Following last nights decision by the European Union to offer a ‘short delay’ to the United Kingdom in their Brexit process, today seems to be an appropriate day to talk about delaying things. The key condition in the EU offer is that there must be a good reason for the delay. It should allow something important to happen: in this case an agreement in the UK Parliament. If the extra time allowed is wasted and at the end of the delay there is no change in the situation, then the consequences could be very serious.
The consequences of not reaching our objectives have potentially serious impacts on our businesses and our personal lives. All of this starts when we’re still quite young, with our exam results in school. Perhaps we delay studying until it’s too late and then we don’t get the results we want which then reduces our choices for further studies or career opportunities. Missing deadlines or targets at work due to delays can reduce the prospects for promotion or salary increases resulting in knock-on effects in our personal and family lives.
However, there are situations, of course, when a delay is justified. We may need to obtain more information to allow good decision-making or to develop new skills in order to allow real progress to be made. We always have to prioritise the tasks at hand and all too often we spend too much time on the easier tasks or the ones that seem to be the most ‘urgent’.
I believe that, whenever possible, we need to find ways to ‘a little of everything’ in order to ensure that we continue to make progress ‘across the board’ rather than abandon some tasks or projects in favour of others. This might mean getting support from others, learning to manage our tasks more effectively and being more focussed and concentrated on individual tasks, ensuring that time is not wasted.
When one of the objectives we set ourselves is to improve language skills, this needs careful planning in order to ensure that it’s not always delayed until ‘I have time’. Language learning requires regular and frequent attention although it doesn’t always need a lot of time. A few minutes, or up to an hour each day, is enough. The key is to do something every day. Lýdia Machová learns a new language every 2 years and states that working on the language every day, in a fun way, is what gets her results. You can watch her TED talk by following the link. https://www.ted.com/talks/lydia_machova_the_secrets_of_learning_a_new_language