Schedule by Convenience!
The Principle: “Do everything by convenience according to the size of your priorities”…
Once you prioritize your projects and activities according to your hierarchy of values (as above)…
…scheduling becomes simply a matter of convenience based on wherever you are at any time.
Here’s a real-life example to make the point crystal clear…
My situation right now as I type:
The computer is on, an article is open about time management…
… I need to look after my health (an important rock), so it’s time that I ate something (a pebble / project) so I’ll rush to the kitchen to chop some salad, steam some potato’s, and whatever else (sand/tasks).
Whilst doing that I might be thinking of my article, or I may listen to an audio file whilst in the kitchen (and therefore fit more tasks into the same time period). Sometimes I’ll even get into some pushups on the kitchen floor.
Or indeed I may use the time for personal quiet time and let my brain space out and enjoy the chopping, bubbling, and sizzling.
Then once that’s all cooking away smoothly, back to my office I rush and re-focus at the computer. (A fast pace obviously adds tremendous intensity to the day, making you more emotionally compelled towards action, as well as more efficient.)
You could say that eating is more important than writing an article. So you see I do not prioritize or schedule to level of so called ‘importance’.
I do it all, and I do it by breaking down the hierarchy of ‘size’, and then selecting tasks by convenience. Anything ‘urgent’ will naturally show itself when your project and task lists are organized properly.
When you have life prioritized and organized this way, you can very easily decide what to do next simply by looking at your project list and task list depending on where you are.
If you scheduled these tasks to time, you’d do dinner at ’6pm’, write the article at ’7pm’, and listen to an audio at what, ’9pm’? It’s obviously not efficient even if it worked out that way (which it rarely does right?).
So of course we shouldn’t schedule tasks to time!
It’s a ridiculous technique. It’s much more natural to do a small selection of things in one pocket of time chosen by convenience as I demonstrated above.
So the bottom line…
Don’t prioritize by level of importance. It’s all important. Instead, schedule according 1st to size, then to convenience.
Then you’ll find that all of the ‘little things’ that used to get in your way, actually weave into the ‘bigger’ things, and then everything gets done… your level of self-satisfaction jumps through the roof… and you leave your peers behind in the dust — unless you share all this with them of course.
I hope I’ve freed you from some unnatural restrictions on using time.
And these days I almost never burn my cooking.
Ooo speaking of which….
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