In a busy life it looks like the lack of time is a problem. We think “If only I had few more hours today than for sure I would finish everything I have in my list”. The harsh truth is that this wouldn’t change anything. We would end up with a longer list and same thought.
The problem is not time
Everyone has same amount of hours in a day and days in a year. Yet, some people feel fulfilled and happy, while others feel overwhelmed and frustrated.
So it has to be not about the amount of time. The problem should be because of something else.
The problem is a lack of focus
Nowadays there is always something just one click away that can easily eat our time. Technology and the access to information and entertainment which it gives us is both a bless and a curse.
I’m not even talking about the simple example of intention to read one post or watch one video and an hour later finding yourself continuing scrolling feed or navigating from one link to another. That’t very obvious time killing example. I guess everyone know about this problem. Many use software blocking access to certain sites, limits in social apps, or try to use will power to combat this issue.
I’m taking about our general inability to stay focused.
I’m taking about external and internal disruptions which we have during the day: a notification in an app, someone coming in for a quick chat or with a quick question, noisy environment in general, a thought which keeps randomly popping up multiple times a day, half-finished task sticking to the back of your mind, etc.
Because of this we cannot stay focus and uninterrupted during the day for long enough to complete a task requiring thoughtful state in one sitting. This means that task takes an extra effort and time at least because of one of two things: context switching between tasks and/or not being able to concentrate and think. In most cases it’s actually both. And then everything blows up exponentially. A task which would take 45 minutes in highly focused state, ends up as a 3 hours task in reactive state.
The solution is having “less”
I won’t argue that there are plenty of techniques and lifehacks to minimize the effects of disruptions and to be focused. The only problem is they require a lot of experimentation and willpower before you can find a set that works for you. Plus they mostly work only for external interruptions.
My intuition says that fundamental problem is that we’re stretching ourselves too thin, we try to handle too much.
So the major solution is to have “less”. Less sources bombarding us with content, less tasks for a day, less projects and less goals for a year.
We need to give our brain enough time to process the information. Do you remember old days of slow internet speed? You could watch video only after it gets downloaded (or cached). It was creating a delay between videos to watch. Your brain had an opportunity to process information before receiving another portion. Nowadays technology allows us to bombard brain with too much content. Although deep inside we know that majority of this content is useless, brain still needs time to digest it. And brain does this in background while we try to make it think about important task. It’s not ready yet to concentrate on the task and we feel frustrated.
Having less tasks, projects, and goals will allow you to have a margin. Sometimes you’ll use it to cover a task taking longer than expected, sometimes to let your brain finish information processing, sometimes to just let your mind to wonder or rest.
If you find yourself in a position of constantly lacking time, I encourage you to reassess your view on the problem. In your pursuit for the solution it could be that you were asking yourself wrong question.