The importance of time management
…or: How to pursue your passion and get shit done
First things first: I still don’t like “time management” and think it’s detrimental to our happiness. This seems to contradict the title of this article, but bear with me, please.
The problem with time management is that no matter what form it takes, its goal is to use time more efficiently in order to get more done. And I believe we need the opposite: we need to stop this insane striving for perfection, the ludicrous expectations that we can be career high-flyers, householders, athletes, buddhas, organisers, artists and partner/parent/friend of the year all at the same time.
It's not going to happen. No matter how much time management you implement, the closest you’ll get to fulfilling this expectation is perhaps a short time of things working out, before one of life’s inevitable curveballs topples the house of cards or you burn out, whichever comes first. Both are inevitable with this approach.
Could it be time to accept that a good life might look radically different? Let’s explore this idea.
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When time management meant looking up
It’s hard to imagine a life that isn’t measured by hours and minutes. And yet that’s the life our ancestors lived until a surprisingly short time ago.
Time has always been measured, but the methods were elaborate, weather-dependent (sundials, anyone?) and often expensive, so that only the wealthy could afford them. To tell the time, the vast majority of people looked up at the sky to gauge where the sun was.
Clocks were first introduced in the 13th century, but they only showed the hour at first, not minutes, and were attached to churches and towers. Individual households and people didn’t have clocks until much later. Mass-manufactured clocks and watches only really took off in the second half of the 19th century – that’s a measly 150 years ago!
What it means to be time-less
What the above means is that for most of human history, it wasn’t possible to be five minutes late for a meeting. Nobody could even tell what five minutes were. People went to sleep and got up with the sun; school, work and church started after a bell rang; the starting time usually varied with the seasons in any case.
Imagine: What would it mean if you didn’t have a phone showing you the exact minute of the hour of the day? If you didn’t have wall clocks, computer clocks or anything else telling you where the heck you were in the day? How would you measure your work hours? Your sleep?
The truth is that people used natural rhythms to gauge the time, and it was never an exact science. In fact, our seconds, minutes and hours are simply made-up measurements that at some point, everyone agreed on (before that, there were different length “hours”).
How did we become slaves to something so artificial, and moreover, so new, historically speaking? Why do we think we can’t exist without knowing the time, and align our whole lives to the clock? Is this process reversible – or at least, can the effects be mitigated?
Time management is artificial
If the above history lesson was meant to do one thing, it’s to cause a shift in your thinking, to make time less immutable and absolute in your mind. If I’ve achieved that, then I’ll be happy.
Of course we can’t entirely escape the dictates of time these days. Meeting friends, doing group activities, work and even passions (when it comes to courses and the like), are all measured in time and happen at certain times of the day. That’s fine.
But maybe we should relax our relentless worship of the clock at the remaining times. Maybe we should acknowledge that time is a crutch, a support for social activities and was never meant to be the whip behind us, ever driving us onwards. Maybe it’s okay to just, you know… -stop.
Mad as it sounds, this is what I’m proposing in order to get shit done and still find time to pursue your passion(s).
The Wild Spirits way to get shit done
I’ve spoken about it before that passions, doing something for the joy of it, and especially creative and artistic pursuits, require a completely different state of mind than work and organisation. To find this "switch” in their structured everyday lives is what most people struggle with when it comes to pursuing their passions.
That’s why I propose leaving time behind with your job and any social gatherings. It’s also one reason why my target group isn’t, say, young mothers, because with a little human attached to you at all times, this kind of thing gets a lot more difficult. Women over 40, however, usually can carve out time for themselves, and they do this by saying No - a lot - and downsizing life, leaving behind any obligations, clubs or gatherings that no longer serve them and outsourcing any tasks they can.
The rest can be done in “chore modules”. I love modules. All my coaching programs have them. Chore modules work as follows:
Every day, you pick one chore and that’s the one you’ll do. This could be cleaning the bathroom, dusting and hoovering, kitchen glam-up (cleaning and doing laundry) – all those everyday household tasks that need to be done.
At the weekend, you pick “projects” instead. This is anything more involved, such as washing the windows or re-painting the garden bench.
Just so we understand each other: This is one chore per day and at weekends, one project per day. Which leaves the majority of your time for – you!
You and your passions
The priority in your non-scheduled time is you. That means, time for yourself, time to rest and time for your passions. It’s unstructured time where you’ll just allow yourself to be instead of doing. Or rather, only do whatever it is you feel like doing, whatever you’re inspired to do.
But careful: This can’t be a work project or chore. At the beginning, these will try to sneak into your creative thoughts. Don’t let them!
And there you have it, time management a la Wild Spirits. It really does work! Just one fair warning: It’s a lot harder to implement than it sounds. But that’s what The Magic of Purpose is for – schedule a free chat with me there and we’ll look at your options.