Time Management

Managing time amounts to making correct judgements about when to stay in scenes and when to leave.

Mike Tyson has a line about everyone having a plan until you get hit in the mouth for the first time. That resonates with all of us because every person experiences that sentiment every day. Every one of us goes to bed with some idea of a plan for how we’re going to be great tomorrow, or at least survive the day without wanting to rip someone’s head off. Then we wake up with an amended plan right off the bat. Don’t lie, you lying, McLiar pants. Every morning you wake up and immediately start justifying mediocrity. Wanna bet me? I mean, I’m words, but if I had a gazillion dollars, I’d bet it all and half of yours. The bet would be that you’re choosing mediocrity from the first choice you’re presented with a chance to be great each morning. Prove me wrong. Mark your time the first instant you want to groan, moan an ugh, or whisper, “I don’t have time for this.” Want me to win right now? Are you doing it before you even get out of bed? Are you brushing your teeth twice a day for at least two minutes AND flossing? Okay, you might actually be one of those perfect dental hygiene folks. Congrats. Mad respect. Weirdos. I kid. But what about drinking enough water each day? Like I said, mediocrity. But listen, I’m seriously joking here. We’re all like this. I mean, at least everyone who might be interested in this program. Remember the person I started this with? Mike Tyson is a great human being…at hitting other human beings in the face. And biting ears off other humans. Now, Mike, before you pummel my face. I’m sure you’re great at many other things, but you’re objectively great at hitting faces. That said, who can you think of who is great at time management? If you don’t personally know anyone, please let me introduce you to Tim Ferriss. Beyond other things, Mr. Ferriss has written books on how he lives with extreme efficiency, teaching the secret for everyone is to limit the things you have to focus on, recognizing that most of the time you move your body is wasted without a product being produced. If you don’t like Ferris, check out David Allen or Dwight Eisenhower. Especially impressive is Eisenhower, who, after winning World War II in Europe, won two terms as the fourth oldest President to date. In that post, he created the Interstate Highway System, NASA, and the Department of Health and Human Services. He also signed the first Civil Rights Act since the 1860’s, ended the Korean War, welcomed Alaska and Hawaii into the union, and managed to keep warm peace with Russia well before things got cold. He did it by doing simple things like signing “DE” or “E” instead of his entire name to save time so he could focus on what mattered. Not saying I wanted to play golf with the guy, but DE knew how to manage time well.

Sidebar - Remind yourself often about people like this. Remember, the objective of time management is to be like impressive people you may know who have really good self-discipline and time management skills. They may not be former Presidents, but don’t be afraid to ask people like that for tips and advice about how to understand their mindset about leading orderly lives. Even former Presidents! You might be surprised by their response. Anyway, thanks for attending my sidebar. Back to Ike…

"What is important is seldom urgent," Eisenhower liked to say, "and what is urgent is seldom important.” Ike seemed to treat his entire day as an exercise in time management, approaching each task as its own separate event, never overlapping any two. Every task was assigned one of four priorities as soon as it was discovered. It’s called The Eisenhower’s priority matrix and it looks like this:

Do it now - Important and Urgent

Focus on these tasks and get them done as soon as possible

Schedule it - Important and Not Urgent

Schedule time when you’ll be able to handle these tasks

Delegate it - Urgent and not important

Delegate these tasks to others to get them done sooner

Delete it - Not urgent and not important

Don’t do these tasks at all – save your time and energy for more critical ones

Understanding that urgent tasks and emergencies are a rarity, your main job becomes to schedule tasks, do them when it’s time, and evaluate new ones to see if they need to be taken care of now, scheduled later, or forgotten entirely. Simple, right? Don’t lie, McLiar pants. I’m lost and I’m writing the words.

Are you allowing imaginary authorities to dictate your actions? Who or what is keeping you from moving your body towards your next appointment? What about the words you use for people to let them know they’re over their time with you? When people talk about setting boundaries, that’s what they’re discussing: the instructions given to someone or themselves that the interaction is over.

But shouldn’t you welcome everyone at all times? Yes.

With boundaries.

Boundaries, people.

It’s always about boundaries.

You help the people who show up. When others show up, you tell them to get in line. If they leave because they’re impatient, that’s their problem to solve. When someone comes in bleeding, they get first dibs. It’s all a revolving door of people to help. See? It’s a first in, first out system unless emergencies or more urgent tasks pop up. But once again, and not for the last time, emergencies almost never happen. And by never, I mean statistically never. Remember, nothing is an emergency unless someone is at risk of dying or losing a body part. As for urgent items, look at how Eisenhower dealt with them. He didn’t take care of urgent tasks until he made judgments about them first. If any urgent task pops up that proves itself to be valid, do it yourself now. If not, you have to learn how to prioritize things. You do that, by understanding the hierarchy of importance in that community. Remember this pro tip from Ike, if something is able to be delegated, do it! Wouldn’t it be unwise not to?

Also, you need mental and physical boundaries between known distractions and your own attention span. You know it is your proclivity to be distracted. And you have to deal with comparisons to other people and snap judgements sprinkled in. They are automatic activities you’re going to do no matter how many words you come up with to convince yourself it isn’t going to happen. So, accept it and give yourself a break by setting aside a reasonable amount of time to doom scroll social media or whatever your moderated vice is. But how distracted can you be if your distractions aren’t physically around you? Probably a lot, actually, if you’re like me. You folks need to meditate more. The problem isn’t the things, it’s your inability to control your thoughts. Ergo, you need to practice thinking about nothing for longer.

