The Time Commodity

I sat in a theatre last night with my brother waiting to watch Warrior - for the second time. I don't know about you but I enjoy the previews. A specific trailer jumped out at me. "In Time" with Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried. The synopsis is this - in the near future, scientists have been able to switch off the gene that makes people age. However, this causes overpopulation, so everyone has to use their time as a currency - a means to pay for luxuries and necessities. The rich can live forever, while the rest try to negotiate for their immortality.

A few weeks ago I watched a Creative Live interview by Chase Jarvis with well known writer Tim Ferriss - author of the 4 Hour Work Week and the 4 Hour Hour Body. Chase asked the right questions and Tim shared many useful and motivating thoughts. In this blog I want to quickly touch on one of them - the importance of wisely utilizing our time.

Time management is as interesting as it is important, however, Tim argues that to some degree it should be eliminated. Now, does that not go against everything we've been taught? Although this sounds harsh, his reasoning makes sense. Let me share. Time management tends to focus on organizing and sequencing our day list rather than prioritizing our "to do" list. Elimination is a key element of prioritization. The quicker we eliminate the most pressing items from our "to do" list, the better and more successful we feel. We all have deadlines. We all have pressing items that we might delay for various reasons. Tim's advice is to focus the first hour of our day on identifying and reaching a milestone on one or two of our most important "to dos". By keeping our reactive work like emails, texting, Facebook, Twitter etc for later in the day after we maximize our forward momentum.

Since hearing those words I have done my best to adopt this practice. Is it easy? Not really, especially when considering the addition of exercising on a daily basis. Pre-exercise, it was easy to spend 12-16 hours a day on magazine and personal work commitments. Emails pile up quickly. People are sometimes impatient. Until recently emails were the first thing I'd see in the morning and the last thing I'd see as I went to bed. No more. I am starting to take back control of my life... that's right "my" life. Taking the first hour of my day, uninterrupted, and accomplishing significant steps towards elimination creates a pattern of success and I am seeing that. As for emails, Facebook messages... they will have to wait until I'm ready to dig in. My time is my currency and it's a nice feeling to spend it wisely. How do you spend yours? Definitely something to think about.