Rule of Three

Productivity guru Mark Forster points out in his excellent Do it Tomorrow that falling behind on work stems from three, and only three, possible problems:

1. Having too much work
2. Having too little time
3. Doing work inefficiently

This is, of course, blindingly obvious, yet also something I tend to forget.

Most time management seems to focus on that third category – efficient working – yet there’s an upper limit to how much improved efficiency can help squeeze into a day. Sure, you can reduce the amount of time you spend replying to the average email from, say, three minutes to thirty seconds. But if, like me, you receive about 300 emails a day which warrant some kind of response, that thirty-second average still adds up to a full two-and-a-half hours of email time, with little chance of further whittling down.

The next cause of trouble, then, is simply having too much work. Time management systems try to skirt this through prioritization, but, as Forster points out, the idea of priorities is a bit of a red herring. If you’re going to get something done today, it doesn’t really matter if it gets done first or last. The order only starts to matter once you’ve tacitly agreed not to complete all of your work. At that point, order becomes crucial, because it’s the latter items that don’t get completed at all. The ‘C’ task today is usually still a ‘C’ tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, and therefore never gets done. So, in short, the right place to prioritize isn’t at the level of tasks, but at the level of commitments. You already fill 24 hours each day with something, so fitting in new obligations requires getting rid of an equal amount of time’s worth of old.

But it’s the third area – not enough time – that really gets short shrift in my own approach to managing time. I look at an open stretch of days on my calendar and think of them as ’empty’. But, of course, they aren’t. The’re full of all the work I have to do. Usually, that’s fine; even with a few meetings and calls wedged in, I still have time to pack in the rest of my tasks. But, on weeks like this one, when my calendar spirals far out of control, and I’m left with only odd fifteen-minute chunks unbooked for days at a time, I find myself falling further and further behind on life, and feeling more and more stressed out as a result.

So, to combat that problem, a new policy, inspired by the trusty Roadie’s Rule (no heavy drinking two nights in a row): no full days of meetings back to back. Or, in the simplest implementation of that I could figure out: no meetings, none, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That way, no matter how bad my Monday, Wednesday, or Friday become, I’ll always have at least one day in between to get back on top of life.

Productivity

| Productivity

Disaster

Some days you’re the dog; other days, you’re the hydrant.

Which is to say, while updating MovableType, the software that runs this blog, I somehow managed to blow the brains out of both self-aggrandizement.com and CrossFit NYC’s highly trafficked blog.

Fortunately, I back up the actual entry content for both. But not the design or code, which I’ve spent much of today rebuilding from scratch.

So, in short, if you see anything strange on either site, please let me know.

Blogging

| Blogging

True Story

During the second world war, a reconnaissance group of soldiers became lost in the Alps on a training mission. It was winter, they had no maps, and they seemed hopelessly lost.

They were preparing to die, when one soldier found a map crushed down at the bottom of his pack. With the map in hand, they regained their courage, bivouacked for the night, and proceeded out of the mountains the next day to rescue.

Only when they were recuperating in the main camp did someone notice that the map they had been using wasn’t a map of the Alps at all; it was a map of the Pyrenees.

When you are lost, any map will do.

Entrepreneurship

| Entrepreneurship

Fleas

It was only thanks to inclement weather that I yesterday avoided attending the new Brooklyn Flea Market.

Jess, who has an impeccable eye for all things fashion and furniture, and can quickly pick out gems hidden in long racks of crap, loves flea markets, thrift and vintage stores.

I, on the other hand, try as a general rule to avoid places that reek of mothballs and armpit. Walking down scented aisles, I can’t help but think that whomever each vintage dress previously belonged to is probably now long since dead, and quite possibly from some terrible skin-borne affliction transmissible by their old clothing.

So, in short, I’m not a huge fan. But, in my best attempt at being a good fiance, I come along. It’s an effort only partially appreciated by Jess, who (correctly) accuses me of hovering over her the entire time. Not, as she thinks, because I’m trying to get her to leave, but instead because I’m trying to gain some safe harbor from proximity to the only person in the place for whose hygeine habits I can personally vouch.

Still, odds are good, once the weather warms, we’ll be Brooklyn bound after all. I just hope that, in the weeks between, I’ll find some good leads on a cheap Hazmat suit.