Time Management

The concept of time management is quite strange to me. Why is it so meaningfully different how two people may have the same amount of time at their disposal, and yet achieve a great variability of output? Does anyone else on this planet really pack in as much as Elon Musk, or David Goggin’s, or Ginny Rometty? Probably no. Can we? Yes! Do you want to? I think that is the real question that gets much less value than it should in this space.

How level is the playing field on a practical perspective? Well, in relation to time, I think that we can all agree that it's pretty much a human constant... Not a significant amount of variability there. I add the three dots because as I write, the voice of Neil DeGrasse Tyson creeps in to explain how technically people closer to the poles are experiencing time faster, or something like that.

Need we bother with parsing social issues on the impact of how we utilize our time? I think it sufficient to say that the impact on time here is very much culturally driven. In cities, we value time. We clamour over each other in order to make the most of what we've got. We want to cram as much potential into every waking moment and feel guilty ridden when we don't. There are endless possibilities of things to do with our time, and so very little time to do it all. On top of that, our use of time is very much capital driven. No matter which may you look at it, doing things with your time ordinarily costs something. We may not be earning whilst we soak up some free sunshine, or indulging in an expensive pastry, or taking a holiday. Whilst incrementally more expensive than the former, each is still costing us something. We seem to perceive this cost in very interesting ways however. We value sitting still so little, and spending, so much. We value possession immensely, and yet feel poor when we surround ourselves with things. Why? What is the possible reason for this crazy subjectivity?

Evolutionarily speaking, status is a big potential factor. As I've learned from David Bus, our perceived status helps us to feel accomplished and avoid despair. It helps our potential to find mates, reproduce, and share this earned wealth in a dignifying way reverent to our amassed fortune. Jordan Peterson discussed this in his now infamous observations of lobsters. Somehow, neurologically speaking, more dominant and superior lobsters even possess more serotonin. The benefits abound status, so it makes sense that our time may be feeling best spent increasing this.

The self-care phenomenon strikes deep into the heart of this. It's almost like a complete dichotomy. A contribution that I've seen, cause a great deal of cognitive dissonance in people. Why on earth are social workers and many other professionals taught that switching off is key to longevity, and that time boundaries are a personal obligation in order to preserve one's sense of self? I've dived into the research on this, and inductively sought to understand this issue from my team members over the years. Best I can work out, mental boundaries or walls, are akin to creating the neurosis that Jung describes. If we wall-up without thinking, reflecting, allowing and respecting intrusive thoughts, then we can do real damage. The very trauma we've faced, the burdens we're beating may begin to take root in our psyche. What begins as a crack, can break every one of us if we're not careful. I think it's this very thing which makes us stop dead in our tracks sometimes. It makes us create boundaries, so that we may seek to prevent this happening, and in doing so, we begin on that path to self-fulfilling prophecy. Our fear may be the very thing that's hurting us. Once designed biologically to protect us, we may prolong our negative experience by not mentally delving into its impacts, using critical thought when our adrenal gland subsides, and our forebrain has the mental acuity to switch on. I find all too commonplace, that instead of reflecting, we mask our thoughts with a hit of dopamine like a night on the couch bingeing Netflix and eating take away. Satisfying yes, but far too much dopamine to helpfully maintain our inner drive effectively.

I cite Andrew Huberman often because of his ability to make things simple, and so I will again. He is highly regarded and qualified after all:

"When facing something hard that you don't want to do, force yourself to do a small task that's even harder. Why? We seem to view insurmountable challenges in a negative light, but quite enjoy moderate ones. Achieve a super hard goal, and all of a sudden the initial challenge looks almost satisfying."

