Time management, a strategic decision

By Lionel Wijesiri

The Sri Lankan sense of time is very special. Sri Lankans are short on patience. Everything must be quick, including food and fun, which the rest of the world treats ceremoniously. We are ardent followers of two American-invented words, ‘snack’ and ‘quickie’, to refer to eating standing and gulping a couple of drinks - that, too, sometimes while talking on the mobile phone.

Our most popular books are manuals: How to become a millionaire in 10 easy lessons, how to lose five kilos a week, how to recover from divorce, and so on. People always go around looking for shortcuts and ways to escape anything they consider unpleasant; ugliness, old age, weight, illness, poverty and failure in any of its aspects.

Keeping your job and family life separate and healthy is a fine art

Our race against time is a race we will eventually lose. However, running out of time is not what should frighten a sensible person. It is the idea of spending irreplaceable time in a headlong rush to an unworthy destination.

In my younger days, Peter Pan was one of my heroes. Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J.M. Barrie. A mischievous boy who can fly and who never ages, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood adventure on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang, the Lost Boys, interacting with mermaids, fairies, pirates, and occasionally ordinary children from the world outside of Neverland.

Peter Pan will remain young only if he can escape a tick-tocking crocodile that has swallowed a clock. In 1904, old Mrs. Snow spoke of her late husband to author J.M. Barrie on the opening night of his play, Peter Pan, “...and he would so have loved this evening. The pirates, and the Indians; he was really just a boy himself, you know, to the very end. I suppose it's all the work of the ticking crocodile, isn't it? Time is chasing after all of us. Isn't that right?”

Chased by crocodile

Yes, each of us is chased by the same crocodile that tormented Peter Pan; tick-tick-tick-tick... And, Peter Pan reminds me to ask you a question. What are you buying with the hours of your life? Think hard. It is not an easy question to answer.

John Steinbeck, a United States writer noted for his novels, speaks of the unworthy destination in his book Sea of Cortez, “Most busy-ness is merely a nervous tic. I know a lady who is obsessed with the idea of ashes in an ashtray. She is not lazy. She spends a good half of her waking time making sure that no ashes remain in any ashtray, and to make sure of keeping busy she has many ashtrays.”

We spend our time searching for security and hate it when we get it. In Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, which is considered by some to be one of the first major works of feminist science, a fortune-teller answers a question about time with a question of her own:

“What is sure, predictable, inevitable - the one certain thing you know concerning your future, and mine?”

“That we shall die...”

“Yes, there's really only one question that can be answered, and we already know the answer... The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.”

The Greeks believed that a civilisation flourishes when people plant trees under which they will never sit. Wes Jackson, the renowned writer, adds to this idea a glowing line of his own, “If your life's work can be accomplished in your lifetime, you're not thinking big enough.”

Running out of time

This is what one of my friends, a company director, has to say, “For me, each working day starts with the best of intentions. I walk into my office in the morning with a vague sense of what I want to accomplish. Then I sit down, turn on my computer, and check my email. Two hours later, after fighting several fires, solving other people's problems, and dealing with whatever happened to be thrown at me through my computer and phone, I could hardly remember what I had set out to accomplish when I first turned on my computer. I'd been ambushed. And I know better.” This is the same story for five out of 10 business executives, senior or junior.

When I talk about time management with people, I always start with the same question: “How many of you have too much time and not enough to do in it?” In 10 years, no one has ever raised a hand. That means we start every day knowing we're not going to get it all done. So how we spend our time is a key strategic decision. That's why it's a good idea to create a to-do list and an ignore list. The hardest attention to focus is our own. But even with those lists, the challenge, as always, is execution. How can you stick to a plan when so many things threaten to derail it? How can you focus on a few important things when so many things require your attention?

We need a trick.

Managing our time needs to become a ritual. Not simply a list or a vague sense of our priorities. That's not consistent or deliberate. It needs to be an ongoing process we follow, no matter what, to keep us focused on our priorities throughout the day.

Step by step

I think we can do it in three steps that take less than 18 minutes over an eight-hour workday.

Step 1 (5 minutes) Set your plan for the day. Before turning on your computer, sit down with a blank piece of paper and decide what will make this day highly successful. What can you realistically accomplish that will further your goals and allow you to leave at the end of the day feeling like you've been productive and successful? Write those things down.

Now, most importantly, take your calendar and schedule those things into time slots, placing the hardest and most important items at the beginning of the day. The beginning of the day should ideally be before you even check your email. If your entire list does not fit into your calendar, reprioritise your list. There is tremendous power in deciding when and where you are going to do something.

Step 2 (1 minute every hour) Refocus. Set your watch, phone, or computer to ring every hour. When it rings, take a deep breath, look at your list and ask yourself if you spent your last hour productively. Then look at your calendar and deliberately recommit to how you are going to use the next hour. Manage your day hour by hour. Don't let the hours manage you.

Step 3 (5 minutes) End of the day. Review your day. What worked? Where did you focus? Where did you get distracted? What did you learn that will help you be more productive tomorrow?

The power of rituals is their predictability. You do the same thing in the same way over and over again. So the outcome of a ritual is predictable too. If you choose your focus deliberately and wisely and consistently, remind yourself of that focus, you will stay focused. It's simple and it may just help you leave the office feeling productive and successful. And, at the end of the day, isn't that a higher priority?