The Procrastinators Guide to Time Management

“Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?”

Do you find some tasks feel like gliding on ice, whilst others are like wading through treacle? And that some days you’re the pigeon, other days the statue? Well don’t worry, you’re not alone.

Truth is, it's practically impossible to get everything done when other want it to be done, and it always has been. To put in non-scientific layperson terms; this is because a) there's always lots of shit going on, b) all that shit going on is what keeps you in the job and c) everyone's default setting for delivery of said shit (along with other random shit) is usually 5 mins before yesterday. In this context (of extreme scene setting) the world of time management can often feel like a wriggly sack of angry cats, and it isn't helped by the fact that many in your company will try to dump any already overdue shit on you.

If we could take away all of that shit, and the shirkers, and those aggressive deadlines and unreasonably demanding sense of urgency, life would be so much easier. But, would it be better?

The plain and simple truth is you can't get everything done. Nor can you please everyone, and certainly not all of the time. (OK that’s two truths, you’re welcome!). Lastly, thanks to our many technological advances and tools, we are blessed (cursed?) with diminishing attention spans, which means things get harder to focus on.

It’s easy to say we have to learn to prioritise, that’s what the books and gurus will tell you. But what if your job is a carousel of updating objectives, and moving goalposts, or even changing sport mid-game, where do you start, and where does it end?
 
Now, to the crunch. What books and gurus often don’t tell you is that delegation requires you to accept just how little control you actually have over people and outcomes (once again, you’re welcome!). Once you've embraced that devastating insight, you can learn to rise above it.

Something else when it comes to time. We are all intrinsically linked to the mutha of all train timetables (origins of standard time, take a minute to look it up). And Time (as a concept), just like Quality and Consistency, is an absolute. It may not always feel like it but you only get 24 hrs in the day, made up of 60 minutes, 60 seconds in every minute. Sound familiar? 

But of course, Time is relative. If you’re sat in your favourite bar with all your favourite people, talking nonsense or raising hell, you look up at 1am and wonder where the time went. But if you were hanging off the edge of a cliff by the tips of your fingers, some small bird pecking at your bits, well then every second would probably feel like hours. (I can’t fully verify the second example obviously, but you get the idea, right?)

Perspectives and silly scenarios aside, when someone says they will ‘find time’ to do something, where exactly are they finding it from? “Oh, I found a few minutes behind the sofa this morning, let’s do your appraisal now…” To conclude, we never FIND time, because it’s always there, doing what time does, passing... 

Control freaks often joke about having to do everything themselves, the pinnacle of bad management irony, along with people who enjoy saying they've no time to develop their time management. The key is to TAKE time to MAKE time!

Let’s finish with a flourish of easy access Time Management Hacks:

First off, work out if you're a morning or evening person. We are all sharper at certain times of the day, I'm a laser razor until lunch, I start to fade around 3pm. Others only come to life after lunch and power on through the night. Find out what your preference is and work to it. Set the challenging tasks for when you're going to be best prepared to handle it, save easier, routine stuff for when energy levels are low.

Hack 2, build in a reward scheme, like getting through that weekly report then treating yourself to a few Jaffa cakes, or hold that third cappuccino until you've emailed it over. An unspoken moral obligation suggests I offer healthy lifestyle options but to be honest, where’s the fun in that? At time of writing I’m going through one of my cyclic health kicks so finishing this before I go do something physical (walk the dog?) feels right. In summer it might be hitting the bar for a cheeky brew or two?

You get the idea? It’s essentially about getting a dopamine fix and you can do that in several ways. 

Third thing, get your head out of email / LinkedIn / Facebook. Being more focused requires a less dependent inbound messaging practice and you start by turning off those message arrival ‘pings’. Not only does it bug the crap out of people around you, it distracts you, breaking up what little focus you already have. It may also create knee-jerk reactions that find their way into your replies. Which in turn can generate even more emails as recipients write back seeking a little clarity about whatever rubbish you just sent them.

And give your emails appropriate, memorable titles. This will help to track down important information quickly. Take the lead and don’t look back if you change a title mid exchange.

Setting up folders for people or subjects is also a great way to stay organised, but I suspect it’s a little more work than you were looking for so we'll skip it.  

As a general rule of thumb, visit your inbox (or messages) first thing in morning, right after lunch, and if you want to taste 'ninja level' scan them before you leave. Of course, if you're waiting for something (or someone) urgent you go and scan a little more often (or set up a specific alert) but the key thing is to not be drifting in and out of email all day. It’s a tool that supposed to work for you, not the other way around.

In at number 4, Parkinson’s Law. Legendary, life changing insight, are you ready? 

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” 

Hyper-quick backstory: Cyril Northcote Parkinson visits 1950’s British Civil Service and experiences a mad, counter productive bureaucratic merry-go-round. One well scribbled article in The Economist later and the rest is history. Well, it’s technically all history, so google it, it’s absolute gold dust!

To save you time (you’re welcome again), what Cyril says is this. Tasks with no defined sense of time will just run on and on, and on. In contrast (freakishly so), if you think about how long something should take, then aim for that, 9 times out of 10, that’s how long it takes. All those meetings that seem to drag on with no real purpose? Just suggest a time-frame then have a clock, or someone with a watch that works in the room.

Client meetings? Why not set 45 minutes as a sweet spot for all concerned. You'll be amazed at what this will do for your diary and client relationships! I even apply Parkinson’s Law to home and domestic tasks. The washing up? Hmmm? Give it 20 mins, usually gets done in 15, and bosh! I made 5 mins. In. Your. Face. Time!

Hack number 5, getting in Flow. This is a ridiculously simple principle from the brilliant, but impossibly named author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In a nutshell, Flow occurs when we have the right balance of challenge set in front of us and level of skill to tackle it. Time literally dissolves when you are stimulated in this way and it relates to all things, not just your work. If the challenge level of an activity is too high, or too easy for your level of skill, that’s when you are likely to drift off, open Facebook and start checking on what your mates are up to this weekend.

Last one, and whilst pretty fundamental, let’s consider it a bonus. Your Mindset…  

In his mind-blowing book Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl introduced the world to the concept of Logotherapy. The (not so harrowing) short story here is that Frankl is a survivor of the Holocaust and found solace / salvation (not really sure how best to describe it), in making notes about what was happening around him. Even though he knew that discovery would mean certain death and that fellow prisoners could at anytime report him to the guards, he continued to document the horror. It gave him a sense of purpose, a reason to survive all the chaos and inhumanity around him.

Obviously even our toughest days at work won’t equate to his experiences, but in Logotherapy he refers to finding a Why (logo = logos = meaning), to deal with any What. So give your tasks a little meaning, even if it’s just a basic ‘I need to do this to make money to keep me in video games and scooby snacks’. If that gets you through the day, congratulations, you win. Associating clearly the what you do (or are supposed to be doing) with the bigger why picture makes for some seriously next-level stuff.

OK, so let’s regroup.

The world is full of people who can talk a good game when it comes to managing time. But 'saying ain't doing' and knowing what you should do but not doing it, day in, day out. That's a form of self-imposed workplace tier of Dante's Inferno. Why do that to yourself? If you can't find some sense of meaning, or deep down just don’t care about what you do, why not do yourself a favour and change what you’re doing?