All of this is really important to understand when it comes to unpacking why you might be struggling to manage your time. The more you understand the why, the more you may embark on your work with vigour. This brings me to the most successful thing I think anyone can do when they're behind, perhaps buried in administration, or overwhelmed with their workload; why?! Understanding what the purpose is of the thing you're meant to do is really key. Engage with the work on an intellectual and creative purpose and you'll find much more enjoyment in everything. Here's my tips:

1. Ask for clarity on what the document or process is trying to achieve
2. Explore what creative leeway you might be able to stretch
3. Find meaning that fits your interests and embed that within what you're doing.

Once you've got that nailed, then you can dive into much more specific things that can help. Spend a few hours working out where you spend your time at work. If you want, you can broaden this to your life. Focus on retrospectively looking at the last week, then month, and work out proportionally your top 10 tasks that you spent time on, and record how long. Now work out how much time is left. The simple and most effective thing you can do, is to work out how much time you think you need to keep unplanned. In my experience, people plan to cram so many things into a day, and hate most of them, then even worse, don't achieve what they set out to because the phone rang, or a crisis came up. This sets you back, crashes your serotonin, and increases your dread for the following day. You're far better off knowing you can only commit to 5 hours of stuff in a work day, leaving 3 or more for unplanned stuff, and then if and when you finish the 5 hours, start ticking off additional things because you can, not because you must. This is a recipe for success. My other tip here for those who work with large tasks like report writing, or assessments, is to chunk those into smaller time planned components. Part a is 15 minutes, b, an hour and a half, and so on.

We all have different amounts of time we can focus on things for, and there's a plethora of research saying you should break every 45 mins for 10 mins, or every 2 hours for 30 mins, etc. My review of the literature on this makes me feel like productivity is more nuanced. Factor for the 'why', and account for your own time, and I think you're far better off. Here's another factor worthy of consideration in metric for your time; that's your ability to get faster. If you work out that 'x' takes 15 minutes, and spend time doing this well, then I guarantee that 'x' may take you 10 or less on no time at all. This is because we become proficient with repetition. Our proficiency increases with our cognisance of the variables in the task at hand. When we have done something that's bound to be repeated, take a moment to detach, step back and analyse it's components and how you executed them. Doing so will yield a more straightforward path next time. This is the power of a well-executed debrief. My tips for a good debrief are:

1. Validate emotion and use specifics. I.e., When you did 'x' I noticed I felt 'y' and as a result, 'z' happened.
2. What are the facts? Once people feel safe and validated, you can challenge more to get to the bottom of things.
3. Wrap up and create SMART actions. Another powerful validation tool, wrapping up is often under-utilised. Go over the main points and list between 3-5 actions tops to move forward. They must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, and Time Limited.

So, why have I discussed debriefing here in 'time management'? It's true that it may have been more logically expected to cover something like 'feedback', however my overall observation is that whilst feedback is helpful, it comes second place. I've found that good quality balanced feedback helps people grow, yes, but there are time where feedback potentials on tasks arise that really are too many just to give succinctly. Maybe you've been the receiver of written comments on a document that felt overwhelming, or maybe you've had a meeting with a client go horribly wrong. These are the times that debriefing is best. By doing this proximally to the event, we can harness our memories and pave the way forward, hopefully holding people's emotions at the same time. This is especially powerful with written feedback.

As well as giving many thorough and balanced 'good' and 'constructive' comments on something written, use empathy to work out how it may be received. If it could be a bit much, go and debrief with the receiver, and I promise things will be better. Better for them, as they feel held, and better for you, because you have someone who more wholly understands.

Lastly, try and get interested in getting better. You may feel caught up in wishing things were better, processes silly, or tasks laborious. If that's the case, take ownership. You're far better to do so, and use this inner reflection of your feelings to redirect your attention to interest. Interest is peculiar, and by way of personality, also unsurprisingly skewed by gender. You'll know this if you observe people you know. Largely women are interested in people, and men interested in things. I do wonder the felt difference if having more women in leadership positions, if that would drive the sort of change to make workplaces generally more enjoyable. At the same time however, perhaps it is this very change that has found a renewed energy in the maternalisation of leaders, driving forward contemporary, people focused leadership. I think we're all behaviourally learning from this behavioural quality, and leaders who adopt this, are finding their teams flourishing and taking on more than ever. With this in mind, I have two sorts of advice that lean either way:

• If you're interested in people, take stock of your systems. Drive your interest to learn systems and some more moderate IT skills that may help your efficiency.
• If you're interested in things, remember your people. Leave your systems, and grow your skills in humanism. Ask yourself what things may be like for others, and check your understanding by asking others why.

