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create a values - based time management plan

good time together would compensate for the lack of lots of time
together. The more we talked about “quality time,” the more we
came to believe in its reality.

But “quality time” is a delusion spawned by guilt. Instead of
“quality time,” we simply have less time, and what time we’ve got
is really “pressure time.”

If you honestly believe that you can schedule a meaningful con-
versation with your adolescent son or daughter, or that lovemaking
by appointment doesn’t lose a little something in spontaneity, then
you’ve bought the “quality time” concept. But relationships don’t
work that way. You can no more force a teenager to talk before he
or she is ready than you can convince a cat to play Scrabble.

There’s no hurrying or scheduling meaningful moments,
breakthrough conversations, wonderful gestures. They occur in
the midst of the muck, often when we least expect them. If you
aren’t spending time with a loved one, you’re going to miss many
of those moments. And you’ll be putting much too heavy a bur-
den on the time you do have together. “Quality time” turns into
tension time.

Are You Mistaken About Your Priorities?

If you aren’t spending much time on family or spiritual life or
health maintenance, for example, then maybe these aren’t really
the most important things in your life.

Could you be wrong about your own priorities? Well, sure. In
the incredibly complex interactions of conscious mind, subcon-
scious motive, and psyche, we’re perfectly capable of masking our
true motivations from ourselves even as we might seek to hide
them from or misrepresent them to others.

Also, the process of writing a list of priorities is different from
the process of living your life. Your list could reflect the things you
think of when asked to make a list, just as the opinion you give to

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