Time, gentlemen, please

Not so bad. Only a couple of days and I'm posting again already!
I get the feeling I'm not going to be able to justfy much time for this, though, so I'll still probably be just an occasional poster.

Let's take that as today's topic, shall we -time. I don't mean in the Einsteinian sense of a relative axis that may be distorted by physical phenomena, but rather the more meta-physical perception we have as humans, and how that may be distorted by mental phenomena.
Or maybe that still is too grandly put. I think I'll be focussing more on time management and organisation. But, hey! Nobody said we needed focus here. I'll diverge into relativity and metaphysics along the way if I want ;-)

So, it is often said, "where does all the time go?"
In theory this should be relatively straightforward to answer, if you really just want a straightforward answer. I mean you can keep some sort of journal: a diary, or a weblog, or some written record somewhere of what you were doing at any particular time. After some reasonable period of time you need only refer to your records and abstract whichever aspect of that answer you wanted.
That's the theory. Many people even do some approximation of this.
But this is not an adequate coverage as far as I am concerned.
For starters, keeping a good diary is difficult. I have even been lamenting in this blog the lack of time I have for writing journal entries such as these. The fact is, if you are asking the question because you feel you don't have enough time for everything you want to do then asking yourself to do something extra that is not only time consuming in itself, but also requires a discipline of regularity and consistency, then you are asking too much!
Perhaps that last sentence holds a clue as to where I am going with this, and we'll come back to that point.
My second reason for discounting the journaling approach is that the question is not really about what you have spent time on, but rather why you don't have enough time left to do the rest of what you want. Of course, analysing what you are already doing can assist you in cutting down or eliminating those things that you consider lower priority than things you are running out of time for. Whether you assign those priorities according to how much you like doing something, or how necessary those things are for your ongoing life (e.g. do you place higher priority on going to the cinema than going over your household bills?) is left out for now. As we will see, all of this still misses the point, and may even be counter-productive.

So what is the point?
Sometimes you have to weigh up the usual opinions before you can present your own unique one and highlight its value. That is not to say that I think my ideas are better than anyone elses, and anyone that knows me well will be quick to point out that my own application of time management is far from perfect. On the other hand, perhaps I just like to ramble too much. Well that's my perogative here. But to that last point of looking at how I am now - well that's part of the point of this exercise. I have plenty of thoughts going round in my head that could lead to a better quality of life but which I don't necessarily practice! By putting those thoughts down here it is my hope that I can either pick them up and apply them or at least see where the flaws and perhaps try to correct them.

So, again, what was my point?
Patence dear reader. I'll get there. I just had to justify my following comments, which in reality are little more than a rant. But they are applicable to the theme, so here goes:
How many times have I read or heard something like,

"feel you don't have time to incorporate X into your life? The average person spends 2-3 hours a day watching TV. X only takes 30 minutes of your time each day - surely you can cut back on your TV watching by that much?"

While this statement comes in a few variations, the main thrust runs pretty as above. X is usually some technique, or exercise, or some other thing you are being encouraged to do to improve your lifestyle, health, future, eyesight, or whatever.
But I just want to spend a moment (on a tangent, I know), analysing the protagonist's logic.
Firstly, the phrase "average person". In practice this often reads, literally, "average American". Another one of my pet grievances. When you publish a book/ article/ webpage/ etc - don't expect it to only be read by American's - even if that is primarily your expected audience!
Now I'm diverging from my divergence... let's get back. My point here is that we start out with a statistical average, "the average person", and then go on to assume that, apparently, that the reader is that average person! Is it just me or does that recommendation imply that it's you that watches 2-3 hours of TV every day? It doesn't allow room for any alternative!
What if you're like me? I watch, probably less than 1 hour a week of TV. Actually, at present it's probably more than that, since I watch just under an hour several times a week when I'm at the gym - but I won't count that here because cutting back on that doesn't achieve anything.
The implication is that, if you're a good old average person (or American) then, good news! You can change your life for the better!
If you're more special. If you're already pushing yourself a bit more than the average, then sorry. You're out of luck. We didn't think of you when we wrote our book/ article/ whatever.

Ok, ok, I know I am not being fair. I know that's not (usually) the intention of the writer. I know that their point is that most people usually fritter away a fair bit of their time on unnecessary fluff such as TV, reading junk, pointlessly surfing the web etc etc. For most people there is something they can free up time from without losing anything. TV just happens to be the most common and easily identifiable sap on time for a majority of people, but could be viewed in the context as a metaphor for any such reclaimable time.
Now maybe I'm being too fair? Well, regardless, the truth is that just about everyone can reclaim lost time from some pointless, or at least less-useful, activity.

Or can they? Putting aside for a moment the average, 2-3 hour of TV-watching (maybe American) person, do these meaningless, frivolous, activities really have some meaning or purpose?
Well, it is certainly true that we need time for recreation, relaxation, rest, recuperation, ranything rthat rbegins rwith R, really. Often time that just means some passive activity where we can disengage mentally, physically, or both (usually both) and have entertainment pushed at us. This is one of the reasons for the huge success of television.
So cutting these things out completely may not be advantageous.

This raises the question of what advantage are we looking for in the first place? At this point, by the way, I think we can say we have moved on from my rant and back to the main subject. Now we're analysing what the subject really is! At some moment we'll also discuss what my point was that I was getting to earlier. Keep awake, you won't want to miss it!

