Pittsburgh Arts, Regional Theatre, New Work, Producing, Copyright, Labor Unions,
New Products, Coping Skills, J-O-Bs...
Theatre industry news, University & School of Drama Announcements, plus occasional course support for
Carnegie Mellon School of Drama Faculty, Staff, Students, and Alumni.
CMU School of Drama
Friday, January 20, 2017
The pitfalls of time management
Unclutterer: Is time management an idea that’s been oversold? Oliver Burkeman recently wrote an article in The Guardian entitled “Why time management is ruining our lives,” which raised a number of interesting points.
I’m not sure if I agree with this article. The author’s main point is “We might try to get more comfortable with not being as efficient as possible — with declining certain opportunities, disappointing certain people, and letting certain tasks go undone. Plenty of unpleasant chores are essential to survival. But others are not — we have just been conditioned to assume that they are. It isn’t compulsory to earn more money, achieve more goals, realize our potential on every dimension, or fit more in”. Which I disagree with. In fact, I would argue that my compulsion to be efficient and get as many tasks done as possible is the reason why I’m such a good student as well as worker. My drive to constantly improve my time efficiency ensures that all my chores and assignments are done in a timely manner; especially in theatre, where time is usually of the essence.
This guy is living in a dreamland. While I agree that taking time to chill out with your cat is enjoyable, not getting your work done when others are dependent on it because you're annoyed by google calendar is not acceptable. Now it’s different if you blocked out time in your day to do unstructured activities but saying “I got this” and doing all your work in some nut-job freeform way lends itself to mismanaging and unintended all-nighters to make up for the time you took two hours for lunch because you thought you were on top of your nonexistent to-do list.
He also doesn’t account for the fact that a good manager of their time would block out some chunks of their day to solve unexpected problems. There will not be a day where something doesn’t go wrong so you always have to plan for the worst.
Time management is not the problem here. Taking on too much, obsessing over being productive every minute of the day, being a workaholic, these are all issues aided by time management, but the priorities need to change, not the tool. Good time management leaves some breathing room to explore creative options within a given task or to deal with an unforeseen event. And with good time management, tasks should be completed efficiently, with time left for actual creative thought or relaxation. I do not like how the author pointed out some benefits of being a “negligent emailer.” You do not need to respond to an email the moment that it comes in, but it is better to choose not to reply, because it is a low priority, than to forget. Maybe it turns into a crisis, maybe it does not. Maybe they figure it out for themselves, maybe they just give up your help. I understand the point that he is trying to make about email zeroers, that the world will continue to turn without you, but it is not all or nothing! Prioritize, set (and express) reasonable limits on your work time, and time manage to meet expectations within that time.
I think that this article starts off in a good place, but then it kind of spirals out of control by the end. I think that the idea that one who time manages extremely well is used to working and therefore will do more work to fill the new open time is not improbable. I also agree with the author in their point that having free time in people’s lives is important because of allowing for creativity to cultivate, but also to allow one to be flexible because life happens and it is important to have time to deal with whatever life throws at you. I do think that some of the other concepts are incorrect. While replying to emails will lead to a full conversation, if one wishes to be successful they should not avoid interaction with correspondents. I think with the direction the world is headed, I would question what would happen if one tried to not be as efficient as possible. How far behind would they fall?
I think that this author forgets that some people don't have a choice in whether or not they can plan their days. Maybe they're not as busy as most of the people that I know, but the reality is that most people have enough going on that planning is extremely helpful. I know that when I don't plan my day I end up slacking off and not paying attention to how time goes by. I end up not completing anything that I have to get done, which leads to some serious procrastination. Something else that bothers me about this article is that they seem to have a negative view on the desire to be a more efficient person. Being efficient allows to achieve your goals faster, and I think that this ambition is something to be admired. Of course it's nice to take some time to relax, but this is something that can be worked into an already structured schedule. There's a big difference between taking scheduled breaks and just simply neglecting the things you have to do.
After reading the initial article, I agree with Danksy that Burkeman’s article seemed to be more about over-prioritizing productivity than about the pitfalls of time management. I feel like saying that time management leading to the issues described is like saying organizing your kitchen will lead to all of your spices being in an inconvenient location. Yes, you could decide to organize your kitchen that way if you ignore the fact that you need to access the spices, but you could also organize it any number of other ways. Time management can be used to give yourself more free time (or at least more sleep), or it can be used to make you be able to cram more tasks into the day.
