Time Management Cure

by BRIAN HALL

  Once tasks have been delegated to others, we should initially trust that those who have been assigned the tasks will complete them. With this being said, we should also take the time to verify that they are, as many people will invariably abandon their obligations to others, including ourselves. This is where mutual feedback between yourself and those who you are assigning your tasks becomes important, ensuring that things are always properly done as they present themselves.

  Getting overwhelmed is an inevitable part of working, anywhere that we do so. Chaos finds us wherever we go, so one of the most important skills that we need to learn as humans is the ability to accept and deal with this chaos whenever it presents itself. With these facts in mind, it becomes clear that we should not focus on trying to avoid or even curtail chaos but should instead learn how to deal with it as it comes to us.

  The first thing that we should do when feeling overwhelmed by work is to take a brief break from all of the things that are giving us anxiety. Here, we should look for things to do that are completely divorced from work, allowing ourselves to forget the issues that we are leaving behind entirely. Taking this step will put things back into perspective for us, making us better prepared for the work that we have ahead of ourselves.

  Next, we should exercise. This should usually be done around the middle of the day, as to separate our morning selves mentally and physically from our evening selves. This break will keep us from staying in the same overwhelmed state throughout the day. A mid-day walk, or jog is an order here, or perhaps even a visit to the gym.

  Deep breathing is another great thing to do when feeling overwhelmed. Doing this allows us to collect our thoughts and gives us a short break from our worries. This will also give our brains much more oxygen, which they need to keep functioning properly.

  As platitudinous as this may sound, gratitude is another great means of keeping control of our emotions. Strengthening this trait reminds us of all of the things that we have to be thankful for, which will always make us feel much happier and put the issues that we have at hand in a much clearer perspective that will make all of our efforts and anxieties seem worth it.

  Meditation or prayer are two more great methods that we can employ. Both of these are similar to the practice of break taking in that they give us time to reflect on what is happening or to expand our horizons into new and potentially more promising spheres of concern.

  Speaking with others will also help us not to get too overwhelmed by our obligations. Doing so will give us access to the input of others, and with this input will come potential solutions to our current problems and new optics through which to look at these.

  At times, procrastination and or delegation should be employed. There are going to be certain instances in which we simply cannot finish all of the tasks that we have before ourselves within a day. Throughout these times we should give ourselves temporary passes for procrastination and delegation just to stay above water. Beyond these times, we can start to focus on important tasks.

  Action plan for this chapter

  Things to keep in mind:

  It’s important to recognize which tasks you must do yourself and which ones not

  Know when to ask for help before becoming overwhelmed

  Don’t be afraid to take a step back when things are getting too intense

  Things to try out:

  Your attention should be reserved for things only you can take care of

  Know who you can count on when you need help

  Recognize when you need a break and regroup

  Chapter Seven: Improving Focus and Beating Procrastination

  Our faculty of focus is much like a mental muscle in the sense that it can be strengthened and grown by honing with more distinction on the tasks at hand. Today, we are nearly constantly overwhelmed by media oversaturation, and our attention spans and focus suffer greatly because of it. It takes time and practice to improve our focus, to degrees at which many are unwilling to achieve and therefore never achieve any greater focus as a result. Those of us who do hone in this skill will, however, be greatly rewarded for doing so.

  The first step toward achieving greater focus is first to assess the focus with which we go about our tasks currently. Many of us are prone to daydreaming and superficial, though, never allowing ourselves to delve deeply into the tasks at hand because we are simply so overwhelmed by everything else we have going on. Another common issue that people have is that they are unable to tune out distractions, which in turn contributes to the superficial thinking due to the fact that our attention is being directed at too many things at once. Whatever our issues might be, we have to be honest and to analyze them in great depth before we can make any progress in the way of building our focus.

  Eliminating distractions is the first thing that we need to do after ascertaining how our focus could be improved. Whether we realize it or not, our cognition is often acted on by too many external factors at once for us to achieve any greater focus. All of these (usually minute) distractions have a damaging effect on our psyches as they culminate to proportions that are unsustainable for us to deal with. This is where people start to get overwhelmed, and focus starts to diminish as a result. Before we do our work, we should always make sure that there is nothing around us that is going to slow us down or distract us. Once we have curtailed these influences, we will find that our ability to get things done increases manifold.

  Multitasking is said to be like smoking for the brain. When we disperse our energies into various directions paying no heed to great focus, we are never likely to work at our highest level. For this reason, we should take one task at a time, investing all of our attention to what we have before ourselves. In this way, we can delve much deeper into tasks and think of creative solutions to the problems at hand with much more efficiency and clarity. Here, we should think of our attention as a light source—if we adjust our lens to focus only on a specific area, much more light will be cast onto this area as compared to if we simply turned the light on, making no effort to spotlight and being left in a dimly lit room as a result.

