I’d like to talk about my approach to time management. While plenty of people are better at this than I am, I’ve still gotten pretty good at it and used it to pursue my various interests while taking good care of my emotional health and holding down a day job. Here’s an overview of what I do.
Most of what I’ll talk about here comes from Stephen Covey’s wonderful book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, especially his chapter on Habit 3, Put First Things First. The notion of categorizing tasks based on their importance and urgency blew my mind and has shaped how I approach each day ever since. It’s allowed me to do much more than I could before, such as doing attractions at Disney World when hardly anybody else is also doing them to save time waiting in line (it also works for driving, shopping, and other activities). It also reminds me to prioritize activities that end early or might close down due to bad weather; seeing and petting some animals at my local zoo before nearby lightning causes those areas to close down is a good example.
One of the best time management hacks I’ve found is doing multiple things simultaneously. An example could be taking a shower while washing one load of laundry, drying another load, charging one of my devices, and letting dinner thaw. Doing all of those together requires no additional effort and saves a huge amount of time compared to doing them one at a time. That’s how I’m able to get lots of things done even on busy days when I get home late from work and don’t have much time before bed.
My favorite kind of day is the one I had last Saturday. I stayed home, did something productive each hour, got lots of rest, moved at my own pace, and let go each waking hour for a total of four hours of letting go throughout the day. This lets me get a lot done without wearing myself out, having plenty of time for self-care, and, I believe, would be perfectly sustainable if I did this every day. It’s a similar approach to this video from Beau Miles in which he runs a marathon a little bit at a time over the course of 24 hours. Although he posted about his experiment back in 2018, I stumbled upon my experiment in late August of 2021. It’s how I managed to do anything while still in the deepest phase of grief over my dog Sawyer’s death from April 2022 through late 2023. Since then, it’s allowed me to rebuild and even flourish.
All of this helps me be more present with what I’m doing and enjoy the process rather than rush through things and miss most of my life as a result. My days feel slower, longer, and more relaxed when I’m on point with time management. In turn, I feel lighter and more at peace. I know there are other things I could do for even more efficient time management, though I’m not interested in pursuing them at this point. What I’ve got now works well enough for me, and I could easily drive myself crazy trying to push this as far as possible. Since my time is limited and I can’t create more of it, I’d rather continue benefiting from what I do to manage the time I’ve got and get to actually enjoy it while I can.