That being said, I do agree that there is a danger of over-prioritizing productivity. I say that as someone who struggles to find a balance between being productive and over-valuing productivity. There are a lot of things in my life I consider more important than productivity, yet I generally find myself behaving as if I see efficiency and productivity as the most important thing. I do think it is important to acknowledge the way our society puts productivity on a pedestal, and consider whether that is really benefiting us.
This article is very enlightening. I definitely agree with the main points it has made, especially the one about emails and how, the more you speed up your response time, the more emails you will end up dealing with. I am also the kind of person who loves to overload in every way; and, it’s just getting worse as my time at CMU continues. I’m constantly going at a fast-paced speed – my first break was during this most recent winter vacation, and now I’m finally at the point where I can’t seem to pick up my pace anymore. The advice from this article to take a step back – to decline certain opportunities – is something I need to bring myself to take. I actually met with my academic advisor this morning to talk about just this, and he gave me valuable advice on how I could approach my schedule in a more manageable way (e.g., which things to take off of my schedule). I am always hoping that I can fit more on my plate, but I’ve finally begun to realize that maybe the food on my plate is about to topple over.
This was interesting to read as I am standing on the verge of a new semester in which one of my major goals was to manage my time better. Not that I think I’m terrible at time management, but somehow I always feel like everyone else is so much better at it than I am. After coming to CMU I discovered that there were two main reasons for what I saw as my “failure” at time management. The first was that I try and give everything I am doing 100% effort all of the time. In case you didn’t know, that’s a great way to both burnout and completely lose anything life outside of your work. The second reason is that I have never had any sort of work/life divide in my life. For the most part this has been a blessing, it means that all parts of my life flow seamlessly together, feeding and informing each other, and that work has rarely felt like a chore I had to get through before I got to the fun stuff. I don't think time management is the root of the problem this author is getting at, but maybe part of really great time management is carving out free time to just play and let your mind wander or occasionally getting a B or C on an assignment so that you can go spend the evening with your friends instead.
My time management skills are less than stellar to say the least, and in my last semester, I definitely felt the pressure to always be working as hard as I could on every assignment I had, but due to my lack of time management skills, it led to many long nights and it gave me no satisfaction at the end because I was so burned out. This article really confused me however, because it seemed to argue that trying to manage your time more efficiently was a bad thing, and after last semester, it gives me pause. Because I think that the more efficient that I can be, the more free time I will have to do what I want with my time rather than stress about all the stuff I haven’t done yet. Going ahead I think I will choose to mostly ignore this article, so I can focus on managing my time in a more efficient and healthy way,
So this article intrigues me in that it seems to try and take the stance that focusing to much on time management in a endeavor the is in a sense harmful due to the fact it makes it difficult to be adjustable or the it could cause undue stress. And while I can see the rationale behind the argument I feel that the tone taken in the article is a bit of a over correction. Yes being a product and efficient employee more likely than not will tend to towards people expecting more out of you and that can cause more stress in your life, but idea that bed way to fix this is to become less efficient and productive is a silly and dangerous notion. Why not just let people know when your work load becomes more than you can handle, a solution which may see catching some flack but one that is far more mature and professional than just saying I'm not going to do this so they give me less work. In short while taking time for yourself is important so you don't burn out I'm not sure the method that the article suggests is the best means to achieve that goal.
This article brings up an interesting point-of-view on time management. While I agree with some of what the author of this article is saying, I think that their stance might be a little extreme. Especially in a education community, we all get caught up in our productiveness. There is always something else we could be doing at any given time and sometimes its impossible not to be completely productive with your time. I however, think that this sort of environment is preferred when one is trying to get an education. I think it would be some what of a waste to go somewhere to learn and not learn all that you can. I agree with the author when it comes to the case they make about how a person needs time to relax and reflect so that their creativity might be inspired. I believe that we must all find a balance. It all depends on what kind of person you want to be, in your personal goals and ambitions and in your relationships with others. We all work differently, some people thrive on always having something to do and others may need a little more time to relax to get their creative juices flowing.
