If time management stops working

Svetlana is 40 years old, she is an experienced auditor. She urgently needs to finish checking documents, but her smartphone beeps incessantly: correspondence with colleagues in the messenger, a reminder of an appointment with a doctor, letters from the tax authorities … And then her daughter sends a photo from the fitting room, begging to urgently tell which of the three dresses suits her better. Svetlana is not lazy, and she cannot be called a procrastinator: she does not put off work and is not distracted by nonsense — it’s just that all these tasks are equally important for her and require immediate response.

It is a pity that there are only 24 hours in a day, and she barely has time to complete the work on time. Multitasking, a mix of private and public life, an endless flow of information — almost everyone faces such content of every day today. “Do you love life? Then don’t waste your time; for time is the fabric of which life is made,” a phrase said by Benjamin Franklin more than two hundred years ago is more relevant than ever. Only now the fabric of time, from which we weave our lives, is becoming more and more dense.

And we still feel dissatisfaction: we don’t have time to do the main thing, we slow down, we break deadlines, we are late …

What are we managing?

The most amazing thing is that today our possibilities for self-organization seem to be endless: we are offered time management guides, dozens of applications for to-do lists and appointment planning with user-friendly interfaces, bright pictures and loud reminders, time management courses, online seminars of leading businessmen trainers. Why don’t attempts to control life work?

According to all the rules of time management, we plan tasks in the morning, divide them into important and secondary ones. And then we get a dozen overdue e-mails, and it turns out that some of the problems have already been solved, but a couple of new cases are urgent. And all our morning plans crumble to dust. We get down to work that requires concentration, but we are drawn to check how many likes have come over the night for the picture that we posted yesterday on Instagram (an extremist organization banned in Russia), and push notification lights signal that friends shared something incredibly important in the tape.

We are used to living without endless distractions. But constant switching drains attention, and each time we need extra time and effort to get back to work. How to find the right balance and rhythm of life in such conditions is the question. And if time management does not work, what will help us?

Raise questions of meaning

“In my work with clients, it’s not the organization of time that comes to the fore today, but the questions of meaning,” says coach Natalia Mozhzhanova. Why do we need time management at all? What value will we get as a result? How will our lives change when we reach our goal? Each “why” takes us beyond the specific situation and helps us look at it from the height of our values.” If what we are doing is vital for us, if we are inspired by an idea, a project, then we can pick up any techniques and they will work. But what to do if there are many different — and equivalent — meanings in life, none of which we are ready to sacrifice for the sake of others?

Recall the example of Svetlana — she is an auditor, but also a woman who cares about her health, and the mother of a teenage daughter with whom she does not want to lose contact, and a wife and girlfriend. And, among other things, a popular blogger who has several thousand subscribers waiting for her new posts.

“Today we have to think about the priority of certain social roles,” agrees Natalia Mozhzhanova. — The well-known in coaching “Lacaine’s question”, which sounds like this: “How can you spend time with the greatest benefit now?” I don’t like the word «spend», I prefer «use», but the point is different. When we are honest with ourselves, we understand that now is more useful, more necessary for us.” So it’s not about setting priorities once and for all, but about choosing what is important at this very specific moment.

For example, if our child gets sick and we are sure that there is zero benefit from us as an employee in the office, we delegate urgent tasks to others and leave to take care of the child. And if we understand that it is more important for us now not to lose the project — for the sake of the health of the same child — we will focus on work and try to do it as quickly and efficiently as possible.

How do we know that our decision is correct? “The feeling of satisfaction and agreement with one’s attitudes and values ​​is an indicator of the correctness of the chosen decision,” the coach replies.

Take care of your head

Lacain’s question is one of the time management techniques. It can really help in planning and managing affairs, like the Pareto principle (20% of efforts provide 80% of the result) or Eisenhower prioritization. “Knowing these rules and realizing the importance or urgency of certain tasks, we can rationally decide what should follow what,” explains coach Maxim Dorofeev. “But knowledge does not necessarily translate into action, because in most cases we act irrationally and illogically, often without even realizing what we are doing.

