Just Seven Things

Exploring why and how we do what we do, and how we can do it better

Archive for the category “Time Management”

06 Jun 2008
2 Comments

Happiness System II

So, is it possible?

Having a conversation with one of our most senior managers today who has more end to end responsibility in the company than anyone else. We were discussing their feelings of control or otherwise, and the speed that it can feel that balance and control is lost.

It got me talking about my thoughts around a Happiness System. The idea that there are certain key activities or tasks peculiar to an individual that when done, or kept on top of a daily, weekly or other period basis allow that person to maintain a level of balance and control. A system for achieving Happiness of Self-Management.

The next steps are to start defining them. I’ve started for myself:

  1. One list and one set of numbered priorities
  2. A ‘frog’ (see Brian Tracy) ranked view of projects at my fingertips
  3. Always having a ranked and sorted system of tasks to my time/ priorities and energies to (the Do it Tomorrow view) – I’m debating the differentiating characteristics to 1. and 2. above
  4. An 80:20 approach to any free time. 80% will always be on the important, 20% on the urgent (the Covey approach)….

To be continued

Posted in Happiness, Time Management and tagged ,
03 Jun 2008
3 Comments

The Stress of Time Management

Day 1 (please adopt North Eastern voice of Big Brother commentator in homage to BB9 – I confess to a trash TV fetish when at my mind-numbed best levels of tiredness…..)

I was struck today, in the first day of the application of my new more structured system, how damn stressful time management is.

There’s an irony and an insight in this for me. The irony is obvious in that something that should be a system or methodology for stress relief has the ability to cause stress.

The insight has a number of levels:

1. I could be doing it all wrong. A number of my posts have referred to the difficulties of time management and the contradictions between flexibility and structure. Maybe the achievement of perfect balance in time management is without stress? I look forward to it

2. I could be doing it right, and all of the books and all of the advice fails to articulate how incredibly hard you have to work at time management and focus to get to the relaxed position of perfect balance

3. I’m a bit stressy? – true, this morning was back to work after a week’s hols. A few hundred emails, some personal stuff to sort and my sales director on hols so some of his calls to pick-up on (as well as my scheduled actions for the day: a couple of presentations and a board paper to prepare), but nothing OTT.

My vote goes for 2. I’ve always liked David Allen’s reference to the perfect control being most akin to a martial art, or performing like water. I love the following quote from his collection of newsletters, Ready for Anything, from Shunryu Suzuki:

‘When you know everything, you are like a dark sky. Sometimes a flashing will come through the dark sky. After it passes, you forget all about it, and there is nothing left but the dark sky. The key is never being surprised when all of a sudden a thunderbolt breaks through. And when the lightning does flash, a wonderful sight may be seen. When we have emptiness, we are always prepared for watching the flashing’

I think the key to the amount focus, determination and consistent, persistent time management activity is in the first four words of the quote: ‘When you know everything’

How hard is that?

Posted in Time Management and tagged ,
02 Jun 2008

Can You Structure Flexibility?

I’ve just spent a few hours going through a ‘structuring’ phase. I tend to got through alternating cycles of structure and flexibility when I get frustrated/ stressed with the prior phase. I’ve been through prolonged periods of structuring my time to achieve an optimal balance of tasks, projects and goals I want to achieve. Normally however I default to running a mezze of different systems which have pockets of structure in a generally flexible approach.

However, in my posts about trusted performance and trusted action systems and my questions about Why is Time Management so Hard? you can see that the stress of the things that I’m not doing, or the bouncing out of the ‘trusted system’ (the goading children) are paining me ;-)

So, I’m trying a time-bound structured system again. Not calendar-set and micro-managed, but introducing a set of time ‘pockets’ throughout the day which overall achieve balance. They are pockets of focus that are time bound, but when all are achieved throughout the day I should be taking the steps towards each of my goals and overall vision of success.

What am I hoping to be different? I have run my most successful ‘structured phases’ when studying for my degree and professional qualifications. I would balance out my study subjects throughout a time period into bite-sized chunks and literally close the book and pick up the next subject matter when the time ended. Although there was resistance in terms of wanting to continue studying subjects past the time slot if I was panicking about lack of understanding, the pressure of understanding the rest of the subjects and the exam deadlines provided me with quite ruthless ‘switching’ pressure.

The main difference to when I have tried previously is overall certainty of vision and goals I want to achieve over the next 1,3 5 and 10yrs. i am also very satisfied that my goals are balanced to maximise my happiness. I have a lot relaxation time (including everything associated with Just Seven Things) built into this structure.

The big question is whether I can maintain mindfulness and trust in this system (and whether my energies keep up with the pace I’ve set myself to achieve)

Posted in Focus, Mindfulness, Time Management and tagged , , | Leave a comment

Post Navigation

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →