Beep… Beep… Beep… The sound of my phone’s alarm clock rips through the room at 6:00 AM. I had set that alarm the evening before with every intention of rising early and getting a head-start that day on my work. But, as most of us have probably experienced, that’s much easier said than done! I found myself habitually groping for my phone, hitting the power button, and falling back to sleep for eight more measly minutes. There weren’t any events or appointments looming that morning, so, in the short run, it didn’t cause much harm to fall back to sleep a few times.

Most of us know that it’s often best to start our day earlier. When we do, we feel better, get more done, and aren’t filled with guilt for that morning. We also know that snoozing just isn’t really worth it! When we hit the snooze button, we fail our own expectations, waste more time in bed, and make it that much easier to press it again next time! Why, then, do we keep on doing it? The short answer: it’s easy. The long answer: We sacrifice long-term effectivity in exchange for a short-term reprieve. And we hit the snooze button on more than just our alarm clocks!

Alarm clocks are a metaphor for the things in our life that fall into the second quadrant of the time management matrix, as proposed by Stephen Covey in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

This “Quality Time” quadrant is where we truly grow. You know those to-do list items that always get pushed back behind more pressing matters? That’s us hitting the snooze button on our growth as leaders. What are the tasks you’re hitting snooze on?

One of my Snooze Buttons is reading. I love to read, and I read a lot in elementary school, but when high school (and now college) hit, it suddenly seems like I just don’t have the time. The truth is that I just keep hitting snooze on making time to read. Tim Ferris, a time-management author, sums it up pretty well when he says…

“Lack of time is actually lack of priorities.”

Going forward, I want to commit to using my time better according to Covey’s time management matrix! So, here’s to working on things that truly matter, and zooming out of the crisis/deadline-driven tunnel vision. Let’s prioritize, take care of the little things as soon as they come up, and make time for the meaningful things that won’t have any deadlines but the ones we set ourselves. Let’s break the snooze button habit and wake up our potential!

Living to Serve,

Max Harman