Time fights back - here’s what to do about it.
I have had Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman sitting on my TBR pile for over a year and half after it was recommended by a college friend. (If you’ve read the book, you’ll enjoy the irony of this statement - I just kept putting it off!)
This book is so good that I have to just say, read it. It’ll break your brain a tiny bit and also remind you of your mortality (so fun!) but there’s some lovely nuggets you can pull out of it!
So here’s what we’re pulling for ourselves!
💡 Biggest whoa moment: The idea that time fights you back. As a type A, love-a-plan Virgo, I enjoy assuming I can strongarm anything into my timeline. Time is slippery, finicky, and doesn’t like to be managed. A couple examples of what that looks like:
Parkinson’s Law: We fill the time given to us. Have you ever noticed that when you have to do just one thing, say, write an email, it somehow takes up all day? Whereas when that email is a on a list of 10 other emails to send, it only takes a few minutes? Yep. This is that. Basically our brains don’t enjoy getting things done until the last minute. Instead, we’ll “noodle on it” or “marinate,” but when the deadline comes near, we can somehow get it out.
Hofstradter’s Law: Everything takes longer than you think it will, even when you take into account Hofstradter’s Law. Like when you say, writing this email will only take 20 minutes. And that’s being generous!!! I’ll set a timer. The email then takes 30 minutes. It’s nuts. Time! You annoying thing!
Time Saving Tools are a Myth: Did you know that when we got access to “time-saving” tools for chores, i.e. dishwashers, laundry machines… we didn’t get our time back? Instead, our expectations of cleanliness heightened, which resulted in us spending the same amount on chores! Gross. Tell that to all your productivity hack plans. They’re useless!
🌱 Put it into practice now: So now that you’ve assumed that time fights back, that we’ll never be “on top of things,” that productivity guilt is real, how can we try to wrestle things so that we start spending more time on the things that matter? We’ve got three things to try!
Pay Yourself First: You may have heard this in finance terms, but it also works in time. If you have a goal: increasing your language skills, working on long-term strategic work over short-term tasks, start writing, develop an exercise routine, etc - it’s really hard to “make time” for those things. And so you won’t. The idea here is that you never will have time for these, unless you create it. So start scheduling it into your calendar. Create blocks to protect that type of work. Don’t stop yourself from losing sight of the importance of getting those things done!
Cut Middling Priorities: Our to-do lists are long. Have you ever done a sizing exercise at work, but, at the end of the day, you know you’ll still try to do all of them? Raises hand guiltily. This one is for you. It looks like reviewing your priorities and then truly getting rid of some of them. Check out Warren Buffet’s approach to this over here.
Limit Works in Progress: Brains like to jump as soon as they get bored/challenged/uncomfortable. If you’re keeping 14 tabs open it’s easy to step away when the going gets tough. So instead, only let yourself have a few projects on the docket. This will reduce your productivity goblin showing up and letting you clean your whole office instead of sending that damn email which should only take 20 minutes… we’ll see.
That’s it folks - let me know which one you try!