I haven't read a super stupid posting like this in awhile (except for when I read some Trump comments by some people whose keyboards must not be working from all the tears they've cried while typing their comments) so thanks for sharing this. This guy sounds like the most annoying asshole to work with. "Emailers often discover that forgetting to reply brings certain advantages: people find alternative solutions to the problems they were nagging you to solve or the looming crisis they were emailing about never occurs." Are you kidding me? Is this guy seriously trying to justify an approach where he is just too lazy or doesn't have enough free time because he needs to pet his cats that he can't reply to EMAILS? You can do that in bed while you're petting your stupid cats (get a real animal, like a dog). This has got to be the most outlandish solution to a time management problem I've ever heard because it sounds like he just doesn't do his job and then people he doesn't reply to because he wants them to "solve the problem on their own" just go "wow who is this asshole who doesn't check is email and inconveniences me even further"... and what is the crisis doesn't happen... how can you "what if" an email from someone about a potential emergency? That doesn't seem like good practice at all. What. An. Idiot.
It is funny to read this article, and then read Vanessa's comment above because just a few days ago we were having a similar conversation. Time management is a big part of life in general but especially academic life, and I agree with pretty much everything that Vanessa say above. Obviously it is important to take time for yourself and to rest, and that is absolutely part of managing your time, and an important one (no one knows this more than me, because I just spent two months at school with mono) but on the other hand I did choose to come to CMU because I wanted to la in bed all day. I came because I wanted to learn how to be really good at something. I was not satisfied with being just okay. And to be that, in any field sometimes you have to sacrifice sleep, or fun things. Sometimes you just have to buckle down an get stuff done because its the right thing to do. Yes it is about balance and I am not claiming that that isn't important bur you also have to remember what you're here for, why you're giving up sleep sometimes, and often that makes it worth it.
Brukman has a point when you move 100mph you're bound to crash eventually. I do agree with him on the point that we are obsessed with time management for the wrong reasons. That trying to micromanage every minute of your day is a bad idea, despite the temptations of getting so much done. However his argument has one fatal flaw, a perfect schedule would account for the slack time while still making you as efficient as possible. The sole reason in his argument against a rigorous schedule is that it doesn't allot for slack time. If a schedule were to allot time for a more abstract item in on your to-do list, like slack time, unaccounted errors or just time to breath. A good time management system is not measured you how much you can get done in a day but finishing the necessities before deadlines while maintaining your sanity.
14 comments:
I’m not sure if I agree with this article. The author’s main point is “We might try to get more comfortable with not being as efficient as possible — with declining certain opportunities, disappointing certain people, and letting certain tasks go undone. Plenty of unpleasant chores are essential to survival. But others are not — we have just been conditioned to assume that they are. It isn’t compulsory to earn more money, achieve more goals, realize our potential on every dimension, or fit more in”. Which I disagree with. In fact, I would argue that my compulsion to be efficient and get as many tasks done as possible is the reason why I’m such a good student as well as worker. My drive to constantly improve my time efficiency ensures that all my chores and assignments are done in a timely manner; especially in theatre, where time is usually of the essence.
This guy is living in a dreamland. While I agree that taking time to chill out with your cat is enjoyable, not getting your work done when others are dependent on it because you're annoyed by google calendar is not acceptable. Now it’s different if you blocked out time in your day to do unstructured activities but saying “I got this” and doing all your work in some nut-job freeform way lends itself to mismanaging and unintended all-nighters to make up for the time you took two hours for lunch because you thought you were on top of your nonexistent to-do list.
He also doesn’t account for the fact that a good manager of their time would block out some chunks of their day to solve unexpected problems. There will not be a day where something doesn’t go wrong so you always have to plan for the worst.
Time management is not the problem here. Taking on too much, obsessing over being productive every minute of the day, being a workaholic, these are all issues aided by time management, but the priorities need to change, not the tool. Good time management leaves some breathing room to explore creative options within a given task or to deal with an unforeseen event. And with good time management, tasks should be completed efficiently, with time left for actual creative thought or relaxation.
