Making the Essential Enjoyable & Easy
Making Monday
I've heard it said that how we feel on Mondays is one of the clearest indicators of life satisfaction. Here is a quick thought on how to make Monday—and every day—work better...
Time Slippage
As far as I can tell, there is no such thing as “time management,” despite all the resources devoted to the topic.
On one hand, time marches on, regardless of my opinion about it, residing outside my zone of direct control.
On the other, it's a slippery devil, expanding and contracting fluidly in response to my shifting internal experience.
Either way, it seems quite unmanageable.
Energy, however, is both malleable and controllable and is the actual currency I exchange for the outputs I seek.
So I don't invest time for results. I invest units of energy expenditure.
Which I organize into packets of time.
I find this reframe useful for getting essential things done with greater ease.
Practically speaking, this leads me to use a timer for two purposes.
For essential activities that require focus and effort—thus energy—but are not inherently joyful, I set a timer as encouragement to keep going.
As one of my wise friends said, “It's amazing what you can get done by throwing an uninterrupted hour at something.”
I set a timer for an hour, unplug from everything else, and go. When the chime rings, I stop, rest, reboot, and turn to something less energetically costly for a while.
Note that this isn't “time management.” It is application of optimal energy to a specific project for a tangible unit of time.
For joyful essential activities, I set a timer so I know when to stop. This gives me the freedom of complete immersion in flow state without having to watch the clock to make sure I don't miss my next engagement.
Playing and composing music, fitness activities, reading fiction, and meditation are like this for me. I lose myself and time slips away.
These actions are also energy multipliers for me, by the way. They create energy I can then reinvest into activities that are essential but less joyful.
So while time itself is unmanageable, application of energy over units of time is completely within our control.
Doing so harnesses the contraction and expansion and slippery nature of time for accomplishing our most important things with greater ease.
Together, let's end the fight to change—
Delmar
P.S. For more info on the basic model for getting essential things done easier, see this post on the 3E Change Model.
