An enticing menu of possibilities // On time // Some of it today
I’m very much enjoying 📘 Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman:
Time feels like an unstoppable conveyor belt, bringing us new tasks as fast as we can dispatch the old ones; and becoming ‘more productive’ just seems to cause the belt to speed up. […]
This attitude towards time sets up a rigged game in which it’s impossible ever to feel as though you’re doing well enough. […]
Which is clearly completely absurd: for almost the whole of history, the entire point of being rich was not having to work so much.
I’ve historically flopped between extremes on this.
During the latter half of my 20s, my entire focus was on reaching early retirement. After getting there, I barely lasted through three years of leisure before opting back into a calendar crammed full of things.
My best years of work—the happiest I’ve ever been with the professional parts of my life—have been when I only had one thing to do: a book to write, a thing to learn, a boat to repair.
When I wake each day knowing that only one thing matters, I tend to do (and live) quite well.
But success begets admin, leading to a sort of calendar whiplash. Now that my inbox is piling up with sincere and exciting emails, do I ignore it (yet again) for the benefit of my deep work—the work that got me here, the work that makes me happy—or do I sign those papers and respond to those messages?
I have never managed to handle this balance any better than very badly.
Simmering somewhat unhappily, as I currently am, in this particular conundrum, Burkeman’s book has been a sane and calming voice.
How normal it has become to feel as though you absolutely must do more than you can do. […]
We embark on the futile attempt to ‘get everything done’, which is really another way of trying to evade the responsibility of deciding what to do with your finite time. […]
So long as you continue to respond to impossible demands on your time by trying to persuade yourself that you might one day find some way to do the impossible, you’re implicitly collaborating with those demands.
The book’s most powerful point, at least for me, is Burkeman’s inversion of opportunity cost (i.e., how to commit to one thing when it means giving up so many others?).
He uses the lovely metaphor of a buffet:
From this viewpoint, the situation starts to seem much less regrettable: each moment of decision becomes an opportunity to select from an enticing menu of possibilities.
Such a beautiful lens through which to see our everyday decisions. “An opportunity to select from an enticing menu of possibilities.” I’m putting that on my wall.
And the stuff that really, truly matters to you? The stuff you can’t bear let slide?
The only way to be sure it will happen is to do some of it today,
Right. So back to writing, then. 👍
Comments (3)
Just to add on Rob's point. I am a fan of Burkeman since his book "The Antidote"
[image.png]4k weeks is a nuanced book and worth re-reading. I highly recommend to anyone who has read all the "tips, tricks, and techniques" books of the time management genre and sick of how shallow/brittle they all are ultimately and want to be treated by an author who respects how complex it is to manage 3 separate forces of tasks, time, and goals that are extricably tangled and coupled with each other.
If you're looking for another fad that promises to solve your time management issues once and for all, you will be sorely disappointed
Time matters for everyone, but compared with place, we know so little about it.
Based on one day spontaneous spark, I just want to detach the word "time" with "management", what could be other meanings we don't know? Then, I came up with this project vision - "Time On Time (TOT)", meaning Time On, On Time.
You can see my raw thoughts here - timeonetime.xyz
The goal is to explore 4 aspects with other creators together:
• Feel Time
• Define Time
• Measure Time
• Defend Time
Yes, I have not done rigorous customer feedbacks yet. 😭
1. I did write one linkedin post back in Christmas time, got pretty good engagement (i guess maybe it is with the good timing... )
2. Talked with several women professionals. Their top 1 is "feel time".
3. Talked with 1 young man (developer), he is interested in "defend time".
Difficulties:
1. Because this topic is too abstract, it is hard to find creators.
2. We are not clear about our product direction yet. creating-something-useful vs creating-somthing-artful-or-trendy?
Any suggestions?
A very different sort of project than I'm personally experienced with, so I'm really not sure! I like the framing of the group of creators/practitioners. I can imagine beginning with a sort of artful/trendy manifesto to plant a flag, and then working downward to the more practical stuff. But the downside of that approach would be difficulty in getting a clear validation signal, which might make it a slog. In any case, it's obviously a topic that people care about, and I think there's a lot of value in offering a fresh lens/perspective on it.