photo credit: ottonassar

Once you accept the fact that you’re not perfect, then you develop some confidence.

— Rosalynn Carter

Believe it or not, February is National Time Management month.  I really wonder who decides these things.  First of all, February is National Black History month, so needless to say, Time Management Month doesn’t even make the radar.  Everyone’s busy celebrating the historical contributions by black people, which is necessary because we didn’t devote the appropriate time to it when we took history the first time around.

On top of that, they chose the shortest month in the year to celebrate time management.  How ironic is that?  Was February chosen so that we can get better at time management or because we really don’t want to spend much time thinking about how ineffectively we manage our time?  If you’re a school teacher, you have even fewer days to teach because, depending on the school district, you have a couple of days off to celebrate George Washington, Abraham Lincoln or just Presidents’ Day — which theoretically could include all presidents, some of whom I don’t want to celebrate.  Teachers better be really good at getting lots of stuff into a very few days.

Which System Works for Me?

Over time, I’ve tried many different approaches to time management.  You probably have too – unless you’re one of those people who is totally under control.  After trying different time management systems, how I schedule my time may be different but I’m not sure that the results are any better.

When I was very young, I began with the A-B-C method of time management.  You know the one:  Make a list of your tasks; classify them as A, B or C in importance; Do your most important A until you’re finished, then do your next most important A, etc.  I suppose if you work in isolation that technique may work for you, but one of the things that I’ve discovered in my XX years is that things very seldom stay the same for very long and in today’s dynamic environment what was urgent this morning is not-so-important this afternoon.

The A-B-C method got me through my work life until I became a manager.  Then, everything changed.  Work became more interrupt-driven and some of the tasks really couldn’t be put on a task list, yet they had quickly accelerated to the top of the list.  Somehow, “Build alliance with other technical managers to influence promotions and bonuses” just didn’t seem like a discrete enough task to assign “X” hours to it.  Lucky for me, Stephen Covey published 7 Habits for Highly Effective People and I had the answer to all my questions.  NOT!

Covey certainly met a need when he pointed out that our lives were a whole which should be based on our values, with time devoted to each of our values.  I certainly liked the theory.  It felt right and I tried it for a while.  Again, it was different, not necessarily better.

The Chief Cook & Bottle Washer Effect

One of the things that I’ve discovered about myself is that I was raised to put my work first.  When I was a kid, school was the MOST IMPORTANT THING in life.  As I grew up, I transferred that focus to work.  But no matter how hard I tried, there weren’t enough hours in the day, week, month or year.  If I gave work the focus I felt it needed, NOTHING else got done.  Sometimes my schedule alone precluded anything else in my life.

We were talking about this at Dog Park the other day.  My substitute teaching neighbor stated that after she’d spent a day locked in a room with a bunch of 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, you pick graders, she needed decompress time before she started to deal with the latest crisis at home or dinner or walking the dog or whatever.  I agreed with her.  If we had spent our entire day with other people, we needed time alone just to get our heads on straight.  Then we could tackle the home demands.

From a time management point of view, many of these evening tasks don’t fit on a To Do list unless you just list them as dinner, laundry, homework, baths, bed.  These tasks are never “completed”.  When you finish them today, they reappear when you wake tomorrow.  My mother had a name for the person who fulfilled this role – “Chief Cook & Bottle Washer.”  For those of us who are the chief cook & bottle washer, how well we perform these ongoing tasks is as important to how we view ourselves as our work performance.

It’s Not About Time Management

In her post Time Management Issue?, Susan McWaters states:  “Many times, the real issue is a deeper one and is merely stealing the mind’s attention.”  As the person in charge of taking care of the family and home, the real issue is always about doing enough.  Is the house clean enough?  Are meals nutritious enough?  Am I spending enough time with my husband/kids/wife?

The problem is that often we worry about our family tasks while we’re trying to do our jobs and we worry about doing our jobs while we’re performing our family tasks.  Or as Susan McWaters states, we’re “stealing the mind’s attention” from what we’re doing here and now and worrying about what else we could/should be doing.  And there they are, three of the words that are at the core of much of our “time management” problem – worry, could, should.

Good Enough (I Hope!)

Ellie and I have opined on the lack of value in those three little words so I will spare you those ideas again.  On the other hand, I think there is true value in considering what is “acceptable” as the outcome of our work.

When I was growing up, our house was in one of two states, perfect – looked like nobody lived there – or “lived in” – clutter everywhere.  The only time an outsider was allowed to come into the house was when it was perfect.  There was no system for keeping it perfect.  Perfect was the result of days of effort to make it look perfect.

Now, I know that there are those of you out there that keep a perfect house all the time.  To be honest, that’s not me.  Although I like the way it looks when it’s perfect, I absolutely don’t want to spend the time required to keep it that way.  When no one stops by I’m very comfortable with my decision, but the minute someone comes over, I get worried all over again.  What if they think I’m a bad house keeper?  And there it is again, the lack of focus on what I’m trying to accomplish.  Instead of focusing, I keep thinking:  I need to dust; I need to vacuum; the dog needs a bath. (The dog ALWAYS needs a bath.)  I NEED MORE TIME!!!!

So the conclusion I reach is simple and complex at the same time.  All we need to feel more in control of our time is a clear sense of what is necessary for us to be happy with the outcome.  For us, when are the meals nutritious enough, when is the house clean enough and at what point is the dog just too smelly to tolerate for another day.  The same is true for our jobs.  When will the project be good enough?

These sound like they should be easy questions but in reality they’re all tied up in our view of ourselves and our fear of being judged by others.  Wayne Dyer, well-known speaker and author, has a saying, “Your opinion of me is none of my business.”  I understand what he is saying, I just have never been able to really believe it.  So, there is never enough time because living a perfect life takes lots of time.  Whether I choose to sort the tasks into A-B-C or sort them by my values, the real issue is letting go of the things that clutter my time and holding on tight to the important things.  And not letting it bother me when the perfect housekeeper/employee creates the perfect house/project.  What I choose to do is enough for me. (I hope.)