77. Time Management Is A Misconception

Time is a constant and cannot be controlled or managed. The things we can manage are within the constraints of time. The clock will tick independently of what we do or what happens so what should we manage instead of time?

Factory vs Knowledge Worker

Before we get to what we can manage we first must understand what kind of worker we are. Note, that the term "worker" is not limited to your career or job. Factory workers care about the quantity of output produced like a factory. Most productivity advice leans towards factory workers. They use tools and techniques to optimize the output. They aim to get things done.

The knowledge worker cares about knowledge creation. They aim to remove blocks and restrictions to the growth of knowledge. Knowledge is information that has causal power. It grows through variation and selection (evolution) or conjecture and criticism (explanation). Knowledge creation cannot be optimized like a factory because it requires creativity. It is not a mechanical task. If it were this would imply there is some ultimate knowledge.

The rest of this post is for knowledge workers.

Instead of offering a recipe for others to follow I want to share ingredients for them to use creatively however they wish. My goal is to provide loose guidance on solving for fun and being rational about our daily lives.

An Approach For Knowledge Workers: Manage Fun

1. In a fun way, list activities that are good or bad for you.
2. Categorize this list into fun and not-so-fun.
3. The first challenge is to make the good and not-so-fun tasks fun. The goal is to learn to love what one does and do it in a way that one loves and connects with.
4. The next challenge is to criticize the bad and fun tasks to discourage doing them. It seems fun for some reason but you have determined it is not good for you. Creatively, you attempt to create knowledge that causes you to stop performing this activity.
5. If no progress is made in either challenge reevaluate your theory of what is good and bad for you.
6. If you struggle to begin then reevaluate your theory of how to approach this with fun.

For more about fun check out the fun criterion here:

We tend to work against a backdrop of this hour, this day, this week. Whereas it is all of life that counts.
- Robert R. Updegraff, All The Time You Need