The American writer Tim Urban came up with a great image: two characters live in our head — a rational man and a monkey. The first makes correct, logical decisions, while the second demands momentary pleasures, sabotaging tasks that seem boring or difficult to her. This «monkey» makes us check the likes in the morning or just luxuriate in bed, instead of getting down to business. Because of it, we put off what is “not yet burning”, and our hands never reach some important things.

If we want to stick to plans, stay focused, make informed decisions, and successfully negotiate with our “monkey”, we need something more than knowing the basics of time management. Namely, willpower, more precisely, an intellectual-volitional resource. The coach is convinced: «Only if we have enough of this resource, we can stop and think, give preference to a rational decision, and not act impulsively.»

Therefore, it must be protected and not wasted. How? Maxim Dorofeev suggests starting with two steps.

First, turn off notifications for most events. The advice is ridiculously elementary, but it works! In a restless state, we often mistake non-urgent and unimportant tasks for urgent ones. And vice versa: a calm mind helps to better see the true importance of things.

Secondly, move all tasks and plans from your head to external storage media. Take a piece of paper and write down all the things that you remember.

Add to the list as needed and keep it visible. Memory often fails us, and this has been proven by research, in addition, memorizing tasks takes too much energy. By unloading your head, you will be able to more consciously choose what to do at any given moment.

Get out from under the rubble

“I do what I am assigned, but I almost never meet the deadline. I delay the delivery of materials, take time out, reschedule business and personal meetings. At the same time, I have the feeling that I am always overwhelmed with work, ”admits 32-year-old Elena. She has been working as a freelance journalist for the past five years. The feeling of blockage is familiar to many. “Such a problem often arises for those who “do not watch the clock”, who are not able to correlate their subjective perception of time with the objective one,” explains Natalia Mozhzhanova.

Indeed, we all went through school that there are 24 hours in a day, that time is one-dimensional and does not flow according to our desire. But in subjective reality, everything is different: we easily plunge into the past and fantasize about the future for a long time. Strong emotions can “stop” time, and tedious waiting or unpleasant work stretch minutes into hours. And none of this matters much as long as we don’t commit ourselves. “If we inadequately evaluate the tasks that we set for ourselves, then the rest of the plans collapse like a house of cards,” continues Natalia Mozhzhanova. “We blame ourselves for missing deadlines, we lose confidence and motivation to work on.”

How can you define yourself in time? How to realize how many hours or days we objectively need to perform this or that work? This can only be done practically. Set a time frame that you feel is necessary to solve the problem, and then compare with the time spent in reality. Then it will be easier for you to plan tasks of this kind. “I sometimes use these techniques in the family, with children,” says the coach. — The child does not want to do something, is naughty.

And I propose a game: let’s see how much you can really do. We set a stopwatch and it turns out that math can be done in 10 minutes. And it seemed to him that she would eat his whole evening.

catch the rhythm

Audit your time: for a week, write down all your thoughts, phone calls, conversations and activities in a diary. You will clearly see what your precious hours and minutes are spent on.

Think about it: is this really what you would like to fill the time of your life with? “Those who live with the feeling of a “driven horse” and don’t know what to do with it often come to my trainings,” Maxim Dorofeev notes. “They ask: “Is it possible to change anything at all?” hoping to hear the answer of an authoritative teacher: “No, you can’t.

Relax, you are doomed to be late, waste time on nonsense and regret missed opportunities. But I won’t say, «No, you can’t.» Although there are no guaranteed ways to live harmoniously in our time, there are none. What do we have? Techniques and methods that you can try, adjust for yourself and change to new ones if they do not work.

There are intuitions and desires that we can listen to. We always have sources of hope. And in order to see them, you need to be able to stop.”