- Introduction
- Why Time Management Is So Important
- As Ben Franklin said, "Time is the stuff life is made of".
- "Time is the stuff life is made of"
- Our relationship with time:
- controls how much we can get done
- what we'll achieve
- whether we'll be able to stick to our goals or not
- ultimately, whether we'll be successful
- Two Different Relationships with Time
- If "time controls you", you have various problems. If "you control time", you have various benefits.
- Time Management is the Single Most Important Skill in Life
- "We've been tricked into believing in all the wrong tools and all the wrong thinking."
- The Good News
- Chapter 1: Why You're Behind
- The 5 Productivity Killers
- Wishful Thinking
- Without an actual strategy, all of our goals and to-do lists are ultimately just wishful thinking.
- Results-Fixation
- Results-Fixated Thinking (RFT) is where we focus only on the results, and not on the process that will get us there.
- On the short term, focusing on results is depressing and frustrating. The bigger the project that you're working on, the more frustrating it will be for you to think only about the result of your work -- because the bigger the project, the further away the final result is.
- In order to accomplish really major things, we need to ignore the final result.
- (NW: In other words, if you're hiking up a mountain, don't waste any time looking up at the top, because it will only discourage you. This definitely seems to be what I'm doing with Rhymecraft right now.)
- Negative-Thinking
- Many popular self-help resources have tried to present positive thinking as something of a free lunch. Positive thinking by itself will not get you anywhere.
- But negative thinking by itself will LIMIT you.
- With the right process, and enough time, you CAN do anything. Repeat it until you believe it.
- NW: I'd change "anything" to instead say "far more than most people would think possible".
- 20% Behavior
- 20% Behavior is worrying about the least important 20% of what you're doing.
- The way to accomplish big things is to work on big things.
- Perfectionism
- Perfectionism is the extremest form of 20% behavior possible, so it merits a special name.
- Speaking practically:
- You can ALWAYS make a document slightly better.
- You can ALWAYS improve a design a little bit.
- You can ALWAYS make a product a bit better.
- You can ALWAYS do a bit more, make the client a bit happier, please your boss that much more, put in a few extra hours.
- Perfectionism turns into a way to justify 20% behavior.
- To-Do Lists: What They Are and Aren't
- What To-do Lists Are
- Most of us can only hold between 5 and 9 pieces of information in our mind at any given time.
- To-do lists exist to help you with your memory. Nothing more.
- What To-do Lists Aren't
- To-do Lists can't make you do things.
- To-do lists are not motivating.
- It's not fun seeing a big list of tasks. It's not fun feeling out of control. It's not fun having your list tell you what to do. And it's not fun seeing the list getting longer every day.
- NW: Yes, but I think keeping track of the things you've done can be very motivating, although I suppose it might not qualify as the to-do list itself.
- To-do lists are not for complex tasks.
- To-do lists are not a place for your goals.
- To-do lists are not for new things.
- If you put down something radically new on a to-do list, such as "Go salsa dancing" (when you've never done it before), the to-do list will not help you to do it. You'll either do it or not, depending on your conscious/subconscious connection.
- I'm going to stop using the phrase "To-Do Lists" throughout the rest of these chapters and I'm going to start just calling them "Lists".
- Goals: What They Are And Aren't
- Goals: What They Are
- Goals are directions for the future. Goals define what you want.
- Goals: What They Aren't
- Paraphrasing: Goals are not the same as the process that will achieve them.
- Every goal needs a process in order to be achievable.
- A process is something that gives us regular, daily feedback about whether we're taking the right steps or not.
- The Conscious / Subconscious Connection
- Your mind can be divided into two parts:
- Your conscious mind is the voice inside your head when you talk to yourself
- Your subconscious is where your feelings and thoughts originate from
- Your Conscious / Subconscious connection is the connection that exists between your Conscious mind and your Subconscious mind.
- The most powerful state of human existence is where our conscious and subconscious minds are in alignment. When this happens, we are capable of amazing things.
- Self-Sabotage
- Paraphrasing: Self-sabotage is when you do a poor job of something that you don't "feel" (subconscious) like doing, without ever consciously deciding to do a poor job. Ex: Showing up late to something you don't want to do, forgetting to do something you don't want to do.
- There are two messages here:
- You must believe in what you're doing.
- There isn't any productivity system that can overcome self-sabotage.
- Anxiety
- Anxiety is a feeling of general stress and unrest. It's a very painful emotion caused by an internal conflict within our mind. If part of you wants one thing and another part of you wants another, that's anxiety, and it's not pleasant
- NW: That actually seems to me to be a great explanation of what causes anxiety.
