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Where does the time go?
25/1/12 12:40If you want to know what your priorities are, look at what you're doing.
I defined six areas for personal development during 2012*, and then, when Megaupload died, I noticed that so far in January I've spent precious little time on any of them.
So I set up a new Google Calendar and color-coded it for my six areas, and roughed in a time budget. If you squint at it, a week looks like this:
The big pale areas are "Non-goal basics," notably work and sleep. What's left is all the time I have for accomplishing my personal goals. That alone was an eye opener. Look at all that time I have to spend doing a job that gives me an income but nothing else.
What became immediately apparent was the power of doubling up. That narrow yellow band before and after work each day represents ten half-hours of what could have been the "non-goal basic" of commuting. But because I commute by bike, it counts as "health and fitness."
Maybe I can use the job as platform for more mental development! What a concept.
The calendar also made it very plain that I already spend plenty of time exercising. There really isn't room for more--not if I want to give similar weight to other goals. So that let me off the guilt hook about washboard abs and stuff.
Now if I could find an app that lets me track what I'm actually doing over the course of a few weeks, I'd have some data.
*If I write them down often enough, I'm sure I can start remembering them: Health and fitness improvements, creativity and craft, mental development, emotional/spiritual growth, new sources of income, and social improvement. There are specific goals under each of these headings.
I defined six areas for personal development during 2012*, and then, when Megaupload died, I noticed that so far in January I've spent precious little time on any of them.
So I set up a new Google Calendar and color-coded it for my six areas, and roughed in a time budget. If you squint at it, a week looks like this:
The big pale areas are "Non-goal basics," notably work and sleep. What's left is all the time I have for accomplishing my personal goals. That alone was an eye opener. Look at all that time I have to spend doing a job that gives me an income but nothing else.
What became immediately apparent was the power of doubling up. That narrow yellow band before and after work each day represents ten half-hours of what could have been the "non-goal basic" of commuting. But because I commute by bike, it counts as "health and fitness."
Maybe I can use the job as platform for more mental development! What a concept.
The calendar also made it very plain that I already spend plenty of time exercising. There really isn't room for more--not if I want to give similar weight to other goals. So that let me off the guilt hook about washboard abs and stuff.
Now if I could find an app that lets me track what I'm actually doing over the course of a few weeks, I'd have some data.
*If I write them down often enough, I'm sure I can start remembering them: Health and fitness improvements, creativity and craft, mental development, emotional/spiritual growth, new sources of income, and social improvement. There are specific goals under each of these headings.
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