  Next, we have to tackle the issue of procrastination. This is an extremely harmful practice that can make our entire lives feel like one large assignment, with constant weights thrown on our shoulders that should have never even been placed there in the first place. Procrastination is particularly harmful to us in its ability to metastasize certain temporary problems that we have throughout larger spans of time.

  If we want to beat procrastination, we first have to develop our faculties of focus. This primarily involves focusing on one specific task at a time, in this case—leaving all others by the wayside while we ensure that the task at hand is being completed. Working within this frame will ensure that we do not start tasks off only to abandon them in the future by procrastinating further than our memories allow. When we zero in on tasks one by one, we tend to complete them more often.

  Next, we should start off every task that we have in front of ourselves sooner rather than later. This one may seem obvious, but it is all too often that we push things too far out to hold ourselves accountable for doing them in the future.

  We cannot necessarily finish tasks that we never start on. Once this initial momentum is caused, moving forward is usually much easier than we expect it to be. The easiest way in which we can start out new tasks is dividing the task up into its smaller constituent components and beginning on the smallest, easiest ones of these components. Once we complete these first few subtasks, our objectives regarding the proceeding ones will become clearer, and our abilities to meet these objectives will become stronger.

  Our minds naturally go through cycles of focus followed by un-focus. Forcing ourselves to sit down and concentrate on a certain task for a shorter interval of time (say 20 to an hour, for example) followed by a short break will allow us to hone in this focus, taking full advantage of this natural concentration as it comes to us.

  Some of us benefit greatly from certain ro
utines and or rituals that help to curtail procrastination. There certain songs that we can use to get work done, or maybe motivational posters. Whatever it may be, finding an action or an object that helps us get balls rolling for ourselves can be incredibly beneficial. We should also avoid holding our procrastination in the past against ourselves. It is usually our own labels and limiting beliefs that do us the most harm and manifest the worse fixed action patterns that we have, so to label oneself as a procrastinator is usually to become a much bigger procrastinator.

  Finally, we need to analyze what it is that is causing us to procrastinate in the first place. Often procrastination is caused by anxiety and fears of doing poorly. If we feel in either one of these negative ways, then we should analyze why we do, and we should also recognize that these feelings are irrational and not grounded in reality and that we can, in fact, complete all of the tasks that we set before ourselves.

  Action plan for this chapter

  Things to keep in mind:

  Focus is an ability which you can develop just like any other skill

  Procrastination is rooted in fear and anxiety

  Procrastination becomes a feedback loop when left unattended

  Things to try out:

  Eliminate the largest amount of distractions around you (phones, social media and so on)

  In order to reduce fear and anxiety, get the toughest things out of the way first

  Make the decision to break the procrastination feedback loop

  Chapter Eight: Managing Interruptions

  Interruptions are some of the most harmful things that modern people experience. These do not do damage individually, but they instead give us death by a thousand cuts as they accumulate throughout certain periods of time. As these small interruptions pile up, they have a compounding interest that grows with time—one that we usually do not notice and are therefore not likely to curtail.

  The first step in managing interruptions is to keep a log of these annoyances. Doing so will give us a firm grasp on just how much is coming at us from all angles, and just how much time and energy we are devoting to things that present themselves that do not help us to achieve our goals. Without a log of some sort, we are most likely to underestimate the number of disruptions that we are facing, hence giving much more of our own time over to interests other than our own. We owe it to ourselves to avoid distractions—otherwise, they are bound to overtake us slowly and without our knowledge.

  Within these logs, we should record the entities that are interrupting us, when they are doing so, and whether or not these interruptions are valid and or urgent. It is the interruptions that are disrupting our progress the most that should be eliminated first and foremost, with the exception of those that may be urging themselves in efforts to benefit us. Most interruptions are caused by factors either serving their own purposes and largely indifferent to us, or directly opposed to us though, which is why most of these should be eliminated sooner than later. A log will help us to differentiate between the beneficial and the harmful disruptions and between the urgent and the non-urgent ones.

  Once we have recorded the most common and distracting interruptions that we face, we can then analyze them asking ourselves what these interruptions mean and how they should be dealt with properly. Some of them are bound to be completely out of our control, but we should never be hesitant about adjusting the ones that we can do so with, especially if we face these problems every day.

