There Might Be Another Way
I think I'm a pretty flexible person. However, over the last few years as life has pulled and tied me up in all types of different knots, I have found that my flexible ways might be causing me more harm than good.
Sure, going with the flow saves me the trouble of making people in my life unhappy and reduces a lot of other areas in my life where my lack of flexibility may cause friction, but at the end of the day, if everyone besides me is happy with the outcome, what was the point? I think about this a lot when it comes to trying to find a productivity system that doesn't make me want to bite a hole through my arm. For a while I thought time blocking would be the system that was going to finally make me into the most productive, high achieving person that's ever lived. I mean I used to abide by schedules like that for all of my high school and college life. But when it came to applying it to myself as an adult without a semester based schedule, it didn't quite work the same way. Time blocking my calendar, using a calendar at all really, felt like a chore and no matter how I arranged the sections of time, nothing felt good.
It wasn't until this past Monday that I was reminded that time has the ability to be managed in another way. Instead of forcing myself to adhere to a block of time that I would say I would complete a task(which often left me waiting until the very last moment of the window of time to actually do the thing) I could instead pick a task I wanted to do and set a timer. When the timer goes off, the task could be done or I could set another timer and continue until I am finished.
It sounds simple enough, but it felt like harps were playing in the background. Too excited not to try it, I set a timer for 25 minutes and set about folding my enormous pile of laundry. Because I knew I was being timed, I was a lot more inclined to try to get it done before the clock ran out. When the 25 minutes was up, I still had an enormous pile of socks to pair up, but the majority of the clothes were folded. This made me realize 2 things.
I might have too many socks.
25 minutes will fly by when you engage in something. So why not do something you've been putting off?
There are other perks of setting timers to complete tasks. For those who like playing games, it's the easiest way to make boring, mundane tasks a little more exciting. But for me it helped me realize that I feel a lot better when I'm given a time frame to complete something than I do creating arbitrary blocks of time that might not pair well with the task that needs to be done.
The takeaway: Time blocking feels too restrictive, but setting timers doesn't. It may not be rocket science, but I think documenting when and where things start clicking is beneficial to personal growth. It's just one more piece of the Me puzzle,
Me about setting timers:
Last 3 posts