The Reality
Time management is not real. You can’t control time. You can’t say, “Listen, Time, I’d like a word with you a minute in my office… you’ve been elusive lately, and I need more out of you.”
Some say time itself isn’t real. But whether it is or isn’t seems pretty irrelevant–either way, you’d like some more of it. Time, the way we perceive it, is fixed. Same hours in a day, every day. A minute always takes a minute to complete. News Flash! You can’t manage time because it functions on its own autonomy. Try to control time, and you’ll just waste a lot more of it.
You might ask, “Why is it some minutes seem long and some seem short?” Well, that has nothing to do with time. That has to do with you. A minute takes long when you’re unfocused. A minute flies by when you’re focused, when you’re engaged.
It’s that simple.
A consistent truth we’ve learned in life is that behavior is one of the few things you can control. Sometimes even that is difficult. But, it can be taught. Or, rather, learned. But you can’t learn it from us. You have to learn it from yourself. You have to teach it to yourself. This is an intuitive skill. You probably already know what to do. You just need to start doing it.
We can post an in depth blog teaching you all the ways you can change your behaviors, but we don’t want to waste your time.
The Big Secret
If you’ve come to this blog post because you need tips on time management, here’s our best tip. Stop reading this. Stop wasting your actions on things that aren’t productive. You’re reading this because you don’t really want to be doing what you need to be doing. And tough. You need to do it, so do it. If it seems like it’s all too much, if it seems like you’ll never get it all done, you’re just making it harder on yourself by reading something like this instead of doing what you need to be doing.
Pick the easiest thing you can do, and do it. Get on a roll. And then tackle the hard stuff. Or do it the other way around. There’s no answer that words on a blog can solve. We can tell you to set goals, make lists, prioritize duties, delegate to others, establish routines, set time limits, organize your life, your desk, your closest, whatever. We can tell you all of that. And it’s all good stuff, and it’ll all help different people in different way. But it doesn’t matter unless you do it, if you find out what works best for you.
Now What?
Got it? None of it means anything unless you start. Start now. Do something.
What are you doing? You haven’t started? That’s it. Now we’re mad. Now we will sick Yoda on you.
“Do, or do not. There is no try.”
GTD it.
Ok, ok. If that didn’t work for you, try reading “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. It’s a system. It’s thorough. It’s way more than just a bunch of tips someone threw together on a blog. And it works. But if you’re gonna do it, do it already.
