Patience...A Forgotten Virtue

On the path to kick procrastination in the butt, Rory Vaden has asked us to answer three important questions.

In the Eliminate stage, it was, “Is this task something I can live without?”

In the Automate stage, it was “Can this task be systematized?”

In the Delegate stage, it was “Can this task be performed by someone else?”

If the answer to those three questions is No, then guess what?  It’s our turn to do something!

But before we jump head first into the task, there is an essential element to consider.

Timing.

Finally, the title of Vaden’s book, Procrastinate on Purpose, starts to makes sense.

Seems counterintuitive, uncomfortable even, but he is challenging us to… wait.

What? Wait?  I thought we didn’t want to procrastinate!

Turns out there is a big difference between avoiding something because it is uncomfortable to do it (procrastinating), and deliberately postponing something because it is not actually the right time to do it (being patient).

Hence, Procrastinating on Purpose. 

Turns out many great minds are on the same page when it comes to patience and timing:

“Patience is power. Patience is not an absence of action; rather it is "timing;"

it waits on the right time to act, for the right principles and in the right way.”

​​​​​​~Fulton J. Sheen

“The right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing.”

​​​​​~Joshua Harris

Or my favorite:

“The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.”

​​​​​~Willie Nelson

Patience… sadly lacking in today’s climate of rush, rush, rush.

Patience gives us time to pause, to think, to breathe, to allow what is truly important to rise to the surface, for external conditions to become clear, for our own priorities to become clear.

Patience gives us room to breathe, so we are not madly sprinting from urgent task to urgent task, but instead taking stock of what is truly important, so that when we do take action, we do so in alignment with our spirit. We can be fully present to the task at hand, knowing that we are indeed doing the right thing at the right time, for the right reasons.

Permission to Delegate

My hubby was telling me about a conversation he had recently with one of his buddies. He was commenting on our radically different approaches to getting things done.

My hubby is a do-it-yourself-er par excellence – he’s the kind of guy who will happily spend 2 hours watching a YouTube video and figuring out how to do something, then doing it. Better than the guy on YouTube.

Myself, I like to delegate. I love having a team of people who are great at what they do to support me in my endeavors. If it’s not something I love to do, I’d rather pay someone else to do it. I didn’t always use to. I had the same fears that are probably coming up for you when you think about actually outsourcing stuff to others to do.

I can’t afford it.

The thing I realized reading Rory Vaden’s chapter on the Permission to Delegate, is this; “We are always paying someone to complete a task. You are either paying someone else at their rate of pay, or you are paying yourself at yours.”

It won’t be perfect. I can do it better myself.

This may be true, at first. There is definitely an investment of time and money in teaching someone how to do something you usually do. But if you do the math, in the end, time and money spent now saves time and money tomorrow.

Or here’s another reason not to delegate.

Guilt. As in “I SHOULD be able to do it all myself.”

Where does that come from?  This idea that somehow I’m inferior if I don’t do it all myself, that I’m less than perfectly capable. Or Who do I think I am, to be hiring others? Some hot shot?

It’s amazing what our minds will come up with, isn’t it?

Anyway, all these reasons and excuses faded into oblivion when I met my wonderful Virtual Assistant, Nicole.

Boy, did that change my life. Instead of wasting hours wrestling with document formatting,  I can focus on what I’m good at and what I love to do - Translating.

Instead of dripping blood, sweat and tears trying to position text, figure out slide transitions and make my PowerPoint look really cool and professional, I can focus on my strengths and what inspires me – researching and creating educational content.

No more embarrassing typos on my blog posts. I can focus on just writing them.

The list goes on…….

She can do so many things so much better, and faster, than I can. Plus any number of other tasks that, let’s just face it, I would rather not do. Or to put it a better way, I was spending a lot of time doing the things that didn’t actually require my unique skill set.

And you know what else?  Just by virtue of having a virtual assistant, and my weekly telephone check-ins with her, I am so much more organized and productive, because I have to be in order to make good use of her time.  Having a virtual assistant is a perfect procrastination kicker!

So here’s my encouragement for you today: Ask yourself, what can I outsource that will free up my time to do what I was really born to do?

P.S. Here is another resource for outsourcing any number of tasks: http://www.elance-odesk.com

P.P.S. Want to read Rory Vaden’s book on Procrastination? You can purchase it here and put a few pennies in my pocket too!