I do not like how the author pointed out some benefits of being a “negligent emailer.” You do not need to respond to an email the moment that it comes in, but it is better to choose not to reply, because it is a low priority, than to forget. Maybe it turns into a crisis, maybe it does not. Maybe they figure it out for themselves, maybe they just give up your help. I understand the point that he is trying to make about email zeroers, that the world will continue to turn without you, but it is not all or nothing! Prioritize, set (and express) reasonable limits on your work time, and time manage to meet expectations within that time.
I think that this article starts off in a good place, but then it kind of spirals out of control by the end. I think that the idea that one who time manages extremely well is used to working and therefore will do more work to fill the new open time is not improbable. I also agree with the author in their point that having free time in people’s lives is important because of allowing for creativity to cultivate, but also to allow one to be flexible because life happens and it is important to have time to deal with whatever life throws at you. I do think that some of the other concepts are incorrect. While replying to emails will lead to a full conversation, if one wishes to be successful they should not avoid interaction with correspondents. I think with the direction the world is headed, I would question what would happen if one tried to not be as efficient as possible. How far behind would they fall?
I think that this author forgets that some people don't have a choice in whether or not they can plan their days. Maybe they're not as busy as most of the people that I know, but the reality is that most people have enough going on that planning is extremely helpful. I know that when I don't plan my day I end up slacking off and not paying attention to how time goes by. I end up not completing anything that I have to get done, which leads to some serious procrastination. Something else that bothers me about this article is that they seem to have a negative view on the desire to be a more efficient person. Being efficient allows to achieve your goals faster, and I think that this ambition is something to be admired. Of course it's nice to take some time to relax, but this is something that can be worked into an already structured schedule. There's a big difference between taking scheduled breaks and just simply neglecting the things you have to do.
After reading the initial article, I agree with Danksy that Burkeman’s article seemed to be more about over-prioritizing productivity than about the pitfalls of time management. I feel like saying that time management leading to the issues described is like saying organizing your kitchen will lead to all of your spices being in an inconvenient location. Yes, you could decide to organize your kitchen that way if you ignore the fact that you need to access the spices, but you could also organize it any number of other ways. Time management can be used to give yourself more free time (or at least more sleep), or it can be used to make you be able to cram more tasks into the day.
That being said, I do agree that there is a danger of over-prioritizing productivity. I say that as someone who struggles to find a balance between being productive and over-valuing productivity. There are a lot of things in my life I consider more important than productivity, yet I generally find myself behaving as if I see efficiency and productivity as the most important thing. I do think it is important to acknowledge the way our society puts productivity on a pedestal, and consider whether that is really benefiting us.
This article is very enlightening. I definitely agree with the main points it has made, especially the one about emails and how, the more you speed up your response time, the more emails you will end up dealing with. I am also the kind of person who loves to overload in every way; and, it’s just getting worse as my time at CMU continues. I’m constantly going at a fast-paced speed – my first break was during this most recent winter vacation, and now I’m finally at the point where I can’t seem to pick up my pace anymore. The advice from this article to take a step back – to decline certain opportunities – is something I need to bring myself to take. I actually met with my academic advisor this morning to talk about just this, and he gave me valuable advice on how I could approach my schedule in a more manageable way (e.g., which things to take off of my schedule). I am always hoping that I can fit more on my plate, but I’ve finally begun to realize that maybe the food on my plate is about to topple over.
This was interesting to read as I am standing on the verge of a new semester in which one of my major goals was to manage my time better. Not that I think I’m terrible at time management, but somehow I always feel like everyone else is so much better at it than I am. After coming to CMU I discovered that there were two main reasons for what I saw as my “failure” at time management. The first was that I try and give everything I am doing 100% effort all of the time. In case you didn’t know, that’s a great way to both burnout and completely lose anything life outside of your work. The second reason is that I have never had any sort of work/life divide in my life. For the most part this has been a blessing, it means that all parts of my life flow seamlessly together, feeding and informing each other, and that work has rarely felt like a chore I had to get through before I got to the fun stuff. I don't think time management is the root of the problem this author is getting at, but maybe part of really great time management is carving out free time to just play and let your mind wander or occasionally getting a B or C on an assignment so that you can go spend the evening with your friends instead.
