Time Management

I was re-reading Seneca's essay On the Shortness of Life the other day. He was a part-time Stoic and Greek philosopher, ordered to commit seppuku by Nero. At least the Greek version of seppuku, which seems to involve warm baths and poison.

But Greek politics aside, Seneca has some interesting observations, like:

"And so there is no reason for you to think that any man has lived long because he has grey hairs or wrinkles; he has not lived long—he has existed long. For what if you should think that that man had had a long voyage who had been caught by a fierce storm as soon as he left harbor, and, swept hither and thither by a succession of winds that raged from different quarters, had been driven in a circle around the same course? Not much voyaging did he have, but much tossing about."

This "tossing about" stuff is worrisome.

For many years, I've explored philosophies and systems for organizing tasks and completing projects. I've used them to good effect at work. At home, not so much. But as I leave the world of priorities structured for me, to time that is unencumbered, it becomes even more important to manage this resource well. In a way truer to my own valuations.

Simple to-do lists aren't very effective for me. It's easy to get lost in the trees. Prioritizing becomes annoying and it's too easy to collect deadwood that clutters the space with should-do things that will never actually get done. Especially if you're trying to keep track of everything. Plus it's often a grind. Every day is plotted out. You can do things spontaneously, but then you might feel guilty or "unproductive."

More elaborate systems like GTD work better. For a while, anyway. GTD really can free the mind from clutter and still leave you confident that everything you need to do is organized in a way it will be accomplished when it needs to be without having to keep track of it in your head. Some people get hooked on the 'mind like water' state GTD delivers and work this system obsessively. But it does require upkeep, and even minor slippage on keeping tasks up to date undermines confidence that the system has captured everything of relevance.

Finding time management systems that work with our own strengths and tendencies and mitigates our weaknesses and blindsides is a challenging endeavor. Some people figure however they are currently managing time is good enough, and it may be. But I come from a discipline that has found much value in studying "best practices" and adopting those that prove more useful than what we build by default.

I've recently adopted a unique approach that shows a lot of promise. It actually helps leverage the fact that we often procrastinate by choosing more interesting tasks rather than more necessary ones. It has a built in way of winnowing out stuff that we think we should do but will actually never get around too and is actually fun to use, without the right brain feeling like it's being ordered around by some regime established by the left brain. Or the left side feeling like it has to keep remembering important stuff that might slip through the cracks. A true bi-partisan partnership, if you will.

If you are looking for a system that may help keep your voyage on course, and one that does so in a way that adapts to what's truly significant while side-stepping the auto-engage mechanisms of procrastination, give this a gander. And/or check out the short video: