Make Time Your Ally (not a thing to manage)

The Incrementalist

Industrialization created a clock time mentality. Time is now standardized, visible in the ticking minutes, and outside our existence. Time is a resource to make money, and a thing to be traded, maximized and optimized. So, you end up with busyness, overwhelm, and pressure. And you feel guilty when there’s margin.

This is where time management falls short. It doesn’t really answer the existential question of what really matters.

In episode 33 of The Incrementalist, you will learn:

1) How idleness aversion and the desire to be productive can interfere with the present moment and the practice of being

2) You do not really control or manage time. The more you try to do this, the more time controls or manages you. Time just is.

3) The best you can do is make time your ally. When time is on your side, you can fully attend to, actively engage in and fully experience the task at hand. Befriend time so it becomes your ally.

4) Why it helps to embrace your human limitations and close off other options and possible alternatives

5) Principle 1 of the Incrementalist approach is to choose your top priorities and watch out for middling priorities

6) Principle 2 of the Incrementalist approach is to break down projects into manageable tasks or chunks

7) You become calmer, less stressed and more satisfied when you work within your limits and ground your expectations and goals in reality

8) How the efficiency trap or busyness trap makes you work harder and drive yourself harder, but never gives you enough time

Read the transcript.

Resources cited:

• Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
• Dyan Williams, The Incrementalist: A Simple Productivity System to Create Big Results in Small Steps
• Dyan Williams, Befriending Time: Breaking Free from Busyness or Stuckness, February 2011

Music by:

• Sebastian Brian Mehr: Album – Olemus; Song – La Nieve (hearnow.com)

Dyan Williams
Check out the book: The Incrementalist, A Simple Productivity System to Create Big Results in Small Steps
Visit website: www.dyanwilliams.com
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