- [Later:] Actually, from reviewing the Wikipedia article, it doesn't seem to fit neatly into any of the existing categories, based on how those categories are defined in the article. And there seem to be clear examples in the article of anxiety that isn't caused by inner conflict. But Davidson's definition still rings very true to me, and seems like a good one for the purpose of this topic.
- Anxiety always indicates a conscious/subconscious connection issue and is the single best warning that we may be sabotaging ourselves.
- NW: Personally, I think I've noticed that I suffer anxiety when I feel I won't be able to break a task into smaller pieces, or when I'm "focusing on the result" as this book puts it.
- NW: Also, by his definition of "sabotaging yourself", it seems this statement could be simplified to "Anxiety is the single best warning that you're not going to do something."
- Chapter 2: How You're Going to Get Ahead
- Process-Oriented Thinking
- Process-oriented thinking is when you think about the process, not about the results.
- The primary contributions of process-oriented thinking are that it makes things easy and it tells you exactly what to do.
- Core principle #1: Focus on the process that will bring the result; ignore the result.
- Time Allocation: The Mega Principle
- Intro
- Time allocation is the process of setting aside a fixed amount of time, and working directly on one task for exactly that amount of time. No more, and no less.
- Getting Started with Time Allocation
- Review all your major work and life goals.
- Identify the main areas where you need to be systematically spending time.
- For each area, decide on a reasonable amount of time to devote each day.
- Don't ask too much of yourself.
- NW: He gives examples of 15-30 minutes per day per task.
- Remember that you are not focusing on results. You are only focusing on spending the time.
- Tracking Your Time Allocation
- Pencil and paper works fine, as do spreadsheets, but we recommend the website 42 Goals.
- NW: He shows two screenshots of what 42 Goals' spreadsheet-style tracking looks like for three simple goals. He says each day is considered "successful" if you spent the designated amount of time on that task, but that reminds me of that website I was using with Yang, where I ended up just sitting in front of the computer for the designated amount of time without actually making much progress.
- NW: The one benefit of this system that I can see over what I'm doing currently with Confluence is that it makes it very easy to see what days you did something and what days you didn't do something, like GitHub's "past year of activity" graph. I don't currently have something like that for the goals I'm working towards.
- How Time Allocation is Different
- It's process-oriented rather than results-fixated.
- You're focusing on good habits rather than individual tasks.
- You remain in control.
- Every day, you see your performance for the week.
- It becomes a habit.
- It makes work easy, because rather than focusing on all of the tasks you want to do, you only think about how you should spend your limited time.
- Why Time Allocation Works
- It's easy. You don't think about your results; only how you're spending your time.
- It doesn't control you.
- NW: At this point I'm wondering if he created the 42goals website, because he seems to be plugging it pretty heavily in his examples.
- It makes you feel good.
- More Time Allocation Examples
- Summary: in some of his examples he seems to demonstrate "take a small bite out of a large goal every day", for example "Old method: My sink is always full of dishes, my kitchen is a mess; New method: Spend 5 minutes per day on the kitchen." It seems that same "divide and conquer" approach would also work in the task-oriented approach, where you could say, for example, "Today, just clean all the forks and knives. Tomorrow, clean all the cups." etc. That's in fact the kind of example John T. Reed gives in his book, where he talks about one of his properties where his manager wasn't doing a good job of managing the maintenance worker, and so he gave the maintenance worker a list of tasks and said, "Finish the task at the top, and then start the next one, and continue like that until they're all done." That was arguably results-oriented thinking, but it demonstrated the same idea of "when you're working, forget about the overall task". Another example would be from "How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling", where the author emphasizes the importance of getting in X calls per day. That's results-oriented.
- Processes vs. Results
- NW: He uses the kitchen sink example to distinguish between the two approaches.
- "Thinking about a 100% tidy kitchen will be discouraging and frustrating. But switching your stopwatch on, and working for exactly 5 minutes, and then stopping, is something so easy and unthreatening that anyone is capable of doing it."
- Time allocation has some very important properties:
- Time allocation is process-oriented.
- Time allocation guarantees you will have time for all your tasks.
- NW: Hmm...I would adjust the wording on that.
- Time allocation redirects stress.
- (...) Instead of stressing about performance, just focus on putting in the time.
- Time allocation provides positive feedback.
- If you've devoted the right amount of time to all the items you're time allocating, then you know you are going places.
- Core principle #2: Harness the power of time allocation.
- Positive Feedback
- There are 2 kinds of positive feedback: external positive feedback, and internal positive feedback.
- Interestingly, internal positive feedback has been found to be far more motivating than external positive feedback.
- Core principle #3: Ensure there is internal positive feedback.
