To Think and Move Strategically, Treat Your Calendar as Investment Portfolio and Chess Board
Your calendar is both a reminder and reflection of your priorities. It’s a record of the commitments you’ve made and the moves you’re making.
That’s how I choose to see my calendar at least. As a perspective, it helps leverage the tensions of time (a scarce resource that continues to grow more scarce by the second) and desire (wanting something I don’t have) to propel me into pursuit.
Questions to Always Be Asking
In working with my students as a college admissions consultant, I ask them: “What do you want? And what are you doing about it?”
Asking the first question alone is hard. Most students don’t answer it well initially. Even if they an answer, it’s usually shallow without having done much deep thinking into why, where their desire stems from, and why they let that drive them at all.
If they answer “to go to a good school so I can get a good job” I read that as “to feel approved of and secure.” They ultimately don’t know which school other than the ones they’ve heard of or the most famous ones (like the Ivy League). They can’t define what makes a school good and what a good job is. They mostly just don’t want to be on the wrong side, falling behind and losing. They don’t desire anything specific, which means they may not end up gaining anything specific.
Even if the only thing asking those questions accomplishes is making them realize their wants and ambitions aren’t very compelling or deep, it’s still worth asking. Because it makes the second question more urgent and pressing: “What are you doing about it? What are you doing at all?”
Traps to Avoid and the Cost of Goals that Matter
Students in the digital age are easily ensnared in an entire in internet of distractions. Video games. Social media. YouTube. Reddit. You could make the argument that exploring the internet helps expose them to new ideas and information, and I do agree that wandering driven by curiosity and spontaneity are useful for expanding one’s awareness and fostering discovery.
However, it’s deliberate commitment and follow-through that leads to achievement. Specifically achievement in creating things of value or desire (even if it’s just valuable and desired by themselves). The most significant problems aren’t solved through passive wanting. You’re not going to build Rome in a day, yet most students want an empire and to be king of it without having to fight the daily, years-long internal war with themselves to overcome their preference for comfort. Many are unaware just how much they have to challenge themselves, of how much sacrifice is needed. They desire, but how driven are they really willing to be?
Use Your Calendar to Map Out Your Strategy and Record Your Execution
The same way you choose what to invest money in for financial returns, you also choose what you invest time in to build the life you want. Even investing money requires timing and action — reviewing your finances, researching stocks, asking for advice, transferring funds. Sure, maybe you don’t have to deliberately schedule and plan what work you need to accomplish to achieve what you want, but how has that worked for you so far?
To win in chess, you’re often thinking ahead and executing moves in following specific, deliberately thought out strategies. Nobody wins by letting their opponent make all the moves. And in life, the greatest opponent you’ll ever face is yourself. What is your strategy for defending your time against distraction? What is your offensive strategy for advancing your pieces forward? How will you start your club, qualify yourself to win that competitive internship, launch that new community initiative?
Questions to keep asking
- What is it you want?
- What is achieving it going to take?
- What do you have to do?
- Which days and at what times will you work on it?
- How long will it take?
- How long do you want it to take?
- Are you ahead of schedule or behind it?
- Who do you need to talk to?
- Who can you reach out to for help?
- When and how can you work together?
- What must you sacrifice?
- What are you willing to do?
- What must you learn?
- What must you master?
- What’s your status?
- What’s the next action?
- Why do you want it?
Students,
What is it that you really want?
And what are you doing about it?
Constantly? Daily?
You are more powerful than you think. It’s a decision you make.
