“Poor time management” is an ironic title for this post. The truth is, I usually feel as if time is managing me. My wish is to be more attuned to, and more realistic about, the accomplishments I can and should fit into a given span of time. This is sometimes hard to figure out, due to variables in the type of task, energy level and circumstances of my workplace. Therefore, the solution is not the overly simple one of following advice of countless articles on effective use of time.
I’ve spent my professional career meeting all kinds of deadlines—long, short, simple and complex. Sometimes there have been added challenges and stressors. Maybe someone else decided that an unreasonable deadline was reasonable. Maybe I was at the end of the pipeline, trying to deliver the goods after other bad actors involved in the project ahead of me failed to meet their part of the overall deadline. Et cetera.
Now that I’m an independent writer, all those pesky little cockroaches have scurried out of sight and I don’t get to blame them for time management issues. My ability to meet deadlines is not the problem; I solved that piece of the big puzzle many years ago. These days, my time “management” issue stems from choosing to be unrealistic about energy and circumstances.
It sometimes helps to observe the miscalculations of others, while stopping short of being critical and judgmental.
Take the example of a person who is habitually late. I have a visceral response to this affliction, which is similar to the way I respond to people who can’t meet deadlines. There is a song called “Kids” from the 1963 musical Bye Bye Birdie, with the lyric “Why can’t they be like we were? Perfect in every way…” I try to keep that mindset on a short leash with a choke chain—and have a laugh at myself to boot. But their problem has something in common with my problem: the unrealistic expectation of a task or tasks to be completed within a finite frame of time.
My version of that habitual tendency is to try to shoehorn just one more task into a finite timeframe. That is a two-edged sword. Yes, I got it done and made optimum use of the time. No, I did not give myself the time to do it properly.
The task-time jigsaw puzzle is very subjective and inconsistent. Some tasks need more space around them…for example, I give myself more time to drive to a tai chi lesson than I would to get to a movie on time. Proper teaching requires that I spend time setting my intent. Sitting down in front of a movie screen does not.
The puzzle pieces must also be placed carefully and with attention to context. In my full-time office-based jobs, I sorted projects according to the time of day. Some were best to tackle in the morning, when my mental faculties are at their peak. Others were reserved for the late afternoon, when I tend to be in the “taking up oxygen” mode. Now, as an independent writer, I still sort my tasks into piles arranged by their need for creative energy.
One of my hardest lessons on time management was given to me by my late mother. In the last decade of her life, after she quit driving and became progressively affected by anxiety disorder, depression and dementia, I took on quite a few life tasks that she had previously been able to manage herself. Every Wednesday, we’d meet outside her residence at 11:30 a.m., drive to Wendy’s for lunch, and then go grocery shopping. At the time I had a full-time job, and although I was able to take as much time as I needed for Mom, it was always an effortful shift from work mode to caregiver mode. She needed a much bigger cushion of time to be comfortable with the journey to and from the restaurant, the grocery store, and back home.
My “working” mind fretted and fidgeted while she examined each jar of strawberry jam to find the right one. Sometimes it took an hour to buy half a dozen items. I kept my impatience strictly undercover; any outward manifestation (which she was extremely good at detecting) would only escalate her anxiety. On these Wednesdays, she never failed to ask me what my work schedule looked like in the afternoon. I soon learned to lie and say I had nothing on my calendar. Otherwise she would worry that I wouldn’t make it back to work on time and insist that we go straight home, so that I wouldn’t get in trouble at work.
I miss those “Wednesdays at Wendy’s” despite the way they challenged my patience. These days, my heartstrings send out a wistful little twang when I see adult children and their elders slowly navigating the grocery aisles, while I zip around the store unimpeded. How does that relate to time management? Like the old PR adage: perception is reality. My mom felt rushed when I did not, so I had to adjust my expectations.
I can often solve time management problems by dispensing with two myths : 1) quantity is the goal, and 2) circumstances are set in stone. “Poor time management” is the result of chasing the false narratives of consistency and rigidity. Circumstances, space and energy fluctuate, but time, in the conventional, measured sense, does not. If I accept that, I can work with time, not be under its thumb.
