Time Management
As I’m growing older (sitting at the seasoned ripeness at 24 now - this is mostly sarcastic) I look around and find more pathways for life than ever, some green others well trod and some that would be entirely of my own construction, this issue is feel I have less and less time to play with - there’s a certain weight to decisions now.
In this transition I’ve been forced into learning one integral lesson. I can’t do everything.
I don’t mean in a lack of ability way (this sounds far more arrogant than I intend it to) or a lack of desire way,
but in a way that respects two critical facts of life.
1. I have limited time.
2. I have limited attention.
Recognising this has fundamentally changed the way I approach life. The more I try to fight the fact I have limited time - the faster it slips away. The further I try and spread my attention across seperate tasks - the further out of reach they fall.
We’re often immersed in a ‘hustle’ culture. 2021 has put its own weird spin on it. Which don’t get me wrong, in many ways it’s fantastic - just somewhere along the way we lost our understanding of value.
We got caught up in the idea of being busy, doing so many things at once, hardly having time for the things that do matter. Our to-do lists, with one or two tasks on them, albeit ones of value, no longer felt meaningful anymore - let me correct that; they didn’t feel productive anymore. The feeling of being productive become what dictated whether our day was well spent or not. This is a very contemporary idea. One that feels like the first step down a staircase, destination uncertain (though it won’t do us any good).
Coming back to those two principles. If we choose to recognise them we have to make some sacrifices (this is the part that can feel a little counter-culture). We have to accept the fact we can not do everything, we can not be everything. We can not live out ever fantasy in our heads. No matter how hard we work. We need to start acting like that’s the truth. We are going to have to make some decisions that close other doors, or take us down pathways we might not turn back down. This is okay - this is life. It doesn’t mean we’re committed for our entire life, it just means we made a decision - which is so much better that leaving the options “open”.
For truly what is the point of keeping other options open if we never take them?
I’m not saying this to promote dogged-mindedness toward a singular goal - that’s not healthy for everyone. I’m merely illustrating the fact that only through sacrificing some things are we able to achieve others.
Most of the time that doesn’t look like a dream or life ambition, but is made up of day to day action. It’s deciding whether watching another episode on Netflix is of more value than grinding on your novel for an extra hour, ect.
The older we get the more time management moves away from “how to get everything done” to “what needs to be done”. It’s through consciously recognising this shift we can begin to make educated decisions for ourselves.
We can put what we value first.
Most importantly, we can begin to weed out the small things that eat away at our time and attention but bring NO value.
Your life is precious, and at the end of the day we do have a limited amount of time to exercise our agency in this small rock floating through time and space. Let’s treat that time with the value it deserves.
