Be the high priestess of Time Management

“Come out of the circle of time, and into the circle of love.”
- Rumi

“Time is the best author. It always writes the perfect ending.”

Charlie Chaplin, Limelight · 1952 ·

“I will study and get ready, and maybe the chances will come.”

- Abraham Lincoln

Affirmation: “Everything is before me, there is time enough for everything, and everything will come in time and in due course…My path is strewn with cherry blossoms…Everything contributes to my present and future successes.”

This morning, I got right up and exercised while reading a book about simplicity for an article. Then I made breakfast and sat down to eat while updating my time tracking tool. Two hours had passed since I got up and I’d used all of that time wisely. And I had the epiphany I’ve had 100 times before: why not try to use all time wisely since it’s going to pass anyway? It’s not like if I waste time, time will speed up or stop. It still keeps going and going. Also if I’ve done something during that time other than read celebrity gossip, nap, watch DS9, etc, then I should record what I do.

Experts say you really can’t “manage” time. Time has no master. Time is not what you’re managing, you’re managing yourself and what you do as the time passes. The minutes tick away at the same pace no matter what.

We all get the same 24 hours a day. I find comfort in this. After all, there is so much effort involved with daily life, so much self-discipline, will power, persistence, faith etc that it is a comfort that for one aspect of life, like the passage of time, I don’t have to do a thing. I just have to make sure that I get stuff done, a little bit of multiple projects every single day as the time rolls on.

Sometimes I look forward to my commute because I’m reading a great book that I won’t take time out to relax with at home.

I also use my commute to write a new to-do list or reconcile my calendar.

Sometimes I’ll write during my commute.

And other times I’ll just stare into space and go into a sort of meditation as I get to where I’m going.

Here’s what Roy Alexander in Real World Time Management has to say about commutes:

“Plan commuting activities in advance on your daily to-do list. Choose a long-term need (new subject, a foreign language, educational tape). Listen to tapes every day as you travel…Rehearse speeches and presentations, wrie business letters, friendly notes, memos.”

Since I’m a freelance, contract type I pretty much control my schedule and work at home quite often. So as I mentioned in the last rule, I’ve been given company email addys. However sometimes the addy might be on outlook and accessible only when I’m in the office. In that case I always use either a Google or Yahoo account and I ask people to cc the other address, also if I think I’ll need access to an email at home, I’ll forwarded it to the web accounts.

I once worked for a magazine where I was given a company email addy. But I found it more efficient to have the email from there forwarded to me at an email address I used more frequently.

Here’s a quote from Elizabeth Towne, that word “easy” caught my attention…

”...After a few days of faithful practice at gazing upon your Ideal you will find your whole life changing. You will find yourself with more heart for your work, and things will seem easier to do. Depressions will grow less frequent and less profound, and in time they will entirely cease, and you will find new ideas coming to you about how to do your work. Then your interest in it will increase and you will begin to know the joy of the successful artist...

“When you arrive at this stage you will wake some morning to find yourself making more money. And you will find yourself with a little real faith, or conviction, that in due time your Ideal will become real. After that all is easy-your Ideal will live you, instead of having to be carefully nurtured at stated intervals.-”-Elizabeth Towne

fight for it. That’s why you’re managing your time so carefully, so you can put it to good use. Don’t volunteer to spend time in misery anymore. You’ve done your time, here’s to freedom.