5 Gears: How to Be Present and Productive When There Is Never Enough Time

11Master Your Settings—Right Time, Right Place

We laugh when we see the bumbling idiot, played by a daft comedian, enter a scene at the wrong time, saying things in the wrong way to the wrong people. Peter Sellers, Jim Carrey, and Will Ferrell have perfected emotionally incorrect characters. And yet we all know these same characters in the everyday script of our lives.

By using the 5 Gears appropriately, you can minimize being in the wrong in relationships, conversations, and situations if you understand time and space. What I mean is that there is an appropriate time to have certain conversations and certain places to which a certain topic should or shouldn't be discussed. This is both emotional intelligence and social etiquette wrapped into one. Learning this requires a mind shift, unless of course you want to mimic the goofball characters played on the big screen. So how do you take what we have learned thus far and begin to make the changes that could positively affect you and those around you the rest of your life? Let's start with time.

The Right Time

Have you ever arrived at an appointment an hour early, or worse, an hour late? It is a frustrating feeling when you have realized that you have done the right thing at the wrong time. Your intention was correct, but your clock was off. Time is a critical aspect of life. Comedians get paid millions for their timing. UPS and FedEx charge more for accurate delivery. Airplanes and movies and churches and meetings run on time. ...