We all have our intricacies, but learn your deficits and learn to overcome the stranglehold they may have on you.

Back to my original question. Would you want to be hyper-successful? I'm fairly certain that when most of us fantasize about a distant reality of immense wealth, fame, and overall goof-fortune, we seldom also visualize having: to work 60 hour work weeks, always be on the phone, called away when on holidays, not having holidays at all, never dating, never partying, not having kids or if you do, not parenting, having a completely independent spouse who may or may not stick by you. Sounds fun right? No. As far as I can tell, if you want to be in the 1% of people as far as wealth goes, then you need to work harder than 99% of anyone on earth... All the time. No exceptions. Failing that, start finding joy in what you can. If you don't think that life is for you, then fantasize sure, but don't despair when it doesn't magically fall onto your lap. Same goes for all things. Despairing at work? Find something small you find joy in, and seek to grow that thing.

My wrap up:

1. Find and stretch your understanding of 'why'
2. Plan for unplanned things
3. Use debriefing to get faster.
4. Frame your situation positively everywhere you can.

This week's literature review

The study I unpacked most recently was longitudinal by nature and had a reasonable sized population considering it was over a long period of time (attrition in this space kills most longitudinal studies due to disinterest, etc.). It seemed to show that paternal kinship families massively made up for the lack of paternal contact which seems to exist in the foster care population. Mother's contact on the other hand, seemed to be more stable across the lifespan regardless of paternal kin, maternal kin, or non-related carers having care of their child. A curious observation, especially given that fatherlessness has been shown across all populations to increase the likelihood of antisocial behaviour in adolescents. Given this, it stands to reason that practitioners may potentially give even more weight to finding and pursuing paternal figures, e.g. Aunts, grandparents, even close friends that could be considered kin.

Next comes another gendered study I found curious to interweave here. That's around something I want to call patralocation and matralocation; moving to be closer to the man's family, or the women's respectively. The world over, it's way more common for men to be moving around, usually for work, but also to be overall less connected to their extended families than women. What's also reported is that maternal extended families will be far more driven interaction with children, either nieces, nephews, or grandchildren, up to several times a week. Putting this together, patralocation is more rare, and matralocation possibly more beneficial for children. Especially as they seem to do better in education and subsequent earning potential. The added plus side here is that women are generally higher rated in terms of human capital I discussed last time, because their work is more people driven as opposed to men who are largely commodity and fiscal capital driven. This means that women, especially degree qualified women, can have more access to work regardless of where they live, which makes them more susceptible to doing the moving... But as I've discussed, with the benefits of matralocation, at what cost?

For kids in care, you may see how increased moving, fatherlessness, and added trauma and turmoil, may make for the balance to be tipped far out of favour of this group. Something we may take stock and think of when supporting decisions regarding moving and visitation with family.

Newcastle University. (2007, December 19). Family Ties That Bind: Maternal Grandparents Are More Involved In The Lives Of Their Grandchildren. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 20, 2023 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071218122412.htm

Hannu Lehti and others, Tying the Extended Family Knot—Grandparents’ Influence on Educational Achievement, European Sociological Review, Volume 35, Issue 1, February 2019, Pages 29–48, https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcy044

Brandén, M., Haandrikman, K. Who Moves to Whom? Gender Differences in the Distance Moved to a Shared Residence. Eur J Population 35, 435–458 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-018-9490-4