Tag Archives: time management

What gives way?

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I was reminded recently of the project management triangle. It refers to the fact that you can only chose two of the three: Cheap (cost) / Fast (time) / Good (scope). This is related to what I was thinking, but not really the essence of it. What this made me think of is how we are always making sacrifices.

Right now, my sacrifice(s) seems to be sleep and diet. Everything else is going really well for me. Work is busy, but smooth. I’m seeing a lot of my family. I’ve connected with friends. My workouts are going well. But I’m not sleeping great and I haven’t been paying attention to what I’m eating, or rather I don’t think I’m eating enough.

It’s so hard to have everything going in the right direction all at once. There is always something that seems to be giving way in order to ensure other things are going well. I’m sure that I’ll rebalance my sleep and diet soon, but then will something else falter? I’d like to think not, but that seems to be what happens. Is this a constraints issue like the management triangle? Or is it just me?

If I had the time

Here’s a great comic by @MrLovenstein:

On the same topic, I printed this and stuck it to my home gym wall by my exercise bike, after I read it in James Clear’s weekly email last March:

Author Julia Cameron on how to find time to write (or do anything, really):

“The “if I had time” lie is a convenient way to ignore the fact that novels require being written and that writing happens a sentence at a time. Sentences can happen in a moment. Enough stolen moments, enough stolen sentences, and a novel is born — without the luxury of time.”

Source: The Right to Write

Sometimes I’m brilliant at making the time for things. I’m up every day between 5 and 5:30am, I write these posts (if I didn’t the night before), I meditate, I do a workout, all before I get in the shower to start my work day. Recently I was challenged to do 2,000 pushups in February. I started on the 3rd, and as of yesterday I’d done 80 pushups for 10 straight days. I might take today off before doing another  800 in the next 10 days. Then a last break before 5 straight days and hitting 2K on the 29th. That’s the plan. If I forget and miss a day, guess what… I’ll make it up and still make sure I hit the target.

For other things I’m notoriously bad at finding the time. Tidying up my closet is a great example of that. I seem to know how to mess it up, but I never seem to have time to organize it. Some days I get home and my back is sore, but I’ll sit uncomfortably on the couch and think about getting in the hot tub until it’s too late and I just skip it. My blog drafts usually have a whole bunch of idea starters for when I get stuck, but now it’s filled with longer writes that I’ve started and don’t seem to have the time to follow up with. Drafts used to be drafts, now they are just good ideas that have died from a lack of taking the time to expand on them.

If only I had the time… would I use it? Would you? How convenient and comfortable is this lie? The reality is that if it’s important enough, there’s probably time for it, time we can find, time we can make, rather than making up excuses.