Ta eis heauton I do not always use my time wisely. I am mildly embarrassed about this. Here are the things I do that feel unwise … I go on Twitter too much. I check email and messengers when I do not need to. I mentally ruminate when I can delegate that rumination to these journaling sessions.
It's always a dance between form and formlessness, isn't it? Leaning into timelessness, dancing within the void. And then stepping back into structure, feeling into the boundaries. Both are nourishing and constructive in their own way.
I have also recently begun practicing screen fasting. A day off in the week with no screen time and restricting websites/social media platforms. It's interesting to notice the discomfort it brings initially! How much of a hold our phone has upon our attention.
I'm also making an effort to begin my days more intentionally - reading in the sun, taking a walk around my neighborhood, or sitting in meditation. I am finding that it helps me "steward" the rest of my time with greater awareness.
I find Jim Loehr's formulation especially helpful here:
Energy Cultivation > Time Management ....
where Energy Cultivation is a process of four things:
1) Rest
2) Nutrition
3) Movement
4) Purpose
(If I manage my time to do something I don't have the energy for, I lose on both counts. Further, this dynamic of energy and time suggests that time is not as absolute or as linear as it appears to us. Time is stretchy, contingent to the quality of attention that we bring to it. Attending to the quality of our attention towards our time takes energy. Hence why I foolishly scroll Instagram precisely when I need to rest, eat, or move. )
I like this, moving the focus from time to energy, or being timely with your energy.
In "Restore Yourself: The Antidote for Professional Exhaustion," Edy Greenblatt talks about our "personal energy profile" (PEP), and how we need to identify what depletes and restores our energy (Loehr's four "energy cultivation"), and how to design a day that has a net restorative effect. Similar to Bloom's timeboxing. I definitely think a course can be design for all of this, in a way that meets the needs of people who are not beholden to a 9-to-5, and want to be wise with their time/energy.
I like the sense of remembrance I get when I take a pause to look into my own cupped palms. It is one practice that can reunite me with the truth of my limited time here on earth, the potential of my ability to use these specific hands I have been given, and a certain tenderness and presence that roots me into what might be actually worth doing. I’d like to remember to do it more often.
The common literature and advice on time management is deprived of spirit, ritual, perspectival-participatory knowing, and love. It is almost entirely procedural. I think you and this blog could actually be well suited to correcting this, Peter—people struggling with this *google* how to resolve their relationship to time, and the search results are uninspired, patronizing, uncaring, or uninformed to genuine pedagogy.
Agreed! I am so disappointed by the junk out there. It is actually harmful, and ultimately discouraging. Definitely an opportunity space here for something new.
Thanks Peter. Like most of your writings, this post hit home and was / is relevant to my life and situation.
How not to steward time wisely:
I remember in my early twenties feeling this urgency crack the code on time management. Looking back, I think the sense of urgency came in part from a deep seated insecurity and fear of "falling behind"; both likely grew out of undigested trauma from childhood and growing up in the factory-like and homogenizing public school system. I felt panic. Like if I didn't master time management, I was going to be "stuck" forever. I carried a stopwatch around me for a couple days, timing every activity, including conversations. I purchased Franklin-Covey time management software. One evening, I "began with the end in mind" and wrote my own eulogy. I made ridiculously ambitious goals. I envisioned myself in five years. Inspired by this vision, I then planned out the next year, the next quarter, and every 15min. of my life for the next month. The next morning, I followed my meticulously curated schedule until breakfast.
Over the few months, I've had streaks of small successes (operating in time/ managing time / stewarding time) using::
-GTD
-The HeadQuarters app from the UltraWorking team
-Talking to myself in the mirror as a tool for Self-parenting / Self-leadership
A couple keys seem to be:
-Integrating those childhood wound patterns so that I'm more in charge rather than being driven by charged emotion.
-Some combination of intuition and logic.
-Pauses throughout the day / check-ins
Also, now that UltraWorking is no longer; are you (or anyone else here) aware of similar companies/projects/apps out there similar in nature that you'd recommend? UltraWorking's HeadQuarters app, which I found it a helpful tool, no longer functions on my computer. I recognize I could functionally create a similar system using Excel (like you did for the Stoa Hustles), ask myself similar series of questions that the app posed, and set my own timer; but I liked the app interface and the company's ethos, so figured I'd ask in case there was something similar out there.
