N: Time is a Gift!
I have been thinking a lot about how to become more productive… how to kill this pervasive nature of procrastination… how to focus on a task and complete it when I desire. I have read so many blogs and papers describing techniques, and I’m still on the hunt for a good solution, but I have recently come across an idea that is shifting my paradigm a bit.
That revelation, given away by the title, is that time is a gift. I recently read the guide to The Pomodoro Technique, which has an interesting reference describing how we as humans relate to time. It discusses abstract concepts such as the notion of becoming and the succession of events, which got me thinking about how I regard time.
Last semester I had a major problem with starting tasks when I actually had enough time to accomplish them. For some reason my brain was so focused on procrastinating that I always started projects when there was far too few hours available to accomplish the task. I have yet to find an answer to solving this problem, but I have realized that I must stop viewing time as an entity that controls the way we live our live. In other terms I must stop measuring my success and failure with respect to time. Time will always win. It will grind out any competition.
We have all heard the phrases “not enough time for that”, “I need more hours in the day”, and the like, but what we are really saying is, “the task wasn’t important enough to do it.” We have to realize that time is not something that just happens and leaves us in the dust, but rather that time is a gift. It is something that when we have nothing to do we get to do whatever we want. Those moments are rare, but how stress free would our lives be if we thought of time as a gift and took full advantage of its presence in our lives?
So rather than sit at a computer and spend time on Facebook, Twitter, blog reading, espn perusing, I could maximise those hours to get the things I need/want to get done first. Then once those things are accomplished I can say that I took the gift and used it wisely.
I am so tired of accomplishing nothing, and at the end of the day feel like I have to rush something into completion just to gain some sense of accomplishment. This almost always produces shoddy work and is never really satisfying. All we are doing is attempting to convince ourselves that we aren’t useless, and in the end fail miserably anyways.
In conclusion, I’m going to stop being a slave to deadlines and turn them into opportunities to shine by taking and using the time that I have today to accomplish the tasks that I really care about.
-n
Valerie McFall says:
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:13 pm
So true Nathan! I have really enjoyed your post and you are very wise to even contemplate the wisdom you are gaining, by merely searching out the answers to these questions. Time certainly is a gift and so many times I feel as if I spend my life in anticipation of the next list of chores to be accomplished and business to complete. I heard someone say once, that whatever you are doing, you should do with your whole heart, your complete attention. Such as: if you are eating… eat, don’t eat and try to make phone calls or text, etc. I think we spend time doing a task and our minds are constantly looking to get to next and racing the clock as we do it and only considering ourselves successful if our lists are complete. Paying attention to moment at hand would certainly make life enjoyable and less stressful. I also find that the list is so large that it becomes overwhelming and then procrastination sets in. Getting started is sometimes the hardest part. I generally try to section my work and try to tell myself that this is the only task that matters and feel great when it is done and I can move on to the next. Time is a gift and enjoy and be present for the moment at hand. (Easier said than done)
nathan says:
January 23rd, 2010 at 11:28 pm
Yes! I have been thinking about writing a post about this topic. I read a really cool quote on another productivity blog that said, “If you don’t have the attention then you don’t have the time.” I love that. Why do something you really aren’t going to focus at?