Get Rich Slowly: I recently found myself, late one night, staring at my computer screen with a sinking, hard feeling in my stomach and a bad taste in my mouth. A familiar bad taste. The taste of debt. But I wasn’t looking at my bank statement — I was looking at my calendar.
I’d borrowed a few hours from my normal work routine to do something special with my kids, and then cancelled a date with my husband to make up the work hours, and then tried to reschedule with him but ran into a doctor’s appointment I’d forgotten about.
Time-management coach Thekla Richter says I’m not alone. “Everybody has that problem,” she says. “No matter how good we are at time managment. We want to do more things than we have time to do. It just means that we have lots of desire and lots of imagination.”
Once I’d had that rock-bottom moment of insight, the pattern that led to it was clear. Via Lifehacker
4 comments:
There are some really good points in this article. I know that for a lot of people the reason that they fall into time-debt is because they are procrastinating. It's easy to say yes to a project or a favor for someone, when you don't want to do what you're supposed to. It's important that for people who can smarten up and realize their situation and how deep into 'time-debt' they have fallen, to not spend all their time worrying now about how they won't have time. When you are in a tight situation, sitting around and worrying gets you no where. It's important that you take control and start working on the projects you really need to work on.
I will admit that I struggle with time debt. Thanks to another article this week on productivity, I am constantly picking up more tricks to give myself more time, and allocate that time for myself in order to get out of some of this time debt. Unfortunately, sleep will never completely be replaced. And the attention I have given to my friends can never be changed- I can only affect the future. But as long as I realize what's important and how it can be changed, there is no problem here. Getting out of time debt takes constant evaluation of your situation, even if you don't think you're in time debt.
It is an interesting idea to think of being able to be in “time-debt.” I think this is a more accurate description than saying you do not have enough time. Just like any other debt, time can be made up in may other ways (creativity, money, etc.). Now, almost everyone works in a world of time-debt. At least in the world of theatre, there are always more hours you would love to have to work on a project, and that is where creativity (and sometimes the throwing of money comes into use).
I also like that it called out “worrying.” There is no better way to increse your time-debt than by sitting around and worrying about it. While situations might require throught, worrying is almost always counterproductive.
I really like what this article says about time for yourself. I think a lot of people need to realize that you can't actually be 100% efficient 100% of the time. If you never take a moment to recuperate you will just become less and less efficient with your time and it will take you just as long to finish as if you had taken the 10-20 minute break to let your brain rest. I know personally I always come back from a break much more ready to work then if I try to power through times when I feel like my head is going to pop.
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