Not Enough Time? Synergize

Here is the lightly edited video transcript:

Hi, I’m Jack Shitama. Do you feel pressed for time? Most people I know feel like they have too much to do and too little time to do it. One of the things that you can do to make your life more productive is to synergize.

Now I know that’s a buzz word, like “I don’t have enough bandwidth” or “I’m going to reach out” or “we need to drill down,” but the term synergy was actually coined as a productivity term by Stephen Covey several decades ago, in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

What Covey meant was “two heads are better than one.” He was talking about teamwork and the fact that when people work together they can achieve more than they could individually. But he also talked about synergy as combining important activities to get the most out of our time.

So, I mentioned in the previous post that I meditate while I run. Meditation helps me spiritually. Running helps me physically and emotionally. When I do those together I get more out of that same time block. I also pray when I’m in the hot tub. Well, most mornings. As long as it’s not raining or really windy, when I get up I’m feeling sore because I exercise a lot, my body is aging and so I get in the hot tub. It makes my body feel better and prayer gets me grounded spiritually.

Another thing I do is I listen to podcasts while I’m driving. I have a 45-minute commute to and from work. I used to listen to sports radio all the time. What I realized was that knowing who all the free agents that my team could sign or knowing the prospects for their top draft pick wasn’t really adding a lot of value to my life. So I started listening to audio books and podcast and they have helped me to grow in a variety of ways.

I heard about a man who walks his daughter to and from school each day. It’s a 15 minute walk. So think about this. He’s getting an hour of exercise, 30 minutes round trip in the morning and in the evening each. He’s spending 30 minutes of quality time with his daughter each day. He’s also spending 30 minutes of alone time when he’s walking either to school in the evening or from school in the morning.

So what do you do to synergize in your life? What can you do? If you’ll post what you do already in the comment section, I think that would help each of us to get better in making the most out of our lives. And if you have other ideas that you want to try and you want to share with others to give you more accountability, post that too.

When it comes down to it, being effective in life is not about been efficient, it’s about making the right choices. It’s about focusing on the right things. And synergy helps us to do that. Go with God and be with God.

The Rev. Jack Shitama serves as the Executive Director of Pecometh Camp & Retreat Ministries in Centreville, MD. He blogs at www.christian-leaders.com, from which his posts are republished with the author's permission.