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Shaolin Academy - Time & Life, Planning & Prioritizing

Identify, Understanding and Using Fundamental Planning and Prioritizing Skills

Synopsis

Time, Life and Priority/ Success management is an important part of everyone's life not matter if they acknowledge it or not. Many, most of the planning methods though make a degree level task of planning and prioritizing. If you are a professional manager, leader, CEO you will need to acquire these 'tools' and use them. But if you are an average Jo who want's to have a greater influence on who you are and where you are going the effort of learning these tools is already a task often made difficult by the complexity of presentation and explanation. Then if you don't use it often maintaining the skill is another challenge. A simple, easy to use, easy to remember tool is needed. Something that works on a visual basis and allows you to step back and have an overview and close in and look at the detail. I believe that this 3 Ring Management Principle is such a tool; for Time, Life, People, Project and Self Understanding and Management. And it is this latter aspect that we will look at for if you know who your are and what you can do, you will know how to grow to be able to go where you want.

Prologue

Self Discovery, Self Understanding is often considered to be in the realm of Guru's, Masters, Mystics and Psychologist/Psychiatrist. Yet, when it come to understanding the self, you are the inside person, the one with all the knowledge, in full, in truth and with a bit of guidance, in understanding. This tool/method will help you start the journey of self management and with time my even give you a clearer view of who you are.

Reasoning

You are a product of your decisions. Your decisions are a reflection of who you were at the time of the decision and thus who you are now. What you are doing now is a result of your past decisions, leanings, mistakes and other types of bruising. Who you want to become is often hampered by your past and often by not really knowing who you are and where you want to go. If you understand your past self, that your past and current decisions are based on who you were and who you now are. Know your past and you may better understand your future or, forget your past and you are doomed to keep making the same mistakes!

Wins and Losses

What have you achieved in your life? Finished schooling, certificate, friends, happy family life, health, etc. Capture all the positive aspects of your life and recognize what you have achieved, by chance, by design; but also what you have by birth and by genetics! List on a sheet of paper, like a balance sheet, all the good parts of your life. And just do it, don't evaluate them, if they pop into your mind, write them down. We can evaluate later, right now just do a Positive brain Storming Session. If it pops into your mind, you write it down!

But divide the sheet of paper into two, like a profit and loss statement or balance sheet. On the right side have a list of all the bits in you life where you did not do well, cringe about thinking about them and who's memories cause you pain. Also the parts about yourself that you do not like, looks, character, manners, anything and everything. SPILL it all onto your balance sheet!

Initially, just start writing things on the paper and do not seek to organize them. At this point your are just Imaginering your past, bringing images into your mind which represent significant past decisions and writing these down on a large sheet of paper. Spend a bit of time on this. At this point one says "when you have captured most everything..." but that doesn't work well with memory so, when you have looked at your Professional Significant Decisions/Achievements, personal, other, friends, family, etc., start grouping them together initially by just writing the subject, say Work, and all the Achievements/Decisions regarding that. That is how the Mind Map Starts and you can work with Multiple Centers/Subjects without having them linked.Start your Mind Map when you have a representative list, if anything comes to mind put it on the list and on the mind map as we will have many uses for both!

Some significant concepts and ideas!

Need-Need, Need-Want and Want-Want

Need-Need, Need-Want, Want-Want..... well yes, you Need-Need to breath, eat and probably also sleep. But you Need-Want a place to live, cloths and possibly a car. It may be a good idea to have a look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to also understand that what we really mean. When we are on one of the 'levels' consider that that is what we Need-Need even though for other it may seem like a Need-Want (Perspective, Perspective). We Need to recognize that we are not separate from Humanity and like many people we follow a pattern of Needs and Wants. What was a Need last year may not be one this year and visa-versa. So have a quick look at the Maslow/Shaolin Needs Summary below!

Needs

To help with the Life Planning and ME time it is good to understand NEEDS. What is the difference between Needs & Wants. We have covered this before with the two brothers and sister Need, Want and Would-like-to-have. But here is another perspective.

We need to eat, sleep, breath, develop and survive. OK, but really, what are Needs and where do they come from and how do they influence our behavior and outlook on life? Following is one possible definition, as defined by Abraham Maslow.

For example, would we eat if our body did not Need the nourishment to survive? How about another 6 to 8 hours more time per day if we did not Need to sleep! Think of all the money you would save if you did not Need protection from the weather and didn't Need a place to live....

