Setting priorities is something we all know we should be doing but never find the time to do. Until we are faced with a crisis and life does it for us.
Years ago, time management courses were invented as an attempt to invest in productivity in the workplace. I was late for my first course – because I had too much to do. There was just no ways I could fit in my early morning gym session and more than a day’s preparation before this (to my mind) luxury lesson on “sorting out my life.”
I wonder if they still teach people to dedicate one uninterrupted hour to e-mails, one to phone calls and feedback to clients and other luxuries that have somehow never worked out according to the instructor’s spreadsheet.
I have heard more than once that one’s priorities are defined by that which you spend most of your time and money on. In my experience, it is mostly the lack of time that gives me the overwhelming out-of-control-feeling. The day I realised that a week had only 168 hours – and not the 250 I needed to get through my to-do-list – my stress levels soared. Take away 11 hours a day for sleeping, eating and getting yourself presentable, and you sit with 91 hours a week!
Once gym and commuting time is deducted, there is simply not enough hours in a day left to get through half of my work schedule. Priority lists tell you to draw up a pie chart of the time you spend on work and career, on health and wellness, personal and spiritual development, friends and family, fun and leisure. You should weight the slices of the cake if you want to lead a balanced life, they say.
But this did not work for me – to the contrary. It made me more stressed, feeling more out of control, more burnt out.
Until a previous generation journalist told me about the old typewriter principle. Now let me explain this to Millennials and Zee’s. The letters of the old typewriter – used by our mothers and grandmothers till the 1980’s, did not have proportional spacing. An l and a W took up the same space on the page. Journalists and layout artists had to count the letters in headings: a V counted for one, an M for two spaces, an l (lower case) was a half a count, a W counted for two or three letters, depending on the font.
A to-do-list works like the letters of the old typewriter, the journalist explained. Each item takes up a full letter space in your mind – whether it’s an easy task or a complicated one, a trivial or an important job. And this is what clutters your mind and can make you lose perspective.
Her advice was to apply proportional spacing, to get rid of trivial issues where possible, but to train your mind that there is a difference between an l and a w. To do priority planning while you soak in the bath. And to never, ever, neglect your quiet meditation time, preferably early in the morning. Making sure you are still heading in the right direction.
