Thursday, April 19, 2007
The Tyranny of NOW
My phone rings I must answer it. My mobile phone rings I need to answer it but I'm driving at 70MPH in the over-taking lane of a British motorway so I can't. Oh dear who is calling me. My head is full of thoughts that I must collect and process immediately so I can allocate them to projects or throw them away. Here's another email I must answer it now.
Uh no. I don't do that. I screen calls on my phone. Thank God for caller id. I recognise the numbers of family and friends; if I'm charitable I may pick up the phone and talk to them. Sometimes I will let the answerphone pick up and screen what the person at the other end is saying first --- even if I know who they are. Also my mobile (cell to you USians) phone has caller id I heavily screen calls and SMS messages there. Don't expect me to reply just because you called me or sent something. My time is my time. I'll use it how I wish.
And there's where I part company from the time management people such as Stephen Covey with his 7 Habits. Great book, read it back when it was newly published. Liked it. Similarly David Allen and his Getting Things Done methodology. Okay not read it but seen enough secondary material to think there's some good in it. But while I have read about or considered these approaches I screen them out of my daily life. The intense proponents of each method encourage me to change my ways. To improve my life, to enumerate my goals, ambition, and objective, to bring order to the chaos of how I work. No, it's my life, my time. I've got things to do not methodologies for following metholdogies to follow.
I take pieces of these best-seller schems and incorporate them into my own scheme. For example, I tried out a computer package based on Allen's GTD. I "collected" my thoughts; this is great. But then the methodlogy and specifially the package forced me to evaluate those thoughts there and then, to decide whether each though was something for the future, or to be thrown away, or added to a project, or maybe initiate a new project.
The problem is these are just thoughts. Nothing grand some of them. I wanted to record them somewhere so I didn't forget them entirely. Some of them need a long gestation time. For example there are draft posts for this blog going back to the first heady days of creating the blog itself. I started to type them up but more time was needed to ponder them. Most of the posts for this blog are like that. Drafting. If I GTDed them them I'd have to delete them but these thoughts are important to me and maybe one of them becomes important to you too. I won't allow someone else to dictate when I should think.
And there are some tasks that can't be done immediately, or even annually. I recently received a notification to renew a professional qualification. Previously this was annually. Now it's perpetual. I don't need to renew ever again. However, I do need to re-validate my details every five years or immediately if my details changes. If the latter then the five-year clock is reset. So I can't simply put a five-year alarm in my online calendar or in my planner insert for five year hence, which by the way hasn't been printed yet and as I drafted this back in April neither had the yearly insert for next year become available.
I don't want their help (imposition) to order my life into neat packages. I like serendipity and happenstance. Those are concepts I can deal with, cope with. I've better things to do with my life than spend it on Getting Things Done. Elsewhere there are active discussion forums on GTD and 7 Habits. Time and again people comment that it has taken a year, two years, longer even to fully implment ABC scheme in their life. Me, I'll scavange something from each of these schemes and put it to use my way.
It's taken me six years to reach a point where I use my planner as more than a simple appointments diary. The daily pages are essential. I use a page-to-a-view format. Hour slots on one page, space for notes on the other. ToDo list and priority tasks there on view. Recently noticed that a rival planner company has a shorter page so additional notes can be made during the day. I took that idea; not needed for every meeting but can be helpful. I use the year planner too. Pull it out for an overview of where I will be months ahead. Now I'm supplementing the day and year plans with monthly plans. Less space to record where meetings are happening but a neat summary of available time for other meetings. Most recent addition has been my professional development plan. Those skills that may need brushing up or new ones that need learning with some thought to how this can be achieved and how.
It's my life. To the fanatics of order and methodology I get your hands of my life and go get one of your own. ¶ 10:57 pm
Uh no. I don't do that. I screen calls on my phone. Thank God for caller id. I recognise the numbers of family and friends; if I'm charitable I may pick up the phone and talk to them. Sometimes I will let the answerphone pick up and screen what the person at the other end is saying first --- even if I know who they are. Also my mobile (cell to you USians) phone has caller id I heavily screen calls and SMS messages there. Don't expect me to reply just because you called me or sent something. My time is my time. I'll use it how I wish.
And there's where I part company from the time management people such as Stephen Covey with his 7 Habits. Great book, read it back when it was newly published. Liked it. Similarly David Allen and his Getting Things Done methodology. Okay not read it but seen enough secondary material to think there's some good in it. But while I have read about or considered these approaches I screen them out of my daily life. The intense proponents of each method encourage me to change my ways. To improve my life, to enumerate my goals, ambition, and objective, to bring order to the chaos of how I work. No, it's my life, my time. I've got things to do not methodologies for following metholdogies to follow.
I take pieces of these best-seller schems and incorporate them into my own scheme. For example, I tried out a computer package based on Allen's GTD. I "collected" my thoughts; this is great. But then the methodlogy and specifially the package forced me to evaluate those thoughts there and then, to decide whether each though was something for the future, or to be thrown away, or added to a project, or maybe initiate a new project.
The problem is these are just thoughts. Nothing grand some of them. I wanted to record them somewhere so I didn't forget them entirely. Some of them need a long gestation time. For example there are draft posts for this blog going back to the first heady days of creating the blog itself. I started to type them up but more time was needed to ponder them. Most of the posts for this blog are like that. Drafting. If I GTDed them them I'd have to delete them but these thoughts are important to me and maybe one of them becomes important to you too. I won't allow someone else to dictate when I should think.
And there are some tasks that can't be done immediately, or even annually. I recently received a notification to renew a professional qualification. Previously this was annually. Now it's perpetual. I don't need to renew ever again. However, I do need to re-validate my details every five years or immediately if my details changes. If the latter then the five-year clock is reset. So I can't simply put a five-year alarm in my online calendar or in my planner insert for five year hence, which by the way hasn't been printed yet and as I drafted this back in April neither had the yearly insert for next year become available.
I don't want their help (imposition) to order my life into neat packages. I like serendipity and happenstance. Those are concepts I can deal with, cope with. I've better things to do with my life than spend it on Getting Things Done. Elsewhere there are active discussion forums on GTD and 7 Habits. Time and again people comment that it has taken a year, two years, longer even to fully implment ABC scheme in their life. Me, I'll scavange something from each of these schemes and put it to use my way.
It's taken me six years to reach a point where I use my planner as more than a simple appointments diary. The daily pages are essential. I use a page-to-a-view format. Hour slots on one page, space for notes on the other. ToDo list and priority tasks there on view. Recently noticed that a rival planner company has a shorter page so additional notes can be made during the day. I took that idea; not needed for every meeting but can be helpful. I use the year planner too. Pull it out for an overview of where I will be months ahead. Now I'm supplementing the day and year plans with monthly plans. Less space to record where meetings are happening but a neat summary of available time for other meetings. Most recent addition has been my professional development plan. Those skills that may need brushing up or new ones that need learning with some thought to how this can be achieved and how.
It's my life. To the fanatics of order and methodology I get your hands of my life and go get one of your own. ¶ 10:57 pm