Managing time is a three-step thing. First, you need to understand and manage expectations about your capabilities. Communicating those expectations to yourself and others may be a whole thing and a task in and of itself for you, but it needs to happen if you’re going to get to the next step. That’s arriving on time, fully prepared. The “arriving on time” part is hard enough for most people, but the impossibility of showing up “fully prepared” is why we’re not great. Not sorry for accusing us when I don’t know you, but it’s true. If you were fully prepared for every scene you ever showed up to, you’d be better than anyone ever. But you’re not and that’s more than okay. It’s one of those expected laws for all of us. You can’t know what you’re about to encounter. But we need you to take a bit more time to prepare for the tasks ahead while spending a tad less time chasing comforts and pleasures. Oh, and stop living in imagination altogether. Finally, we need you to be better about making better judgments about readjustments to your schedule. You need to be more flexible and less mad at the universe when things don’t go according to your plan or expectations.

Managing expectations about your capabilities is first attacked by not lying to yourself anymore. Thus, you first need to figure out how to have an honest conversation with yourself. Don’t gloss over that sentence. Finding the time, venue, format, and tone to have this conversation with yourself will be much more difficult than you think and much more grueling than the actual discussion. First, set aside real time to be alone with yourself without distractions. Second, close your eyes and think about your track record of failures recently. We’re not looking back further than a year. You were a different person last year with fewer skills, less knowledge, and a fraction of the experience you have now.

Let yourself understand what you’re capable of right now.

What should you be doing before you leave and when you get back?

How far and how deep can you get in your work before you need a break?

What about your work bores you and what excites you?

What time of day are you most alert and productive and when are you most tired?

Who energizes you and who saps it?

How long do things take versus how long they should be taking?

How long does it actually take you to finish a challenging task? A simple one?

How much setback can you take before you begin to have thoughts of giving up?

Be honest and then be more honest by reviewing your track record again until you’re telling the truth about what you can actually do and how long it takes you. Talk to yourself about what you can’t and can do with ease and what time of day it’s easy for you to get it done. It’s time to stop lying to yourself and others that things are “hijacking” or “stealing” your time and causing you to be late or cancel plans. You know that’s never true so stop living it.

The most dangerous time for something to go wrong during an airplane flight is during take off and landing. It’s the same with you. Arriving on time ultimately comes down to being selfless and not lying to yourself about leaving when you’re supposed to. Try to make plans when calm and sober. Then stick to them when chaos strikes.The only time you should abandon scheduled plans is when your life or limb is in imminent danger, or you can help others in trouble in the immediate vicinity; IF YOU HAVE BEEN TRAINED TO HELP. Otherwise, call for help. Otherwise, nothing is an emergency that will dictate adjusting plans. But be flexible and able to triage tasks as needed. That’s what Eisenhower was talking about when judging whether something is urgent or not.

Next comes being prepared. It’s one of those easy concepts that is impossible for us to consistently grasp until we’ve trained and felt what life feels like inside the practice of early preparation. Of course, any instructions in this realm are essentially the cure for procrastination.

Ideally, of course, you’ll stick to your schedule as written. But that’s a farce of an instruction that completely misses the point of what happens in real life. There are going to be important things that pop up that will need to be put in front of other things, but if you really had the time to examine what you’re making a priority, you’re going to see it can almost always can wait until at least tomorrow and most times next week. Thus, stick to your schedule! What about the many things you’re going to give a lot more credibility and importance to than is needed? Once again, that’s fine and expected, so stop beating yourself up. But we need you to start getting better about recognizing when your perceptions and others’ impressions are lying to you about things that are objectively really important for us, not you. Here’s that again. The right choice is always what is best for us.

You’ve heard a hundred stories of people overcoming distractions and obstacles to remain focused on their main thing. Capone didn’t quit making money because he was in jail the same way MLK didn’t stop preaching peaceful resistance in the face of violence or incarceration. A thinker can never be held from their craft if conscious. You must find a way to always solve the biggest problem facing your most important aspect in front of you, no matter the time left, the place you have to do it, or the people that are around when it has to be done. The people and things that “steal” your time are simply following your invitation to continue to do so. Remember, they have no authority. Stop letting them show up in your thoughts. If you can’t keep something or someone out of your thoughts and also stand next to them, don’t worry about meditating, that isn’t the problem. Focus more time on finding a purpose you’re so attracted to that everything else doesn’t matter. When you’re worried about trying to find the solution to a huge problem that has nothing to do with you, you will not care who’s standing next to you…as long as they’re not actively trying to hinder you from solving the problem.

Your time management comes down not to the logistics of your schedule or the management of your emotions. You need a purpose you feel born to follow and a reason to want to stay on schedule.

You don’t have to look for a purpose to find it. You have to follow your natural curiosity inside the guardrails of good and then tell people distracting you to kindly go away. In that equation, you might come to find that whatever purpose you have been chasing lately isn’t strong enough to hold your attention away from other things. That’s probably a good thing. Go take a peek over there. And if you haven’t felt a need to pursue a path led by a purpose bigger than you, then you’ve probably been feeling a bit lost. That’s an easy problem to solve once you strike on something you were made to do.

As for instructions to fix the actual logistics of your schedule, you already know what to do: make plans when sober and calm, then stick to them.