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Are you trying to get everything done and still not getting it done? Do you feel like a squirrel in a wheel and complain that you do not have enough time? Then do not look at the clock anymore and, most importantly, forget about time management!
Advice on the proper use of time has become a large-scale and highly profitable industry. However, more and more scientists say that time management not only does not make our life better, but, on the contrary, only reduces its quality. Among them is the well-known psychologist and business coach Tony Crabbe, whose services are regularly used by such world business leaders as Microsoft, HSBC and Disney. In his new book, Crabbe launched a decisive attack on time management.1. And speaking more broadly, and on today’s principles of relation to time in general.
Pass the tests
- How do you manage your time?
- Why don’t you have enough time?
Referring to the works of the famous British historian Edward Palmer Thompson, the psychologist recalls that mankind has not always been so preoccupied with hours and minutes.2. And some 250 years ago, watches were considered exclusively a luxury item. In addition, their accuracy was rather conditional, which, however, did not bother anyone. For centuries, humanity has focused not so much on time as on the need to solve specific problems. Of course, it is also necessary to plow and sow in due time, but this period is still determined not in hours and minutes, but rather in days.
The Industrial Revolution changed the situation radically. The operation of the factories required the concerted efforts of hundreds of people. And just then the count went on for minutes and even seconds. And with it came the era of clock worship.
Today, this worship has reached an unprecedented and absolutely unjustified scope, Tony Crabbe is sure. He gives three main arguments against endless attempts to stretch your day for a few extra hours and cram as many things into them as possible.
Read more:
- An extra 10 hours a week: how to organize your time
1. Battle with the Lernaean Hydra
The main argument of time management is that by learning to manage your affairs faster, you will free up more time for yourself. Crabbe strongly disagrees with this. He likens time management to the fight between Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra. This monster was distinguished, scientifically speaking, by a high ability to regenerate. And in place of each head cut off by Hercules, two new ones immediately grew. This is exactly the case with time management, writes Crabbe. We free up time to immediately fill it with new things and do as much as possible. And quickly having coped with one task, we take on the next two. Probably also very important. That’s just to say that this approach improves the quality of our lives, alas, is not necessary.
Steve Taylor
“The conquest of time. How time affects us, and we affect time
We often rush, rush, complain about the lack of time and the inability to cope with it. And each of us has noticed that in childhood, time flowed much more slowly, and the older we get, the more it speeds up. The book by British writer Steve Taylor is an attempt to explain why we perceive time so differently in different periods.
2.Confetti time
Equipped with the latest gadgets, we imagine ourselves as mighty warriors, armed to the teeth in a duel against time. Our smartphones and computers allow us to check emails, talk to clients, report to superiors and participate in important discussions at any second anywhere in the world. With these devices, we seem to dissect life into tiny segments, which the journalist Brigid Schulte (Brigid Schulte) wittily called in her book “confetti of time”3.
However, in reality, we “chop and grind” not time at all, but our own attention, the ability to focus on something important. We negotiate on the beach instead of relaxing, and we check our mail at dinner instead of being with family. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi characterizes this chaotic mental activity as “psychic entropy”. It was Csikszentmihalyi who described the state of optimal mental experience, called “flow”4. The state of the flow is characterized by the complete dissolution of a person in the action being performed – and the loss of the idea of the passage of time. It can be working on a difficult task, or it can be a heart-to-heart conversation with friends, the essence of this does not change – the state of flow, by definition, cannot be achieved by constantly looking at the clock. And the more we turn our time into confetti, the further we find ourselves from the optimal state of our psyche.
Read more:
- Why is time running fast
3. Ghost efficiency
Sacrificing your psychological well-being and quality of life for the sake of doing more things is ultimately a personal choice for everyone. But the trouble is that even there is no such choice. The ability to be more efficient and succeed in life through time management is, if not a myth, then at least an outdated idea, Tony Crabbe believes. Referring to the research of many serious scientists, he shows that our obsession with a lot of things really helps us make more decisions. However, the solutions are the most obvious and not always successful. For example, Harvard Business School professor Deepak Malhotra argues that multi-tasking and preoccupation with deadlines reduce our ability to make good decisions. We prioritize immediate gains—and often to the detriment of strategic interests5.
And psychologists Michael DeDonno and Heath DeMary have shown that the feeling of lack of time negatively affects our ability to achieve the desired results.6. The swords of Damocles, the hour and minute hands, simply do not allow us to show our full potential.
Tony Crabbe is confident that the era of race running is over. The dictatorship of the clock has played an important role in the history of mankind, radically changing the world. But we no longer even live in the post-industrial, but in the information age. Time is no longer money. And it’s time to use other strategies: relying on a deeper understanding of the problems and a creative approach to solving them.
Where to find time? For more articles, interviews, and personal stories on the subject, see the September issue of Psychologies. On sale from 11 August.
1 T. Crabbe Crazy busy: How to get out of the maelstrom of endless cases (Alpina Publisher, 2015).
2 E. P. Thompson «Time, work-discipline and industrial capitalism». Past & Present, 1967, № 38(1).
3 B. Schulte “I have no time! In search of free time in an era of universal time pressure” (Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2015).
4 M. Csikszentmihalyi “Flow. Psychology of optimal experience” (Alpina non-fiction, 2015).
5 D. Malhort “I removed your cheese” (Potpourri, 2012).
6 M. A. DeDonno, H. A. Demaree «Perceived time pressure and the Iowa Gambling Task», Judgment and Decision Making, 2008, vol. 3, № 8.