by BRIAN HALL
This energy supply is a finite resource. There is only so much that we can do to increase it and we have to use it to our fullest advantage when it comes to us. Without adequate amounts of sleep, we have no chance of leading productive waking lives. Our body needs lots of time to rest and recharge properly, time that cannot be jeopardized if we want to move forward in life. Without eating well, all of our efforts to improve in other areas of life are in vain due to the fact that our fuel is faulty. Exercising allows our body to function as if it were in its natural habitat, and taking breaks is the only way to ensure that our brains are being turned off throughout the day, showing us the progress that we are making by contrast.
The first “C”, or “capture”, encourages to capture all of the information that we take in in notebooks, rather than trying merely to keep it all within our heads. This will help us to remember the things that we want to do more effectively and enjoy the process of life more in the meantime. Your notebook becomes an extension of your mind when you use it, one that can communicate with your inner workings more effectively than they can often communicate with themselves.
The next “C” refers to the word “calendar”. The first things that we should record in our calendars are those things that we need to do. Recording these things and ordering them in terms of their importance and urgency, will make us remember them more and be more likely to do them.
Our final “C” refers to “concentration”. Here, there is no room for multitasking. Each and everything that we have to do should be taken on a case-to-case basis, with the utmost attention paid to all steps included, so we do not miss any of the details of the work at hand.
We have a natural tendency to think more about the past than any other time frame. This is due to the fact that we are for the most part applying our empirical findings from our past experiences to the judgments that we make in the present. The concepts that we are already familiar with are always growing outward and extending to meet new demands and involve new experiences. We have a prejudice toward the past in relation to the future in this respect. Most of our inner lives, in fact, consist of excavating our personal histories and finding the gold in new places each and every time we look at a past situation.
It is the present, however, that we are naturally most attached to, being creatures existing within a temporal frame of some sort. Our present consists of what is in front of us for the time being, and, while being independent of our past and future, is often closely linked to the happenings of this timeframe. Causality can keep working for or against us as our situations and or behaviors compels it to do. Fixed action patterns stemming from past events, and especially the more salient experiences that we have, can span across our past, through our present and continue to lead us astray in our future. We are usually more affected by those events that are closest to us temporally. That is to say, things that have happened long in the past within our personal histories and those things that are said to be likely to happen far out into our futures do not make us feel as strongly in any way as those things that are happening nearer temporally to our present, and we are subsequently much less compelled to action by these more remote events. When we are particularly afflicted by our own faulty systems of conduct, stemming from sources unconscious that we have no control over, then we will do well to expand our temporal horizons and look into our extremes, being the earliest memories that we can conjure up and the furthest future visions that our imaginations can render.
Planning to the future should, in part, be a connecting of the dots between where we are presently and what our ideal would be. This planning should also be done cumulatively, with smaller steps building up to larger ones, and momentum building on top of itself whenever we make steps toward where we want to be. First, we have to deal with the issues that urge us at present and plan ahead seeing issues that may present themselves in the future. After we have dealt with the negations, we can then take the time to thoroughly define where it is that we want to be in the future. It is only here that incremental progress can start to be made.
Action plan for this chapter
Things to keep in mind:
Energy is a finite resource which should be managed accordingly
The three Cs can be used to customize your own time management regimen
Planning for future should be about connecting the present to your desired end state
Things to try out:
Concentrate your focus and energy on the tasks which truly matter to you
Map out your current routine at various points throughout the day. This will help you build your own regimen
Focus on where you are now, and then reflect on what steps you need to take in order to reach your desired end state
Chapter Four: Avoiding clutter in your workspace
A to-do list is something that is easily replaced by a calendar entry. These lists are usually created after we have already fallen behind on our tasks. They are typically used to help us catch up. But once we have our priorities in order and our routines set in place, we no longer need to-do lists.
The tasks that we have set forth for ourselves at any given point in time should be divisible—this large chunk of worries and obligations being taken in terms of its constituent components rather than as a collective. Our personal obligations are always highly diversified—demanding time and energy while also allowing room for learning and growth throughout the meta aspect of life. All that a to-do list does is serve as a reminder to correct our mistakes, which then allows us to meet all of our goals effectively.
Making to-do lists also fosters procrastination and ineptitude in us. When we make these lists, we are usually not differentiating between the items included in terms of their urgency and or importance to the extent that helps us very much. The most detrimental existential problem that we face in life is the fact that we are constantly overwhelmed at just how complex the world around us is and live our lives in a perpetual state of bombardment and passing confusion. A to-do list is just a visual depiction of a microcosm of this bombardment, and most of the items listed on any given one are merely depictions of the issues that we face in the moment of writing and a depiction that always pales in comparison to items listed on a calendar at that.