So Needs seem to be the things that we require to survive but not all Needs are created equal; there some Fundamental Survival Needs and some Spiritual Thriveal Needs. Maslow recognized human needs into 5 hierarchal levels. It seems that the requirement of each level have to be satisfied to a certain degree before we feel up to looking at the next level. Let's have a look at these levels;

Additional Information and Clarification available/taken from McLeod, S. A. (2007). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - Simply Psychology - from http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

Understanding

We breath every second but eat every half dozen hours and sleep once day; yet each of these items are a Need-Need no matter where you are. After these Survival Needs we have less tangible Needs that may not always be apparent as they do not threaten our lives immediately but can have consequences such a Jail, not having a Home, not being able to Walk and such things. So we need to also recognize that there are some Need-Needs like our ability to Walk and Talk, Life and Love, have a place to Eat and Sleep and such are also important. And that is also what Maslow recognized that our perception of what Need-Needs are increases as we go up the levels. And here is one of the first parts to recognize from your list. Re-organize your list according to the Hierarchy of Needs. This will give you the first insight as to where you are and thus give you a clue to where you are going and what you are wanting!

You may now notice that one of the differences between Need-Needs and Need-Wants is just based on where in your Needs you are. If you have just finished school you may be seriously thinking of moving out of home and then your main motivators, main Need-Needs will be a place to live, enough money to eat and a place to sleep. All else beyond this will seem like Need-Wants. Conversely, if you are well progressed and say Living the Good Life, say around L5, you may be taking the your previous Need-Needs for granted; until you loose them that is and then it is called a Rude Awakening!

Again, you may have remembered or realized that a new aspect when you entered your list into the 9 areas. For one, you may have come across something that may belong in more than one box or in seemingly none at all. If you feel that an item is usable on several levels do what YOUR feeling tells you no matter what logic may suggest. If you find that something does not fit at all, you may want to expand your understanding of the 9 levels as theoretically all should fit; let me know if you find something...

For example, a car, where does that fit. Well if you are living out of your car it is a base, a home. If you use your car only on the weekends it could be a tool for Family, friends and social. If you are driving an expensive car it could have to do with either your Sex drive or your Status, prestige and Influence. So yes, an item can fit into multiple areas and can also fulfill multiple functions like both bring us to work (Security, growth, Future) and if it is a Mercedes you are using it could be Status, Prestige, etc.

Review

Let's do a quick review;

1. You have made a list of your life's important decisions as evidenced by your actions and outcomes (they may have been decisions that did not really see any action or change or consequence; at this time disregard these). This is a good reflection of your past and achievements as seen through your eyes/mind.
2. You collected all the items that belonged together; ie., work, play, family, etc., together into a Mind Map. This will give you an organized view of your life and allow you to identify any missing items (Scholastic, Adventure [holiday], Sport [trophies], and the like; any item where you put in time and effort and you actually did something).
3. You then did another review of all your items according to Maslow's 9 Hierarchical Levels; and this has possibly allowed you to see where you are in your personal development; even if the needs are all over the place, there will be a center.

Another concept that we will need to explore to create best possible outcome for you from this process.

Dreams

If you go and research Dreams you will find many 'types' of dreams but mostly referring to the Sleep Experience. Within the context of self-recognition we are looking at wake dreams one that may lead to action or not. Within this context there are two types of Dreams, Fantasies for please and relaxation and Affirmative Dreams, one that we really want to act on but for some reason have not yet done so. Also, the difference between a Dream and a Want is usually only a feeling; but for our sake to have a shared understanding let's define it as;

• A Dreams is Wishful thinking without an intention or a reasonable expectation of it becoming reality (ie. I will win a lottery and become rich).
• A Want is a Wishful thinking that has the intention or a reasonable expectation of it becoming reality (ie. I will create a lottery and become rich).

So for the purposes of this project, Dreams are just that without the intent, ability to act and without a reasonable expectation that it may occur. A Want for us, needs to have at least a component of intent, action or reasonable expectation of fulfillment.

Weighting

Now we need to put another perspective on our past decisions, a Weighting, so to say. One Weighting as to how much Time they cost us and another how much Benefit we drew from them. And this is fraught with danger but on the other hand, it has all to do with understanding ourselves, our motivation, our power and where we are going so... onwards, onwards

More Info

We are happy to hear from you and answer you martial art, health and developmental questions. If you wish to train with us, the first 3 sessions are free. It is best to try these before making any commitment. If you have any other questions or would lust like to explore some possibilities, you can;

• Call us between 11am and 5pm, Tuesday to Friday & Sunday on 0458 742 654 that is 0458 SHAOLIn
• e-mail us at the Shaolin Academy
• Drop into any of our venues at least 30 minutes before class start.
• Or in a special case, you can also arrange a personal meeting with Master Robert Z. You can call him on 0458 742 654 that is 0417 KUNGFU.

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