I have been asked about time management techniques so I'll just put it here. Time-management is about intention and attention. What is your macro intention and what do you give attention to on the micro level? The first part determines where you aim your mind. The second part determines how much time you spend on these focal pts.
Example: today was a busy day. I worked out, had tv zoom work, 2 pitch meetings after work, a general meeting, cooked lunch and dinner, wrote outline for tv show, and fielded request for more meetings for tv and theatre stuff.
On Monday I knew that Wednesday was going to be busy so I prepared myself with an intention. Then I filtered things through that intention: anything that didn't meet that intention doesn't pass through. I didn't spend my attention on miscellaneous stuff. Over the course of Tue-Wed, I was sent funny videos and links to goofball stuff. I don't click on these links. It's not because I dislike my friends or don't want a laugh. But on a day in which I'm running a gauntlet, anything outside of intention saps my focus.
"But it's just a minute video, what does it matter?' Well first, it's not just a minute. The video saturates and then leads to other videos. Social media is an attention-based device. It's very goal is to first suck you in and then dilute your intention. Second, what I send out comes back to me.
So what does this have to do with anything? Time management comes from the seeds I plant with others. One of the best ways to be more efficient with your time is to not waste other ppl's time. If distraction is your main form of communicating with ppl, then you plant seeds to be distracted when you sit down to create or work. If grievance and anger is your main form of communicating, then you plant seeds to have an uneasy mind. If gossip or silly videos is what you put out, then it plants seeds to short-circuit critical thinking and deep analysis when addressing serious issues.
If it's gossip I'm sharing in my DM's, I try to ask the ancient Roman question of the 3: is it true? Is it useful? Is it kind? If it doesn't fit at least 2 out of the 3, I'm less likely to pass along the info (although I slip all the time.) In turn I hope it plants seeds for ppl to share stuff that is true, useful, kind. But it also plants seeds for me to see things around me as useful. And that's how I use Facebook to actually harvest new stories (like I did today at work, based upon yesterday's exchange about women dealing with uncomfortable situations.) So even an attention-sucking app like Facebook can be flipped and turned into a useful/truthful thing for the creative process...with the right intention.
Without intention, the mind defaults to distraction and that dissipates its energy. What's truly awful is that -at a certain point- the perceiver stops noticing their own regression. The degeneration seems natural. Usually we surround ourselves with with ppl going though the same type of mental progressions and regressions (anger, distraction, or gossipers, pursuing truth, etc.) We think 'everyone else' is experiencing the same thing on Facebook and that's why we have to get off FB. That's why I have to leave my job...that's why I have to leave this city...everyone is so nasty or awful or yelling all the time. And we're not aware that we are screaming at the same decibel while complaining about loud noise. We are not aware of our part in the environment. We assume that the answer is to travel to some future paradise over there, while packing our suitcases with the same hell right here.
What is intention?
Intention can be a list of 'what' but at the bottom of 'what' is always 'why?' So you get (blank), so what? Why did you want it? For what purpose? Why is this important to me, to others? Usually the 'why' involves some sort of contentment and happiness. I want (blank) because it will make me happy. But really beneath that search for happiness is always worldview and other ppl. The idea of 'this year I'm gonna focus on my happiness' is a bit misleading. Ok yes, you should be happy. But then what? Are you just going to sit around all day being happy? Or rich? Or famous? A person who get all their wishes fulfilled is like a kid who get a big giant mansion to sit in alone. They get antsy, anxiety, paranoid, lonely, suspicious, and then they are no longer happy. It's a shallow happiness that the perceiver doesn't trust b/c they know it's a house built on a foundation of sand. So they start building all these 'protections' around their happiness which, in fact, makes them less happy. Soon, the bulk of their energy is on protecting this thing that no longer exists. So intention has to return to 'why?' Why did I want this house of happiness if I'm sitting all alone in it surrounded by gates, guard dogs, security systems, deadbolt locks? Well usually we want happiness or wealth or anything that involves EXPANSION b/c we intend on sharing it.
Some forms of expansion: intimacy, friendships, exercise, art/creativity, spirituality, wealth accumulation (business), fame. These are all things that expand ourselves to reach other people. These expansions naturally build community. We intend on expansion to bring ppl in to some sort of family unit or collective. No one builds a 30-room mansion to sit alone in it. Return to the real intention of happiness and expansion and that is the deeper intention in our new year resolutions and checklists that keep us going on a day-to-day basis. It's always about others. So that is the real intention. That is the real purpose of time management...it allows us to expand creatively and efficiently to others.
Time management is about using the 'right here and now' and not waiting for a future paradise down the road. Ultimately the dream we seek is right here and in every moment. Every day I have the chance to to plant the seeds of paradise with others by what I say, do, and think.
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