How I tried to create a system to manage my time better?

Consistency. One word which has a lot of meaning and strength. Those who know me would understand that I have an intense need to plan and organize everything. I am not much of an impromptu person. I am not a person who can think on his feet and come up with ideas. I take time to analyze and then conclude. In spite of all this one thing that I have been struggling with has been consistency, sounds very contradictory perhaps, let me explain. 

The fact is that if we do not assign priorities consciously to whatever we have in front of us, our true nature inherently does that for us. And let me tell you, our true nature does not do a good job at assigning priorities because we as humans never want to eat the bitter pills, even if they are for our own benefits.

So, we need to be conscious about the choices that we make everyday. Those tiny breaks of 5 or 7 minutes that we take to watch interesting Youtube videos, convert into hours before we know it. Or those incremental professional commitments may take a toll on your personal commitments (family time or self growth) or vice versa.  

I have already admitted that I myself am guilty of such behavior so I am not in a position to tell you how to fix this, but all I can tell is something that I tried and something that seemed to work a bit for me.

Two important methods that worked for me are as follows

1. Have clear visiblity (at all times) on what all needs to be done.

2. Have clear visibility (at all times) on where your time is going.

I will explain both of these in detail.

Let's begin with the first one. 

Have clear visiblity (at all times) on what all needs to be done.

I have always had a long Planner sheet at the beginning of the year which sort of has the list of areas (and categories) I would want to work on, the list of things I would want to improve, so on and so forth. I was using this like my North Star (not literally pulling task items from it but just picking the directions). 

But what was missing was that in the day to day life I tended to go autopilot every now and then and it used to be months before I looked at my Planner sheet and see that I have lost a ton of time and haven't done anything from the sheet.

To fix this what I have tried now is that I take up only a handful of items from the list that I think I can finish or cater to in say one month. This drastically reduces the items I need to spend my time looking at.

If you are from the Software Product Management  background, think of the Planner sheet as your Backlog and the shorter list as the Stories you pick up for the Sprint that is supposed to last one month. Towards the middle of the month or say third week if you see items you definitely would not be able to work on, just push them out, don't stress about it. If you push yourself very hard, you would not have enough energy to go on and you may end up breaking the system. Telling you by experience, if you break the system once, it is very tough to get back.

Now, I have better visibility on what needs to be done and if I am able to spend some time on it. So, this in a way was the first solution - having clear visibility (at all times) on what needs to be done.

Let's talk about the second one.

Have clear visibility (at all times) on where your time is going.

I have realized that if you have clear visiblity of where your time is going, you tend to spend your time in a better way.

I tried out a few apps and web based solutions and finally settled for aTimeLogger. I started tracking all of my time, not just professional working time but everything such as Sleeping, Reading, Transport, Entertainment, Housework etc.

I know this might sound extreme to a lot of you but trust me, once you get in the habit of using this and can clearly see the Pie Chart of your time spent, slowly and gradually you tend to get better at managing your time.

Here are some of the screens to give you a perspective on how this app looks like. 

You can also decide and create some time based goals for yourself and try to get better at achieving them. As you can see, some of the goals that I have created for myself are

1. Not sleeping more than 7 hours.

2. Reading for minimum 30 minutes everyday.

3. Keeping the Miscellaneous category time under 3 hours.

As and when you get a hang of this you can add more and more activities that you care about and try to patch it up in goals and try to monitor yourself on a monthly basis if you are improving in those areas.

To conclude, like any other system this system also is not a full proof solution but this is certainly something worth exploring. If you try this and it works for you even a little bit do let me know.

The Journey

So many choices. One life. If you think about it, perhaps, a very brief, almost negligible bleep on the canvas of life on Earth. Non-existent in the Earth’s lifetime. But this bleep, is our life. For most what we know, an opportunity, the only one that we have right now. The only one we are sure of. Then why are our choices mostly confined, constrained by factors such as our upbringing, our innate tendencies as humans (evolved from animals), why do we not realize these barriers being only in our minds, why are these shackles tough to break.

Because choosing an offbeat life is difficult, extreme, disagreeable to society or to the construct of society. But how do you choose, how do you define the offbeat life you may fantasize about. Should we give in to this whim to ultimately lose a lot of time, money, relationships and eventually long for coming back? How do you test the waters without disrupting your current life? How do you finally take the call and take the plunge?

This is about finding answers, about the process, of discovery. It may not look like it but perhaps this is a whole lot internal rather than external. Discovery of ourselves. Realizing what you truly enjoy. Designing a life, you enjoy. Making it sustainable. Prioritizing life over traditional way of living. Taking a leap of faith.

The journey eventually may make you experience immense bliss. You may experience life in its full glory. A tale to tell, a life truly lived. On the flip side, even if you don’t find what you longed for. It may take some precious resources, time away, but it would perhaps still be worth a shot. The traditional life would always be available, open to embrace. One may fall a step or two backwards in the traditional sense. But in the larger canvas, in the larger picture of one’s life, this perhaps would surely be worth. After all, finding oneself is a long pursuit, the journey like this is going to be the first step. A step in a direction with some hope of being right should definitely be worth.