So, if we're going to prioritise our time (which is really what were talking about with our 2-3 hours of TV rant too), we need something to calibrate our prioritisation against. I mean, it may be easy to say, "doing 30 minutes of X instead of watching TV is better", but what exactly is better? We have to have some idea of what we are trying to achieve - what our goal is - in all of this to make that statement. All too often we are seduced by the feeling that we know what we are striving for and are planning our lives accordingly. But when we really get down to it - when we really ask ourselves searchingly, we find a few potential epitaphs we habitually cling to, maybe some values we think we hold to, but which are just as likely to contradict each other - or change from one asking to the next. Maybe we find some stronger things, real values, definite direction. Even then we may be hard pushed to define absolutely who we are where we are going - and the rest of us haven't a clue!
How can we expect to effectively manage our time if our whole subjective framework for managing it within is left undefined???
Now we hit my point! The point that was being missed when we were talking about prioritisation, or reclaiming time from less important activities. In fact, our question of "where does all the time go?"
For example, if our main objective in life is to do as little work as possible, and get by with as little effort as possible, then maybe our 2-3 hours of TV watching is not enough! Maybe we should be reclaiming time wasted on helping others or our personal development and give it back to the really productive occupation of pointless frivolity!

Not that I would recommend that course.

So how do we decide? I mean, how do we really get to grips with who we are and where we want to be.
Over the last couple of years I have read, and in some cases listened to, many books, courses, articles, seminars and talking-books that try to address the subject of reaching your potential. A recurring theme is that of deciding first where you are aiming for, then making sure nothing stops you from getting there. On this point I particularly liked the way Anthony Robbins put it when he pointed out that the english word decide hails from the Latin, decidere, which is a concatenation of de+ caedere and literally means, "to cut off". The implication, he points out, is that once you have decided something you mentally cut off all other outcomes. In doing so you will not accept any deviation from acting in accord with your decision. He contests that most people, when they say they are making a decision, are not really making a decision in the sense just described. More commonly they are just expressing a preference. "I'm going to get fit" often means, "I would like to get fit". The difference is in whether we cut off all other possibilities , or whether we acknowledge we want the outcome, but are not prepared to do whatever it takes to get it. In the latter case we can see why excuses come along and objectives are missed.

Well that's all good stuff, and I think most people would benefit from seeing things that way and acting on it (I know I need to be more aware of this at times). However, that's useful in helping us to make real decisions and stick to them. But it doesn't tell us what decisions to make!
And why should it? Who can decide what you want your life to be other than you yourself?
Is this, then, another circular discussion with no answer. Are we left to guessing?
Well, leaving out questions of religion, which may have some influence in this area (and if this applies to you you probably already know in which ways), the material I have studied that I mentioned earlier also has things to say on this.
Robbins, for example, talks about writing down all your big goals you want to achieve within certain time frames (the next week, month, year, 5 years, 10 years, 40 years etc), and breaking those down into smaller goals in between, then making powerful decisions about them. Buzan would tell us to do something similar as a Mind Map. Actually Mind Map's are a very useful tool for this sort of exercise because they allow you to be free with your thoughts, while keeping a visible record of what you have already been thinking (in a way that is more mentally browseable than linear notes).
In the end, however, the decisions are still up to you. But at least now we are getting to a recognition of what things we must concentrate on. We can ask ourselves questions like:

• Am I happy to fritter my life away on trivialities and mundanuities?
• Is keeping out of trouble and looking after your family your main concern in life?
• Do I want fame, fortune or celebrity above all else?
• Will money make me happy?
• Do I want to be happy?
• Do I know how to be happy?
  
• Do I want to make a difference to others around me?
• Do I want to make a difference for others after me?
• Do I want to live a long, fulfilled life?
• Am I happy to die young, knowing I have indulged all my vices?
  

Obviously this list is not exhaustive, and clearly operates on several levels. After all I'm just writing this as the thoughts come and I haven't really planned anything out. However I think it's true that most of the questions really help us identify what our values are - and I mean our core values.
Many people tend to answer yes to the first two questions, and will also answer yes to the fifth ("Do I want to be happy?") without really considering if the first two will lead to that. I'm not saying it won't. I'm not making any value judgements of any of these questions - I am just saying that these, and questions like them, need to be asked, and their answers should be taken together and checked for consistency. If not consistent then another round must take place.

Haven't we got awfully far from our discussion of where all the time goes? Not really. The fact that it seems so is probably a good reason why so many people ask the question in the first place!
Remember, we said we need a clear values framework within which we can calibrate our prioritisation of time. Having selected our goals and decided (by cutting off all other possibilities) what we need to do to achieve them we should have pretty much sorted out what our main priorities are (I'm glossing here - maybe we'll be looking more into some of the details in another session).
We might be tempted at this point to use those priorities to start making out schedules of our time and what we will be doing at any particular time. Then we can see what is left and fill that out with lower priority stuff.
Well, this works for some people, and even if you are not one of them it can be a helpful exercise. But I would advise against relying on this as your time management strategy.
A better way, to my mind, is to keep those big priority activities, and the decisions beind them - all the way back to the values that drive them - clearly in mind at all times. Then at any time, if you find yourself watching TV when you know you could be using that time to work on the cure for cancer you have dedicated yourself to, you will naturally allow your own sense of values to drive you to do what you have decided. You shouldn't need some written schedule to tell you that!
What you may need is some mechanism to tell you that you need a break. Some of that r&r&r&r we were talking about earlier.
Now we see how things naturally reverse to having to make time for TV, trashy newspapers or the like. We know they have their place - but when we have to make time for them we have a good idea we are getting the balance right.

I'm not sure I have really answered the original question fully. Maybe it is not possible. But I think I have covered some good ground here. I have certainly given myself some things to think about! By the nature of such weblogs you may find some of those thoughts finding there way back here soon.
But for now my time is up! Time for a high priority task moving in, and with that I leave you, hopefully with some decisions of your own to make.