My time management skills are less than stellar to say the least, and in my last semester, I definitely felt the pressure to always be working as hard as I could on every assignment I had, but due to my lack of time management skills, it led to many long nights and it gave me no satisfaction at the end because I was so burned out. This article really confused me however, because it seemed to argue that trying to manage your time more efficiently was a bad thing, and after last semester, it gives me pause. Because I think that the more efficient that I can be, the more free time I will have to do what I want with my time rather than stress about all the stuff I haven’t done yet. Going ahead I think I will choose to mostly ignore this article, so I can focus on managing my time in a more efficient and healthy way,
So this article intrigues me in that it seems to try and take the stance that focusing to much on time management in a endeavor the is in a sense harmful due to the fact it makes it difficult to be adjustable or the it could cause undue stress. And while I can see the rationale behind the argument I feel that the tone taken in the article is a bit of a over correction. Yes being a product and efficient employee more likely than not will tend to towards people expecting more out of you and that can cause more stress in your life, but idea that bed way to fix this is to become less efficient and productive is a silly and dangerous notion. Why not just let people know when your work load becomes more than you can handle, a solution which may see catching some flack but one that is far more mature and professional than just saying I'm not going to do this so they give me less work. In short while taking time for yourself is important so you don't burn out I'm not sure the method that the article suggests is the best means to achieve that goal.
This article brings up an interesting point-of-view on time management. While I agree with some of what the author of this article is saying, I think that their stance might be a little extreme. Especially in a education community, we all get caught up in our productiveness. There is always something else we could be doing at any given time and sometimes its impossible not to be completely productive with your time. I however, think that this sort of environment is preferred when one is trying to get an education. I think it would be some what of a waste to go somewhere to learn and not learn all that you can. I agree with the author when it comes to the case they make about how a person needs time to relax and reflect so that their creativity might be inspired. I believe that we must all find a balance. It all depends on what kind of person you want to be, in your personal goals and ambitions and in your relationships with others. We all work differently, some people thrive on always having something to do and others may need a little more time to relax to get their creative juices flowing.
I haven't read a super stupid posting like this in awhile (except for when I read some Trump comments by some people whose keyboards must not be working from all the tears they've cried while typing their comments) so thanks for sharing this. This guy sounds like the most annoying asshole to work with. "Emailers often discover that forgetting to reply brings certain advantages: people find alternative solutions to the problems they were nagging you to solve or the looming crisis they were emailing about never occurs." Are you kidding me? Is this guy seriously trying to justify an approach where he is just too lazy or doesn't have enough free time because he needs to pet his cats that he can't reply to EMAILS? You can do that in bed while you're petting your stupid cats (get a real animal, like a dog). This has got to be the most outlandish solution to a time management problem I've ever heard because it sounds like he just doesn't do his job and then people he doesn't reply to because he wants them to "solve the problem on their own" just go "wow who is this asshole who doesn't check is email and inconveniences me even further"... and what is the crisis doesn't happen... how can you "what if" an email from someone about a potential emergency? That doesn't seem like good practice at all. What. An. Idiot.
It is funny to read this article, and then read Vanessa's comment above because just a few days ago we were having a similar conversation. Time management is a big part of life in general but especially academic life, and I agree with pretty much everything that Vanessa say above. Obviously it is important to take time for yourself and to rest, and that is absolutely part of managing your time, and an important one (no one knows this more than me, because I just spent two months at school with mono) but on the other hand I did choose to come to CMU because I wanted to la in bed all day. I came because I wanted to learn how to be really good at something. I was not satisfied with being just okay. And to be that, in any field sometimes you have to sacrifice sleep, or fun things. Sometimes you just have to buckle down an get stuff done because its the right thing to do. Yes it is about balance and I am not claiming that that isn't important bur you also have to remember what you're here for, why you're giving up sleep sometimes, and often that makes it worth it.
Brukman has a point when you move 100mph you're bound to crash eventually. I do agree with him on the point that we are obsessed with time management for the wrong reasons. That trying to micromanage every minute of your day is a bad idea, despite the temptations of getting so much done. However his argument has one fatal flaw, a perfect schedule would account for the slack time while still making you as efficient as possible. The sole reason in his argument against a rigorous schedule is that it doesn't allot for slack time. If a schedule were to allot time for a more abstract item in on your to-do list, like slack time, unaccounted errors or just time to breath. A good time management system is not measured you how much you can get done in a day but finishing the necessities before deadlines while maintaining your sanity.
Post a Comment