Time management
I’ve been experiencing in this field two paradigms that act simultaneously in life and I will share them both – the first one for efficiency, the second one for relaxation, when things do not work according to the plans of the first one.
The first paradigm about time is that, in order to obtain some results, we must do some actions that obviously take time. As time is “limited,” we must manage it wisely.
In this vision, you buy agendas, make lists daily, set memos and tick achievements in the evening… everything good and beautiful. From the traditional book by Stephen R. Covey on Time Management and until modern and cool versions, these actions are found in all.
I found the most useful planning in the methodology suggested by Jinny Ditzler in the book Your Best Year Yet.
I applied it for several years in a row (5 or 6, I do not remember exactly) and year after year I noticed an increase of the percentage of objective fulfilment. This phenomenon was due first of all to the fact that I noticed that those results that I did not meet at all or only partially did not represent me truly.
They were intentions set out of ego, to prove various things to others or to repair myself. For example, when I decided some financial objectives such as “Gain 1,500 euro a month,” the figures really meant nothing and they did not motivate me to act. Those where I would set how many books to read instead, how many seminars to organize or how many young people to help, those would “happen.”
According to this method, you set annual wishes, divide them per semesters, then weeks or the way you feel like to make them more digestible.” Maybe sales of 100,000 euro a year sounds a lot, but of 2,000 euro a week is much simpler.
Organising time daily derives, obviously, from the objectives of your life, global or annual.
The lists are also useful, with the possibility to set actions that are priority, and in this case I recommend you to set three things at most that you want to realize obligatory in one day. The rest can fall under optional or “it would be good to.” When you have more than three, you already feel overwhelmed, and it is obviously an unproductive state.
At present, my second paradigm is that time management works only at times and it is utopia to believe that I am alone in the control of my schedule. It rather seems to me that “life” takes me to mysterious paths, even when I insist to walk a known path.
Time is only a convention that we anyway experience subjectively. I wrote some chapters seemingly in five minutes, and others in an hour. I really do not know myself how long it lasted. The actual reality is that time can be felt, but we do not really know what it is or how to manage it. I have not met any person yet to do what they wrote down in the agenda, in proportion of more than 50% (on the whole). Maybe there are exceptions from time to time, but in general even the best books on time management suggest you to set periods for interruptions. What does it mean? It means that our plans are less relevant when something must happen in the large design of life. Or, in different words, God does not really care about the plans of your mind. It will happen only what is for your and others’ supreme good. If something of what you want would disturb any other plan… goodbye your plan.
I once read in amusement that “we are not the authors of the actions” and “we are not even the thinkers behind the thoughts.”
We will approach again these ideas in the book, but in this context it is clear that we are not “even the planners behind the plans.” Then, what is the meaning of all these? I call it training for the mind. Mind has all kinds of mechanisms that it trains, which seem important to it, including planning. I do not say that planning is completely useless. Only that, from where I currently see life, planning is the way mind catches some potentials from the creation matrix and informs me about possible futures that I will experience. They are some temporary line, with more potential of manifestation from the divine mind, and the extent they are aligned to my level of consciousness and my intentions will make them manifest or not. And that is all.
The two paradigms are apparently antagonistic, one calls for action and the other for inaction. But if we accept them and integrate them both, life is more fluid, more surprising and more predictable at the same time.
Practice 6 | Chapter The Game of Life – Extracted from my book, Rediscover Your Radiance