A to-do list also offers no temporal directives. For example, you can write down the following tasks on a sheet of paper:
Get milk
Renew tags
Check email
Call mother-in-law
Order CD online
Then, not only are you not giving yourself any definitive allotments of time to order all of these tasks into, but you are also not establishing any connections within your actions. You are simply jumping from one task and scenario to the next, presumably cognizant only of the respective importance of all of these items. When no tasks that we complete seem to lead into another, life becomes more or less meaningless, with no opportunity for growth and no promises on the horizon. Writing all of these items down on a personal calendar instead will put these tasks in relation to the allotments of our overall time instead. To put these tasks that we set forth for ourselves in this new optic gives us a better grasp on how and when they should all be completed, and what they all are leading up to.
Working in a clean, clear space is another must in increasing productivity. The messier our environments happen to be, the higher our stress levels are likely to rise. This is an essentially universal law that applies to all workspaces and all living arrangements, for that matter. Seeing clutter, dirt, or disorder activates the same circuitry that seeing predators in the wild does. We look at these things and see chaos in the forms of things that are out of our control and that are potentially harmful to us. This causes our anxiety and stress levels to rise because this chaos is manifested in ways that are not clear to us, and it is the things that we do not know or understand that always make us the most afraid.
If we are exposing ourselves to excess clutter within our own work enviro
nments, then we are ensuring to ourselves that we will never feel comfortable doing whatever it is that we do. An excess of clutter in the place in which we work is usually indicative that we are not in complete control of our psyches and that we are not thinking holistically about the work that we do, a behavior that most likely impacts the whole of our work in other, more detrimental ways that we are largely unaware of. The environments in which we live and work are great reflections of our minds and even beings. These environments can be influenced by our actions, sometimes deliberately, but usually super-sensibly. If we find that the places we inhabit are not in order, then we can will them to order to clean them up and, after doing so, to maintain this order continuously.
It also decreases our focus to work in messy and dingy environments. Focus, in large part, is a game of scope. By this it is meant that in order to focus more on something we need to take our time with it, allowing no distractions to hinder our progress and paying no attention to any other tasks. Without this ability to zero in on the tasks at hand we are doomed to live our lives with scattered brains, constantly zigzagging from one area of concern to another, planting seeds here and there but never reaping larger harvests in certain areas of concern. It is not that a more well-balanced psyche is more minimalistic—it’s just that the same necessary amount of parts within it are organized more effectively and thus making far greater use of the mental space allotted to it.
Most importantly, we simply feel better when we see a cleaner environment. Instead of being met with mountains of perceived problems, we are granted something of a blank slate, which can be used to our advantage in any way that we feel to be most beneficial to us. Space becomes a tool and garden rather than remaining a stinging wasp and a hole in the ground.
Action plan for this chapter
Things to keep in mind:
Needless actions lead to clutter in your mind
If actions have no logical connection to each other, they lead to meaningless tasks
Clearing up clutter will help you manage your time much better
Things to try out:
Focus on the most important task that you need to do at any given time
Try your best to link all of your actions so that they all flow together
Remind yourself that time is the most important asset you have; so make sure to use it as efficiently as possible
Chapter Five: Making the most of the morning
The morning is in many ways the most crucial part of any day. It is only within the early morning hours that we set the pace for the entire day at hand and do so in many more ways than we often imagine. The first thing that any of us should do after waking up is to make our bed. This does not have to be done in an extremely tidy manner, but some general organization of the covers and pillows is in order. When we come back to bed after a day’s work to the same mess in which we left it, then it starts to feel to us as though we did not do as much with our day. When we leave our bed in the morning, we want to feel as though the day has officially begun, but leaving our bed unmade gives us the unconscious impression that the night’s sleep is not truly over and that what we are moving into is merely an extension of night.
Beyond making our bed, we should always pace ourselves in the mornings, starting out only with the smaller tasks and moving onto larger ones only as the day progresses. The first few hours of the day, contrary to the actions of many, should feature little to no activity and especially not intensive work of any kind. Whether we are morning people or not, our minds always need time to start the day off before getting into anything that might overwhelm us.
The small number of tasks that we complete in the mornings should be the least demanding ones that we are faced with. These include the most basic and mindless tasks that we have to do, such as shopping, making meals for the day, etc. We can go through these initial tasks that the day offers us much more clearheadedly when we focus only on them and make sure that they are not too difficult for us to complete in this dreary state of morning indifference. Working first on these simpler tasks will allow us to build more momentum leading into the rest of the day’s work. Here, by dropping in more and more small accomplishments for the day, we gain confidence—this then builds upon itself, thus leading to even further successes.
