Did you ever find yourself wondering how did you end up somewhere? Like, if you had gone out for sailing, apparently knowing what your destination was and all of a sudden…. in the middle of the sea, with no clue of at what point did you loose your way or how to rectify to be back on track.
On the long run, when you realise that you are completely on the opposite site of where you wanted to be it’s because (let’s think that) you set your goals, your milestones, … but you didn’t check how were you doing, maybe the wind’s direction changed and you kept doing the exact same thing, you let the time go by, you got carried away. Had the right idea, the wrong execution. What you thought would give you freedom, keeps you captive. But, when you are not navigating alone, if you are the ship’s captain, you have a responsibility towards your crew.
On the short term, the feeling is a bit different. You feel there is never enough time, you are always running behind schedule, slave of your agenda, dependant on your team’s response time. And again, this time if you are the captain, you can not subordinate your crew’s time to your agenda.
We always think about freedom as: time off, financial freedom to do whatever we want (when enjoying our free time), the space to create, to experiment, to have leeway with design delivery, …
There is no Freedom without Discipline. Do you want to be sure you are following the right course? Be disciplined to check the progress, to correct if necessary. Do you want to have free time in your agenda? Be disciplined, respect timetables, respect the others agenda’s. If you live in chaos, you will be always trapped. If you live in chaos, you can drag your team into your chaos, invading their time management.
Each of us is responsible for being self-disciplined, for establishing our rules. If we have discipline, we are “free”. Then, it’s easier to define our limits, what we allow and we don’t to others do with our time.
You can read this interesting post (on one of my fauvorites blogs.. ): A learning day (discipline equals freedom) or listen/watch the Interview (Jocko Willink)
If you want to read about my view on Who owns your time? you can find it in this old post.
Thanks Peter, it’s always nice chatting with you.