JBB’s Final Thoughts Episode 20: Time Management One Week Later. Last week I laid out my thoughts on importance of triaging one’s tasks and putting the important stuff on one’s calendar. A Bit over a week later I wonder how the plan went…

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JBB’s Final Thoughts, episode 20: Time Management One Week Later

Joe Bustillos, here.

GTD (Getting Things Done) evangelist, Merlin Mann generally begins any discussion on the topic of time management as something that he isn’t as much an expert on as someone who turned to David Allen’s thinking on productivity because without it his brain was too quick and undisciplined to… well, get anything done. Alas, there are more than a few too willing to fetishize the productivity principles developed by Covey, Allen or Mann, such that so much money and time is spent in the pursuit of the perfect workflow hack, learning the perfect productivity application, or just attending seminar after seminar, that, in the end, nothing’s getting done. It’s almost the American way, to take a particular principle and make it a thing to the point of forgetting why the principle was developed in the first place. Ugh.

So last week I laid out a plan to dig my way out of this unstructured hole of sadness I’d built for myself following my layoff from Full Sail. Seemed like a great plan, just target the important long term goals, the daily “must get done” things and literally put the things that I want to do on a regular basis, that I claim are important to me, on my calendar. I even set up a white board behind my desk so that I can create a mind map of my thought process. So one week later… the white board is pristine in its emptiness and the calendar looks just like it has since 10/30/2014. Shit.

The one thing I did learn over the course of the week was that using the email inbox as ones daily todo list was not a way to get out from under the crush of “too much to do/too little time to do it.” So, I’m still doing too much email shuffle, random paperwork scanning, online job applications ad nauseam and too little daily writing, walking and researching. It’s funny that I seemed to get so much done when I was working a job that barely afforded me any free time, but I managed to squeeze in the occasional open-mic nights, a little blogging/podcasting here and there and some weekly movie/socializing time with friends.  I was busy and I loved the work, but there was a lot that I wasn’t getting done even then, as far as the long term goals and other things that I couldn’t fit into a single one evening/two-hour slots like more long-form writing (as in books or novels), and finishing my doctoral studies… I definitely need to deal with this current unstructured time challenge in a way that addresses the immediate need of employment and the long term needs of my life’s mission(s). Ack.

Thank you for spending this time with me at JBB’s Final Thoughts, please check out my website at joebustillos.com (spell out)… for more of my musings and thoughts. Catch you later, bye-bye