Is Quality a Priority in Your Life?

Organizations spend a lot of time and money building quality into their products, services and processes. They continually try and position quality as a competitive advantage to doing business with them. The word quality is usually first thought of in business but what about positioning quality in our personal life? This past weekend I spent a couple of hours cruising very slowly on a beautiful calm sunny day on the St. Lawrence River with my son. We found this great spot where in about 12 feet of water we clearly could see the sandy bottom. We started competing with the number of bass we could spot. A turtle heightened our excitement as we lost track of the time. Although there was much work to get caught up on around the house, neither one of us were in much of a rush to head back. We were just enjoying the moment away from the noise and the busyness of the day.  We sat, fingers dangling in the water and just talked. Conversations around the future, decisions around job opportunities, talking who was going to win the football game that evening; there was plenty to talk about. When we eliminate distractions and focus on priorities, it’s incredible how quality becomes so prevalent. Spending quality time on those important aspects in your life has to be a priority decision in your life. It is so easy to compromise on quality when you are so busy paying attention to the quantity of things that need to get done. There will always be distractions in your life that chip away at the quality of your life. Many people I talk to when asked about quality have trouble defining it. How can you achieve quality when it is ambiguous? If a company loses sight as to the importance of quality and starts to make decisions around quantity, they quickly find themselves in a precarious situation. They can lose their competitive edge. They spend time on rework. Cost and scrap goes up and their approach to work becomes more reactive. We can learn a lot from the mistakes businesses make. Identifying quality time; those things that if you spend time doing bring you great joy in life, giving you the quality of life that you so rightfully deserve is all about making that quality a priority in your life. Quality happens by doing the right things, the right way over time.

Something to think about as you face your day comes from a quote from Joan D. Vinge. She says

“What does immortality mean to me? That we all want more time; and we want it to be quality time.”

Schedule some quality time on what is important to you today because ‘time waits for no one’.