  We cannot let emergencies overtake us unnecessarily. Sometimes, the most common and pressing interruptions that we face come about because they have something to tell us. If interruptions are de-stressing us within our routines, it may be due to the fact that these interruptions are coming about to highlight certain flaws within our systems of conduct. This is not merely a deterministic mode of thought—these interruptions can genuinely be caused by our own doing at times. For example, if we are interrupted every day by an email from a company, then only have ourselves to blame for the time lost due to our failure to take ourselves off of the mailing list. We should also make sure not to be too agreeable when trying to eliminate the distractions brought about by others. Assertiveness is the only mode to take when trying to get inquiries and assaults away from our sphere—otherwise, we are bound to either offend if aggressive or not get our points across clearly if passive.

  If our distractions stem from our phones (which is the case for most modern people), then we should either use our voicemails to screen calls or turn the phone off altogether when working. We can always allocate certain time frames throughout our days to answering messages and calls, but aside from that we really cannot afford to take them as they come, especially if we have particularly boisterous personal contacts.

  An interruption typically makes us feel anxious or even threatened. It is all too easy to get wrapped up in the details of who or whatever is disrupting our progress, letting it affect the rest of our day beyond necessity. Within these initial moments of distress, we can drastically alter the trajectory of the situation by simply taking a second to forget about the interruption, loosening its sway over the rest of our day.

  Learning to say “no” is one of the most beneficial things that we can do for ourselves. People who never learn to establish boundaries with others often live their entire lives in service of others as a result. People use others as merely ends to their own means all of the time, which is why simply going along with the will of others so often leads to cataclysmic results for all parties involved. A lot of the interruptions that we face are brought on by people who want things out of us, so learning to be firm in our boundaries is a must if we want to avoid serving interests other than our own.

  Distinguishing between “available” and “unavailable” time is the key to ensuring that we do not get interrupted when we cannot afford to be. If we never make this distinction, then we are fated to live our lives in a perpetual state of an interplay between the interrupting forces and ourselves. If we can control the factors and or people interrupting us, then we should try to manipulate the times in which they are doing so, forcing them only into our “available” time and expelling them from our “unavailable” time for good. In this way, we can separate work time from personal time with greater clarity.

  When we schedule times with others, we should prepare the points that we want to make beforehand. The pragmatic solutions to problems and valuable input that we may possess always takes precedence over the more needless interjections that we may have in mind here. When we come into a conversation with a plan in mind, it should come as no surprise that we are going to make much more progress towards our goals.

  Action plan for this chapter

  Things to keep in mind:

  Interruptions are one of the biggest distractions throughout the day

  Know how to make yourself “available” and “unavailable”

  Saying “no” is one of the best things your can to help you get a grip on your schedule

  Things to try out:

  Manage the interruptions which you can control by setting a schedule

  Go off the grid if you have to in order to cut down on interruptions

  Set boundaries on the activities which you are able and unable to do

  Chapter Nine: How speed reading can improve your life

  In order to truly speed read, individual words need to be almost ignored, while paragraphs and phrases should be given all of the attention. The amount of information that the average person absorbs within a day seems to increase with each one that passes, so those who have methods of learning quicker and more efficiently will inevitably be better able to “stay in the loop” than ever before.

  On average, people read at a rate of about 250 WPM (words per minute), though this figure varies from person to person. The methods by which we can learn to speed read better all have one thing in common: readers do not “subvocalize” or take the time to “hear” the words said in their heads. Instead, they simply skim the words inclu
ded in the text. This allows words and their contents to be cognized more efficiently because they are not being studied throughout all of their syllables. Here, we can “soften” the gaze with which we look over the page, allowing our eyes to skim over the contents with much more ease and better ability to skip from line to line without our eyes being diverted whenever they do so.

  The first method that we should go over is what is known as the pointer method. This involves using our finger or the tip of a writing device to guide us through the words on a page. This gives our eyes some added perspective and directive when reading texts. The researcher who discovered this method found that she herself was able to read around a rate of 2,700 wpm when reading this way. A card or piece of paper placed under the lines being read would work equally well to serve this purpose.

  The tracker and pacer method is similar to the pointer method, almost identical. This involves going over each line read with a pen as we read along. The words read can be highlighted or not—this is up to the reader. When reading within this method, we should try to appropriate no more than one second to each passing line. At this pace, the first few passages we read will seem not to give us very much absorbable information—but as we continue to read like this, we will be better able to take in what is in front of us. Our pace will even increase from this already quick starting point. This method is most useful in that it prevents “regression” in reading, which is the tendency to go back over lines unnecessarily.