getting out of each organization that is positive? What are you getting out of it that is negative? What are you putting into it?

Positives may be business connections, but they may also involve connections with people whose company you enjoy, who give you appropriate recognition and or with whom you experience feelings of belonging. These are important - most of us have the instincts of pack animals however much we might think we want to be lone rangers. We want to belong. It may be that this is an organization where you are learning and stretching yourself, becoming more of the person you want to be. It may be that it provides opportunities for you to give back to society in some way. It may provide spiritual connections. All of these may be positives.

However, there may also be negatives. An organization where the leaders act unprofessionally, are chronically disorganized or late, or indulge in croney-ism and clique-ish behavior may provide you with more negatives than positives. An organization in which you question the ethics of some of the members, or even the leaders, certainly needs a second thought. Consider whether you look forward to their events, or do you drag yourself to them out of a sense of reluctant duty. Consider how you feel at the end of a meeting. Do you leave on a high note, feeling more cheerful, or better about yourself, than when you arrived? Or not? Does your trip home involve irritated thoughts or feelings that indicate you are feeling worse than before you went?

Then there is the issue of how much you put into the organization in terms of time, effort, and money. All of these are different forms of cost.

If an organization takes up a lot of time, what are the other things that you could be doing with that time? Are some of them things that are, if you look deeply, more important to you? Perhaps time with loved ones? The project that you've been promising yourself for the past six months that you'd complete before the end of the year? Some much-needed self-care or "R&R"?

You almost certainly look at the costs that involve money. Can you afford another year's dues? Where else is the money needed? That is usually fairly cut-and-dried. However, money aside, if a volunteer organization demands so much effort that it leaves you drained and without time for yourself, then the issue of boundary-setting raises its head, and, again, we may wonder about the ROI. Certainly most of us would like to save the world, and we believe in putting time and effort into organizations that we see as worthwhile. However, are we short-changing ourselves? Our loved ones? Are we willing to sacrifice our loved ones because we are trying to save the world?

Unless we have many personal and social connections it may not be healthy to belong to nothing, to play the lone ranger as we take pride in being "non-joiners." On the other hand, it is entirely possible to allow ourselves to be pulled in so many directions, by so many organizations, that we lose track of what or who have the most important right to our time, our energy, and our attention.

Consider all of this, when next those dues become due.

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Remember that more of Diana's writings can be found in an intermittent (especially through the summer) blog at
http://blog.choicecoach.com/.

Also, an archive on old Work in Progress issues going back to 1997 can be found at
http://lists.webvalence.com/sites/WorkInProgress/

If you or your friends would like a free half-hour sample coaching call, please contact me by email or via my web site at http://ChoiceCoach.com. I may not answer instantly as there will be some times this summer when I cannot access the internet, but you may be sure that I will respond as soon as I am able.

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PLEASE! Any re-use of this material should include the words "Copyright Diana Robinson 2005. For more information visit Diana's web site http://ChoiceCoach.com or contact her at Diana@ChoiceCoach.com."

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