Master Your Priorities: Stop Being Sidetracked

Do you ever come to the end of the day only to find the number one item you wanted to accomplish is still left undone? Somehow, someway, you got sidetracked. I imagine many people have the same problem. I know I have. Let’s explore how this happens and what can be done to overcome it.

Think for a moment about the visual image of a train. You can visualize a train on a track moving forward at a fast pace to its destination and another train sitting on the side track, not making any progress. It’s sidetracked. Sidetracked is a term we use in life when we get diverted from the goal or the object of our intent.

The Million Dollar Hypothetical Example

Let me illustrate by giving a hypothetical example. Let’s appeal to your baser desires and imagine you have an extremely important appointment and if you make it to this appointment it will result in you receiving one million dollars. If you can make it to this appointment on time and go through with it successfully you will be one million dollars richer.

Now this appointment is 25 miles away from where you live. You must travel on the local freeway to get there. You know the location. You know where you’re going. You have just enough time to get there. You have just enough gas in your car to get there.

So my question to you is this: Would there be anything that would stop you from keeping this appointment? My guess is that nothing would stop you.

The Carnivals of Life

Let’s examine our little scenario a little more. Suppose you get in your car and you start driving to this extremely important appointment. Let’s imaging that you’re headed to this appointment and as you are driving you notice there is a carnival along the side of the freeway. There are Ferris wheels and roller coasters and other fun rides. You see games and food and crowds of people having fun. You think to yourself, “Wow, I haven’t been to a carnival in a long time.” So you get off the freeway and you go over and visit the carnival and have a jolly time.

Do you think that this would really happen? It’s ludicrous to even think you would do this. Of course you wouldn’t. You would be focused on your goal of getting to that appointment.

The Road to Nowhere

Let’s imagine you were continuing along the highway to your appointment and you notice a road off to your left that you hadn’t noticed before. You think to yourself, “Gee, I’ve never been on that road before. I wonder where it goes.” You pull off the freeway and you head down that road thinking to yourself, “It’ll be a nice drive through the countryside with beautiful scenery.”

Do you think you would do that? Of course not! That would be preposterous. What would you really do? You would do everything possible to make it to your appointment on time.

Are You Stuck In Traffic?

In fact, let’s imagine you’re driving along the freeway to your appointment and suddenly you find yourself stuck in a big traffic jam. Of course you know that if you don’t make it to your appointment at exactly the right time, you don’t receive the million dollars.

In a normal situation, such as on your way to work, what would you do? You would just sit there in traffic and wait it out. When you finally get to work you would say, “Sorry I’m late but I hit traffic on the way to work and there was nothing I could do about it.” But was there really nothing you could do about it? If, in reality, you were on your way to an appointment to receive a million dollars, would you just sit there in traffic? I don’t think so.

I know what I would do. I would pull my car over to the side or even leave it parked on the freeway, get out of my car, jump the fence along the freeway, stop the first car I met, waving my arms crazily and say to the person in the car, “I have a huge emergency! If you can help me out it’s worth a thousand dollars to you! I promise you that I’ll pay you a thousand dollars if you can get me to my appointment on time.” I would find a way and so would you!

Diverted from Our Goals

But what do we really do in life? We have these great dreams and plans. We set goals. We really do have important things that we want and need to accomplish. But do we give our dreams and goals the importance that we really should? No! We let things divert our attention. We get sidetracked from the things that we want to accomplish. It’s incredible how this can happen.

Maybe some of the things you want to do aren’t going to get you a million dollars but perhaps to you they are just as valuable. Maybe it’s writing that book that you’ve said all your life that you’re going to write. Perhaps it’s developing that business or changing a character trait. We seem to find everything else in the world to do except for working on what’s most important to us.

One of the Seven Habits

As I talk about this it may remind you of Steven R. Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. If you’ve read this book you will recognize this concept. He divides our daily tasks into four different quadrants. They are:

1. Urgent and important
2. Imporatant but not urgent
3. Urgent and not important
4. Not urgent and not important

He talks about how we tend to spend our time in quadrant 1, the urgent and important, or quadrant 3, the urgent and not important. We seldom get to the tasks in quadrant 2, the important but not urgent.

Overcome by Urgencies

Those things in life that are of most importance tend to not have a deadline and so we tend to put them off. The tasks that would have the greatest positive effect on our life usually aren’t staring us in the face every morning, saying “Do me! Do me! Do me!” No, they are the ones that sit back quietly waiting for our attention.

I look at my own self and how many times I get sidetracked on different tasks, even in smaller things. One of my goals is to get up in the morning and follow a certain schedule and get to work by a certain time. Everything will be going well and then I’ll see some urgent thing that I think needs to be done and I start working on it and end up being late for work and not accomplishing the other things I had set out to accomplish because I got sidetracked.

Your Book Unwritten

That can be expanded into your life. As you look at your life and examine the goals and dreams you have made over the years, how have you done? You know you’re not getting any younger. You always say that someday you’ll get started on it. Well guess what, someday is today! When are you going to start working on that symphony? When are you going to climb that mountain, run that marathon, start that business, write that play or whatever it is you want to accomplish? When are you going to do those things?

Life moves on and we get diverted and we take those side trips. We stop at the carnivals of life. We seek pleasure and amusement and we don’t move forward to the things that are of most importance to us. Years go by and our books are still unwritten. It’s never going to happen until we make a concerted effort to let nothing get in our way.

Get Back On Track

My message for today is for you to look at the things you are doing and determine which of them are amusements and sidetracks and which are actually leading you to your ultimate goal and destination. Then if needed, switch your train off the sidetrack and back onto the main track of life and move forward, full speed ahead.

Thank you.

Master Yourself, Master Your Life

Copyright © 2009 Gary N. Larson

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