The Calendar Rule: How to Make Better Decisions and Motivate Others

A story about the value of time.

Hey ,

Here’s a true story from a few months ago, that completely changed my perspective. I’m hoping it might help you see things differently, too.

One evening I had to run a couple of errands. My son wasn’t doing much, just hanging around the house—so I suggested he come with me.

“Ah, do I have to?” he asked. “I just want to chill.”

I was silent. But suddenly, I had an epiphany.

“Yeah, you have to,” I said. “Come on, let’s go.”

My son’s about to become a teenager, so you can imagine his mood when I forced him to come. But that mood would soon change.

“Hey,” I said to my son. “You know why I didn’t let you stay at home?

“No,” he replied. “Why?”

“Because of this number,” I replied.

I showed him the calculator on my phone, which showed a seemingly random number:

364.

“Do you know what that number means?” I asked my son.

“Well, it’s one short of a year,” he replied.

“Yeah, but that’s not what I was thinking of,” I said. I paused for a minute.

“That’s very possibly the number of weeks your mother and I have left with you.”

“You’re about to be a teenager,” I continued. “Which means you’ve probably lived with us longer than you’ll still live with us.

“I mean, who knows, maybe you’ll stay longer. But if you leave home around the time that I did, that’s about what we’ve got left.

So, I want to spend as much time with you as I can. Because there’s nothing I enjoy more than spending time with you and your sisters.”

My son smiled.

At first, he smiled because he thought I was being cheesy.

But the smile stayed for the rest of the evening.

And we had a great time together.

So, what’s this story got to do with emotional intelligence? And more importantly, what’s it got to do with you?

What’s your number?
Regardless of your circumstances, there’s one thing that’s for sure for all of us:

We often underestimate the amount of time that we have.

It could be time with your kids. Or, time with your parents or siblings.

It could be time with your spouse. Or, time with your friends.

It could be time you want to spend learning a goal: like reading, or playing an instrument, or a sport…

Basically, it could be time for anything.

Often, when we need to make short-term (or even long-term) decisions, like whether or not to bring our children along, or what we want to do this morning or afternoon or evening or weekend, we forget about the things we really want to do, the things that are more important to us.

And we waste time.

Or, we might think about those things…and then we say to ourselves:

“Ah, I’ll have time for it later.”

But time is a funny thing.

It disappears quickly.

It escapes us.

Eventually, we realize we didn’t have as much of it as we thought.

But emotional intelligence can help you to place a higher value on time.

To realize that, once time is gone, it’s gone.

That you’re never going to get it back.

Emotional intelligence allows you to use a psychological trick called “reframing.” To reframe is to intentionally change the way you view a situation.

That’s what I did with myself, and with my son: I reframed the way we saw that those few hours.

It wasn’t just another typical evening. It was one evening out of “364” weeks, give or take, that I had left with my son. 364 weeks that I’ll never get back.

It was an opportunity to do what I love: to spend time with my son.

So, I encourage you to ask yourself:

• What’s important to you?
• What do you want to spend your time on most?
• And how much time do you think you have to do it?

Use your answers to those questions to guide you.
To reframe.
To use your mind, and your emotions, to help you make better decisions.

Because Joni Mitchell was right, you know…

You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.

Talk soon,
Justin