- NW: This is an extremely short section. It seems the advice here could be summarized as "do what you want to be doing, not what others want you to do, and you're more likely to be successful", or the cliche "work on what you're passionate about".
- Parkinson's Law
- Parkinson's Law states: "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." However, Parkinson's Law is a lot more telling when phrased another way: "If you've ever spent your entire day working and then at the end were wondering where all the time went, welcome to Parkinson's Law in action".
- Core principle #4: You must limit the amount of time available per task.
- NW: Another extremely short section.
- The 80/20 Principle
- The 80/20 Principle states that "80% of your results will come from 20% of your effort."
- There are only 2 types of behavior:
- 80% Behavior is where you're dominating, you're accomplishing a lot quickly, and things are moving.
- 20% Behavior is where you're paused, fussing over details, going back and forth on revisions, and just generally losing time.
- 1 hour of 80% behavior is worth 2 full working days of 20% behavior.
- Core Principle #5: If you ever catch yourself in 20% behavior, stop.
- Use a Stopwatch
- Why?
- It reminds you that time is passing, which will help keep you focused.
- It shows you how much time is left (of the amount you've allocated), which will make you work faster.
- It will also encourage you by reminding you that each second is bringing you closer to completing your time allocation.
- Don't try to use your computer! Computers are distracting enough as it is. I recommend an external device with a large display. My preferred device is a phone, because it's easy to read and you can easily take it everywhere with you.
- Chapter 3: Creating Your First Time Allocations
- Intro
- The underlying idea for Time Allocations is the creation of habits. Habits are one of the best ways to get something for nothing. They make it feel "natural" to do what we should be doing, and make it feel "unnatural" and make us feel guilty about not doing the things we're supposed to do.
- The idea behind Time Allocation is not that each day you'll split your time up into lots of little blocks specific to that day. Although you can use Time Allocation like this, that's not where its real power is. The real power is when you can allocate blocks of time and use the same allocations every single day.
- Time Allocation is about Time
- Time Allocation is different because it only focuses on time, not on results. As long as you spend the specified amount of time working, you've satisfied your goal. You don't worry about the results–just focus on following the process. Results will come, but it will be easier and less stressing if you don't focus on them.
- NW: This seems to be exactly the process that Tom Francis settled on. In his case, he said in one of his devlog videos that he just focuses on spending eight hours a day working on his game.
- Time Allocation Tips & Tricks
- Ask Less, Not More
- In successful Time Allocation, we always ask less of ourselves, not more. The reason is that if you set your daily expectation too high, you end up procrastinating, and that's the worst possible outcome. It is better to do something 15, 10, or even 5 minutes per day rather than to never do it.
- Work on the FST
- We recommend always working on the "Funnest Sub-Task" (FST). Ask yourself, "What part of this do I most feel like working on?"
- Focus
- Avoid distractions such as chat programs, email, calls, etc.
- Only 80% Behavior
- If you feel yourself engaging in 20% behavior, stop and do something else. Or declare your task finished and move on.
- Use a Stopwatch
- Pause it when you're not working, and restart it when you resume work. Stop when the total on the stopwatch is the amount of time that you've allocated.
- Chapter 4: Systems & Habits
- Systems
- Habits
- Chapter 5: Putting it All Together
- Core Productivity Principles Review
- Focus on the process that will bring the result; ignore the result.
- Harness the power of Time Allocation.
- Ensure there is internal positive feedback.
- You must limit the amount of time available per task.
- If you ever catch yourself in 20% behavior, STOP.
- Use a stopwatch when executing your Time Allocations.
- Whenever possible, form a system.
- Repeat your actions until they become habits.
- Getting Started Checklist
- Create a list of the areas in your work/life where you'd like to see progress.
- For each item, decide whether the solution is a System or a Time Allocation.
- Self-Discipline
- Believing in The Future
- The True Value of Time
- Chapter 6: Resources
- Recommended Reading
- The Four Hour Work Week
- The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Success by Achieving More with Less
- NW: Davidson asserts that reading the book is itself a 20% behavior, although I would think it depends on how much marginal benefit you get from reading the entire book. If reading the entire book makes you significantly more likely to implement the advice, it would seem to be worth it to read the entire book.
- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
- Paraphrasing: This will help you spot the tricks people use to make you do things, which takes up your time.
- Recommended Websites
- 42 Goals - An absolutely amazing and currently 100% free website that provides goal tracking.
- Google Image Search
- Paraphrasing: Run searches for all the items that you'd like to be a part of your future, and save them to a folder on your hard drive. Open up the folder every time you need a bit of inspiration.
- NW: I use Instagram for the same purpose.
- Life Hacker
- Dropbox
- Evernote
- Coaching
- Do It!
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