“The doing of the doing is why nothing gets done.”

Triathletes and business owners share a common trait: neither want to stay in one place very long. Place can be exchanged with the following: a chair, a market, a city, a marriage or a house. Both triathletes and business owners are objects in motion. As Newton states, “An object in motion, stays in motion.” We resist changes in motion especially if you have a love for a sport that only involves one motion — forward.

The challenge for the athletes and business owners is to turn off your cruise control. I am not asking you to stop your workouts or your business. I am asking you to be present. Apply the associative skills you use successfully when racing to the rest of your life.

One standard asset we all have is time. There are 168 hours in our week that basically divides like this:

Where are your priorities in the top half of the pie? What fills your spaces?

Mine looks like this:

1. Family and friends.
2. Training.

As the year comes to a close, I review these with the people in my life; family, friends, training partners, athletes and my coach. Since we tend to operate seasonally in business and training, I like to add a seasonal perspective to my review.

Winter

• Increase in family time
• Reduction in training volume and intensity

Spring

• Increase in activities with training partners
• Increase in training volume

Summer

• Increase in time with family (school out)
• Increase in family travel
• Less time with training partners
• Increase in training intensity (race specific)

Fall

• Less family emphasis (school)
• Unstructured training

What questions do I ask?

• How did I perform relative to my goals? Were my goals clear? Attainable? Appropriate?
• Where have I paid tuition? Notice, I haven’t mentioned mistakes. Any decisions with unintended results contributes to my education. Sometimes the price of those decisions are my tuition for my education.

Want to truly have some fun? Now that you are in the assessment mode look at the bottom half of your circle. A quarter of it is sleep (assuming seven hours minimum per night) but what about the other quarter (work)? Maybe you can move your chalk lines just a bit.

If time is your most valuable asset, what can you change in your work life to gain more time for the other half of your life? How efficient are you professionally? How often do you check e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook? How many minutes per day are you actually working? No, sitting at your desk is not work. Where are the spaces?

Start getting what you want in your relationship with your life partner, your family, your training and your work by stopping the doing and starting the thinking. Be careful because thinking leads to action and forward motion.