These morning hours should be primarily dedicated to getting the small things done, but the focus should be put on enjoying the timeframe as much as possible. It is in the mornings and in the evenings that we should reap the rewards of life the most. Our mornings should be largely a time for reflection, giving ourselves room for and permission to introspect on our lives and to be grateful for the time that we have. Many moderns fall into living far too far and never stop to take in the great scenery that life has to offer. As a result, the morning is likely the greatest time of day to do so.
Once we have given ourselves a room in the morning to relax a little, we can go into the late morning and even early afternoon with a far greater sense of motivation and much more will power. We will also feel much more positive throughout these hours if we have paced ourselves throughout the morning hours. Here, we will be able to get our work done more efficiently seeing as how we have preserved our energies leading up into this time of day. Our focus is much clearer as a result of it not having been spent, and we are much better able to move into progressively harder tasks. Here, we can start more work-related assignments, finishing off the incomplete ones of yesterday and starting on the more difficult ones of today. The more we work on these things, the more efficient we will become. Our flow will only increase throughout these hours, and our thinking will become much clearer and more concise. Our ability to work through more complicated phenomena will increase, and our minds will be able to multitask with greater effect, allowing us to do all of the things that the day has to offer us.
Here is where planning ahead comes into play: throughout the day, we need to remain cognizant of the various areas of our life that we need to improve. While things are always going to pop up that divert us from our course, we should go into most of our days with some at least vague notion of what it is that we are going to try to achieve, and what the things are that we need to improve on. Here, the crucial and the urgent areas of our lives should be addressed before any else and acted on within this all-important window of time in which we are working at our best capacities. This will allow us to allocate our best thoughts and best work to the issues that require the most of our better action. If we try to accomplish these larger tasks at different periods throughout the day, then we are not likely to make as much progress or to do as well on what little it is that we do get done.
We should ideally end out a day’s work with slightly easier tasks than we were accomplishing throughout the day’s “climax.” The afternoon hours heading into the evening should be more spent on the smaller tasks that we did not finish during the day. At this point, we naturally become fatigued and are not able to do our best work as a result. Any tasks that are completed at this point could be seen as the finishing touches that we put on the day, giving us closure leading into the evening and nighttime.
Action plan for this chapter
Things to keep in mind:
The morning sets up the whole day
Focus on smaller tasks earlier in the morning so you can free up time for the bigger ones
Saving energy for the larger tasks later in the morning will help you focus better
Things to try out:
Establish a morning routine so you can get off on the right foot
Leave minor tasks for the beginning and end of the day
Plan major tasks when you are in the zone, usually later in the morning and early afternoon
Chapter Six: Knowing when to delegate
The art of delegating tasks when working is one that requires patience and practice to improve on. Delegating what we have to do within a day is useful in that it narrows and categorizes the tasks that we have before ourselves so that we can get a bett
er grasp on how to complete them and get much more done in turn.
The first method of delegating tasks lies within knowing when to let go of certain tasks. Whenever we can afford to let someone else do our own work, we should take that opportunity and use the time to complete another task. Also, we should play this method to our advantages, meaning that it is primarily the things that we enjoy least and that take up the most time that we should delegate to others. In this way, we can give ourselves more time to do whatever it is that we enjoy doing most.
Next, there should always be a firm priority system of some sort in place that clearly establishes what tasks we are going to take up ourselves as opposed to which ones we are going to delegate to others. Typically, we should complete the tasks that require more skill and less effort ourselves, while leaving the inverse for others. This will save us lots of much-needed time and will allow us to build our skill sets in the meantime.
We should also play to the strengths of those who we work with, as well as the ones that we ourselves exhibit. When we have a certain task that is not in line with our skill sets, we will always do well to find another whose skill sets match the task at hand more so than our own. Likewise, the tasks that demand our skills the most should naturally be completed by only us. We should also look out for those ones that will better establish those skills that we are trying to develop for ourselves.
Next, we should always make sure that those who we are delegating tasks to have a firm understanding of what they have to do at hand. Even if these tasks seem simple to us, we should always make sure to give others instructions when delegating tasks to them. Not everyone has the same skill, and not everyone is going to know what goes into completing a certain task. Moreover, it is always much better to be pedantic with others regarding the execution of tasks than that the tasks are left uncompleted or completed poorly.