It's always a dance between form and formlessness, isn't it? Leaning into timelessness, dancing within the void. And then stepping back into structure, feeling into the boundaries. Both are nourishing and constructive in their own way.
I have also recently begun practicing screen fasting. A day off in the week with no screen time and restricting websites/social media platforms. It's interesting to notice the discomfort it brings initially! How much of a hold our phone has upon our attention.
I'm also making an effort to begin my days more intentionally - reading in the sun, taking a walk around my neighborhood, or sitting in meditation. I am finding that it helps me "steward" the rest of my time with greater awareness.
Perhaps "steward the morning, steward the day" is the less foolish way to say "own the morning, own the day."
I find Jim Loehr's formulation especially helpful here:
Energy Cultivation > Time Management ....
where Energy Cultivation is a process of four things:
1) Rest
2) Nutrition
3) Movement
4) Purpose
(If I manage my time to do something I don't have the energy for, I lose on both counts. Further, this dynamic of energy and time suggests that time is not as absolute or as linear as it appears to us. Time is stretchy, contingent to the quality of attention that we bring to it. Attending to the quality of our attention towards our time takes energy. Hence why I foolishly scroll Instagram precisely when I need to rest, eat, or move. )
I like this, moving the focus from time to energy, or being timely with your energy.
In "Restore Yourself: The Antidote for Professional Exhaustion," Edy Greenblatt talks about our "personal energy profile" (PEP), and how we need to identify what depletes and restores our energy (Loehr's four "energy cultivation"), and how to design a day that has a net restorative effect. Similar to Bloom's timeboxing. I definitely think a course can be design for all of this, in a way that meets the needs of people who are not beholden to a 9-to-5, and want to be wise with their time/energy.
Intermittent screen fasting. The screen window. 👏
I like the sense of remembrance I get when I take a pause to look into my own cupped palms. It is one practice that can reunite me with the truth of my limited time here on earth, the potential of my ability to use these specific hands I have been given, and a certain tenderness and presence that roots me into what might be actually worth doing. I’d like to remember to do it more often.
Beautiful. A "hand made life" feels closer to our roots, the earth, and our proper place in it.
The common literature and advice on time management is deprived of spirit, ritual, perspectival-participatory knowing, and love. It is almost entirely procedural. I think you and this blog could actually be well suited to correcting this, Peter—people struggling with this *google* how to resolve their relationship to time, and the search results are uninspired, patronizing, uncaring, or uninformed to genuine pedagogy.
Agreed! I am so disappointed by the junk out there. It is actually harmful, and ultimately discouraging. Definitely an opportunity space here for something new.
Is this the first time that Peter has enabled comments?
Thanks Peter. Like most of your writings, this post hit home and was / is relevant to my life and situation.
How not to steward time wisely:
I remember in my early twenties feeling this urgency crack the code on time management. Looking back, I think the sense of urgency came in part from a deep seated insecurity and fear of "falling behind"; both likely grew out of undigested trauma from childhood and growing up in the factory-like and homogenizing public school system. I felt panic. Like if I didn't master time management, I was going to be "stuck" forever. I carried a stopwatch around me for a couple days, timing every activity, including conversations. I purchased Franklin-Covey time management software. One evening, I "began with the end in mind" and wrote my own eulogy. I made ridiculously ambitious goals. I envisioned myself in five years. Inspired by this vision, I then planned out the next year, the next quarter, and every 15min. of my life for the next month. The next morning, I followed my meticulously curated schedule until breakfast.
Over the few months, I've had streaks of small successes (operating in time/ managing time / stewarding time) using::
-GTD
-The HeadQuarters app from the UltraWorking team
-Talking to myself in the mirror as a tool for Self-parenting / Self-leadership
A couple keys seem to be:
-Integrating those childhood wound patterns so that I'm more in charge rather than being driven by charged emotion.
-Some combination of intuition and logic.
-Pauses throughout the day / check-ins
Also, now that UltraWorking is no longer; are you (or anyone else here) aware of similar companies/projects/apps out there similar in nature that you'd recommend? UltraWorking's HeadQuarters app, which I found it a helpful tool, no longer functions on my computer. I recognize I could functionally create a similar system using Excel (like you did for the Stoa Hustles), ask myself similar series of questions that the app posed, and set my own timer; but I liked the app interface and the company's ethos, so figured I'd ask in case there was something similar out there.