Time Management

[MinorityOfOne]

I've been reading some books on time management lately, and it's interesting how much of it is really just applied psycho-epistemology. Stephen Covey's book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" focuses on the need for a "principle orientation" -- and he means by that very much what Objectivists mean. You have to form principles and stick with them, or you'll be lost in the midst of a million concretes that you can't possibly wrap your mind around.

Overall, though, I think Covey's system is fairly weak. I've been much more impressed with Steve Allen's "Getting Things Done". I'm still reading through it, and I haven't actually implemented his system yet. But one GREAT point he makes is the need to record tasks objectively -- to use external tools to clear your mind, so that it can focus on the task at hand.

How often have you sat down to work on some project and, a couple minutes later, been distracted by the thought of something else you have to do? Maybe it's a newspaper article you intend to read, or something you have to get at the store, or a call you have to make at some point during the day. Allen points out that this is a product of misuse of the mind. To put it in Objectivist terms, when we decide to do something, we give ourselves a standing order to remember to do it. For appointments, this isn't so bad (so long as we actually *do* remember it): if a doctor's appointment pops into my head, all I have to do is look at the clock to see if it's time for it yet. If not, no big deal -- I go back to what I was doing. But other tasks form what Allen calls "open loops": items that swirl around in our heads, occasionally being tossed at us for re-evaluation by our subconscious. Since we haven't decided (and perhaps shouldn't yet decide) when to do them, our subconscious follows our orders to continue requesting a reevaluation. "Do this now, or later?"

Allen's "Getting Things Done" system is intended, among other things, to eliminate these open loops. In principle, it's fairly simple: get all the open loops down on paper, categorize them based on context (office? home? etc.) and type (appointment? project? someday/maybe?), and get them recorded in an orderly and external system. If you do this in a way that you can trust -- i.e., you have a system which you know you will reference, and you know will deliver you the goods when you need them -- your subconscious will shut up and let you get on with the task at hand. Allen calls this state "Mind Like Water".

Whatever the merits of his actual system, which is hard to evaluate prior to actually trying it, I think this is a brilliant way to deal with the limitations brought on by the crow and by the nature of standing orders. The brain can only deal with so much -- so instead of overloading it with requests, systematize the information, and give it just a few higher-level tasks (like organization and referring to the system) to deal with.

I'm wondering if anyone else has looked into the time management literature, or anything relating to it. The books I mentioned are literally all that I've read, so I'm interested in recommendations too, as well as any general comments anyone might have.

[scottkursk]

My old company had all its employees go through the full Franklin (pre-Covey) training. We all used our Franklin's constantly and I found them very effective. A large marjority of the women carried those purse/planners and men always had their book handy. Once they released Compass and it would sync to a palm, I abandoned the book forever.

I gave up using the planners two years ago in favor of a smart phone and Outlook. I used the common sense approach of ordering things from what's most important to least, short term issues verses long term. Outlook works well becase I can color code by category, and then prirotize by time sensitiviy and importance. I sync it at work with my phone via bluetooth and at home with my Mac the same. I found that if it's always there if I need it, I will adhere to my schedule. There are quite obviously many situations that carrying a giant F/C, Filofax, etc with me won't work. That's why I'll never give up my palm phone hybrid.

If I don't do something systematic to keep track of all my to-do's and various prorities, I can get very disorganized. So I think the brilliance of any of the systems is the fact that you sit down and prioritize. Iv'e not really thought it out properly but it a bit like philosophy: you may have some really good ideas but if you can't concretize and prioritieze them you will fall into a morass.

If you do go to the Franklin/Covey training, be aware that they do have an agenda. It reminds me a bit of a cult meeting. Not that I'm saying they are exactly Dianetics sessions but depending on the trainer they can border on it. When you come to do your "Life Compass" that says what is most important to you, woe be the man that says they are the most important thing. They practically brow beat you into putting "helping community" somewhere high on the list.

[source]

I always thought that time management books were a waste of time. That's why I never read any of them. Whenever something else comes to my mind while I'm doing something, I just jot it down and do it later if it's really important. If my dentist appointment is due in several hours, I simply set up the alarm to remind me of this. I've always been systematic and quite diligent with it, so I have no problems with managing my time.

On the other hand, I only learned to prioritize when I began reading Ayn Rand's works. Before that, I always wanted to do everything now and immediately. That was a good system when there wasn't many things to be done. But when I got to college, I stumbled really hard exactly because I failed to set my priorities. Objectivism was then most welcome.

[Betsy]

I'm wondering if anyone else has looked into the time management literature, or anything relating to it.  The books I mentioned are literally all that I've read, so I'm interested in recommendations too, as well as any general comments anyone might have.

I have always led an overfull life, so being organized has been critical. Very early on, I developed systems and methods for myself. Later I saw how it fit well with Objectivist epistemology since the same issues -- classification by essentials, unit economy, etc. -- apply to all thinking.

Since then I have taught my methods to my corporate clients and given occasional presentations to Objectivist groups. One of them was an IRC chat I moderated on "How to Organize your Life," way back on September 13, 1996. This chat deals primarily with organizing your physical environment -- places and things -- and you'll find it here.

[MinorityOfOne]

Scott,

No, I don't intend to go to the Franklin Covey training stuff. As I said, I wasn't all *that* impressed with their whole method. I like the focus on connecting plans to values, but I think the implementation is kind of skewed. I'm all for being conscious of one's value hierarchy, but I don't need to have half of my planner dedicated to it. I want something that's good for keeping track of projects, goals, and schedules. David Allen's system, so far, looks most promising for that.

(By the way, his website is www.davidco.com. There's a lot of good stuff on there, though not much that really serves as an adequate preview of the book.)

One thing I hate about using planners is the whole process of adjusting to things that come up. Maybe it's just because I'm new to it, but I only really see three ways to deal with it. (1) Schedule a bunch of down time spread through the day so that surprises don't interfere with the schedule as a whole; (2) Rewrite the day's schedule after dealing with the surprise; (3) Use the schedule only for appointments & other stuff that can't be changed except in the case of a serious emergency. (1) is kind of ineffective, (2) is incredibly annoying and time-consuming, and (3) defeats the purpose of serious planning.

I actually did find something that's *so close* to solving this... but not quite. There's a great planning software called "Above & Beyond" (www.1soft.com) which uses "dynamic scheduling" -- in other words, the software basically does your schedule for you. You plug in tasks, durations, time restrictions, and priorities, and it basically puts things where they ought to be. Fixed appointments don't get moved, but the rest of your tasks can be set as "floating", which means that they don't have a particular time they have to be done. Then you can set restrictions on that, like within work hours, before a particular deadline, or whatever -- even have it automatically split tasks between different days. It's a hell of a software package, and I'd consider buying it if it had any decent Pocket PC support or Outlook integration. But it doesn't, and my desktop doesn't fit in my pocket. Apparently it has a fairly crappy ability to communicate with Palms, but I read some discussion forums, and nobody seems to like it at all -- it overwrites all other schedule data in the palm whenever you sync, and it doesn't update the desktop software if you put something new in the palm.

Supposedly they're coming out with a PPC version at the end of the year. Something to look forward to, perhaps...

[MinorityOfOne]

Betsy,

Interesting chat. I think you may have mentioned some of that stuff on here before...

By the way, given one of the old threads on here "Interesting eBay Auction" or something like that), I found the library discussion hilarious.