Time Management 1
It is not about time but about you,
Once at a large multinational company, the CEO took his/her team for an offsite. They all wanted to find a solution for the challenge of workload faced by their staff and not having enough time to deliver the products. Being an employee-oriented organisation, it was important for the leadership team to address that concern. During the course of the offsite, they invited world-renowned facilitators, time management experts, fitness and diet experts, and researchers to find a solution.
They had also invited a Zen monk to get out of the box ideas. It was very difficult to convenience the monk to come out of his tinny village in Japan and speak with the guests. He was very reluctant to come and share his wisdom, he was not an ordinary monk but a Zen Master. It was only possible because one of the senior director's brothers was a disciple of this monk for more than 30 years. The monk agreed to come and speak on one condition. The condition was everyone will follow his instructions. The team organising the offsite decided to put him as the key speaker on the first day after the context is set by the CEO and senior group leaders.
During the session with the Zen master, he talked about the philosophy, simplicity of Zen and shared many useful insights. Finally, he concluded by saying, " at the end what you know has very little value than what you do with what you know. First start with sitting in silence or in meditation daily for 15 minutes". At that time the CEO responded " thanks for your session. Let me be honest with you, Maybe I can do this for the next 3 days but once I'm back on Monday, spending 15 minutes every day is impossible. Most days I don't even have time for lunch. My calendar is full. I don't have time!"
The monk with a beautiful smile replied, "then you should sit for an hour daily". *
If you are also like this CEO struggling for time then consider the problem is not time but you. Like everyone else you also have 24 hours, so it is not about managing time but managing yourself and your energy and delivering results.
First things first, what comes to your mind when you think of "time"?
If a clock or deadline comes to your mind when you hear "time" then it is important to distinguish concepts of "time" from the clock.
Time is not a clock
While time is eternal (no beginning and no end), the clock is a human invention. While you can stop the clock but not the time. The first clock, a pendulum clock, was designed and built by Dutch polymath Christiaan Huygens in 1656. It is an invention just a few centuries old in the millions of years of human evolution. Even before that Sundials were used around 3500 BCE. Those were used merely as instruments than devices that control people's life.
Time is also different in various parts of the world (divided by the time zones). Right now here in London, it is 8.30 AM in London, 1 PM in Bengaluru and 4.30 PM in Tokyo but morning 3.30AM in NewYork.
What is Time?
Tims is a space in which you experience life.
This is one way to look at time. That is the reason we get to hear these phrases like "we had a good time", "the timing is not good now", "It is a high time", and "Time flies".
Look at your own life and try to remember the experience of waiting outside before a big meeting or an important job interview. Those few minutes before that event feels like an eternity. Then consider events, when you went out with your friends for a drink or going on a vacation. Those few hours or days seem very short. Then your regular day, starting with a Things To Accomplish today(the new name for To-Do list!!) and by the end of the day feeling tired and not even one item is ticked on the box.
Hope it gives you a sense that "time' is an experience and not a clock to run with. You might wonder, this is all fine but "I have so many things to do and how to get them done?",
In order to address your amount of work, you have to remember the two fundamental principles.
The First Principle is to remember that
You will never get all your “things” done.
The second principle is "Follow the first principle". It is really important to get this clear in your mind about your workload. The moment you really get this, it will be your moment of Zen.
Think for a moment, you have to accept that ultimate truth of your To-Do list. You will always have something pending in your life. You might try to justify by saying "I'm only talking about my work". Even at your work, there are always things to do. Once you accept that you will never get all your things done. You can start planning about what best you can do to deliver your commitments. It should be underpinned by Integrity (honouring your word) and responsibility (willing to be the cause for an action).
Then you can use many of the management techniques like prioritization of your work. One simple approach is to look at your backlog and pace the items in the following buckets. (Popularised by Stephen Covey - 7 Habits of highly effective people).
It is important to use your judgement to decide, practice, observe and learn from your experience. Sometimes it is not easy to decide what is important and what is not, but you can always clearly decide what is urgent and what is not. Urgency is always associated with an event on a timeline. If it is nearer the timeline then it becomes urgent and if it is farther in the timeline then it is not urgent. Your state of mind also plays an important role, you might have experienced some customers/managers showing urgency whereas the rest of the team is confident of completing the task by the agreed timeline. You might have also observed that the unnecessary status updates/follow-ups actually impede the flow. Most of the time that urgency is caused by underlying anxiety and/or fear. You can use a system like Kanban to provide the status of the work and transparency.
Practices like mindfulness and meditation help you to experience the expansion of time. The more focused the mind is the more work gets done. It is similar to using Kanban System or Lean Flow for managing your own work. It is not finishing the work but also about being engaged and feeling energetic. You need to design a holistic system and set of habits to manage all these.
Sometimes a professional coach can be of great help to design and practice your system. You can also try to create a system in a small group with fellow colleagues/friends and start experimenting.
Finally, it is not about time but about you.
Inspirations
Stephen Covey - "The 7 Habits of highly effective people"
David Allen - "Getting Things Done"
Michael C. Jensen, Werner Erhard, Steve Zaffron, The Course: “Being A Leader and The Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological / Phenomenological Model"