My time seems to speed by faster and faster. I go to bed with more to do tomorrow, a feeling unrelated to how much I've done and related entirely to how much I want to do. This is a new phenomenon for me, one I've only noticed in the past year and one becoming steadily more pronounced.
Though I have some guesses, I don't really know what the cause is and don't plan to spend much time searching. There are more productive things to do than assign blame to an inanimate and nonnegotiable force.
I've been spending a bit of time thinking about the character of this force. My goal is to break the problem down into its parts in an effort to understand and improve.
First things first - What is the problem?
This problem is this: I don't have enough time to do the things I want to do.
Here's a simple equation:
Breaking it down, there are three pieces to the problem:
- Time available
- Time needed to do a Thing
- Want to do a Thing
So where does the problem flex? In which areas can I do things differently and improve? Well, there are three part of the problem and, coincidentally, three ways:
- Increase the amount of time available.
- Decrease the time it takes to do a thing
- Want to do, or do, fewer things
Let's take the low-hanging fruit out first: The amount of time I have available is pretty fixed, and working in that direction would probably leave me brittle and sleep deprived. While it is possible to increase the amount of time available, the cost of doing so would be high and the ceiling for improvement low. It seems best not to mess with this piece and instead focus on grabbing the greater gains elsewhere.
Looking at the second point, it too looks rigid. Doing things takes time, and though it is true things can be done quicker, the line between 'going faster' and 'rushing' is thin and, for me, well-tread. I already spend a fair bit of energy optimizing and, while I can always improve, the gains to be made by going quicker are not the big fish I'm looking for.
I think the problem really stems from that third piece, the desire to do things: if I didn't want to do more than I had time to do, there would plenty of time to do what I wanted to do.
Time to refine want's definition and, hopefully, tease out those details hiding under its linguistic rug.
I'm going to split the list of 'Things I want to do' into two different types of want:
- those I want to spend time doing
- those I want to have done.
I would count playing piano in the first category and doing laundry in the second. I actually enjoy working out the details of a piece, watching as my fingers increasingly "got this"; on the other hand, I don't really savor the wait for the washing machine - I just want clean clothes.
I'm going to pause here to highlight an unsubtle but (I think) significant point: the time it takes to do a thing is entirely independent of the character of the desire to do it.
With this definition of want I can split things into three categories:
- Things I enjoy the time doing but not having done
- Things I enjoy having done but not the time doing
- Things I enjoy both the time doing and having done
There are things worth their weight in time in each category, but there are also things in each not worth their cost.
The way around the problem is to examine my wants and let go those I don't get quite enough out of, focusing on those that make the cut.
It's time to look at what makes doing a thing valuable.
I propose a simple (and loose) equation:
Whelp. I never put pen to paper before, but that looks just about exactly like the method I've been using to decide the things I do. But this is utterly unsurpising, because this equation doesn't address the inspiration for the problem: the limited nature of time.
Fiddling with the above equation, I come up with this:
When time is no object, and therefore has no value, the best way to choose a thing to do is to maximize the value in the process and completion of a thing. This approach worked for a good while, but has started to fail me now.
And it fails because time has value. I'm not sure time is money, but it's hard to make money, or get value, without time. In this view, it's good to maximize value, but also, and equally, good to minimize time.
So now I have two ways to say how valuable a thing is: absolutely, and in the context of time. It's time to compare the way these two rubrics give different results.
Outside time, things are worth doing unless there is something else I could be doing that would bring me more value. Their payoff is upfront and without strings.
In time, the situation is more nuanced. Let's go back to the three categories I proposed for things I want to do.
Things I enjoy the time doing but not having done:
- For things in this category I can ignore the value in completion, simplifying the equation. A thing in this category is worth doing only if the value in doing is greater than the value of the time doing. A number of things get crossed off the 'want' list when examined in this perspective (unlimited browsing of the infinite internet, for example).
Things I enjoy having done but not the time doing:
- Things in this category are worth doing only if the value in completion is greater than the cost in time and in doing. For me, there are a lot of activities in this category I need to re-examine. For many of these, the payoff in completion is dramatically high, and the time to completion equally long. If I don't value the time spent doing a thing, it is probably a thing best avoided: more than likely, the cumulative cost of time overshadows the value of completion. There is also a lurking danger behind things in this category: if I stop before I completion, I have gained nothing and lost valuable time.
Things I both enjoy doing and having done:
- Considered both in time and out of time, things in this category are generally worth doing. Their downside, the time spent, is double-edged, an upside too. My time-refined measure for value only increases the amount I want to do things in this category.
The trick is to recognize when a desire is naive: when the reasons to do a thing don't hold up in the context of the whole. I might think it would be fun to do nothing at all for a day (full disclosure: that sounds terrible to me), but it's a naive desire: the value of the time spent would be much higher than any value gained. I might think I'd really love to be able to expertly navigate by the stars, but again, it's a naive desire: I really wouldn't like spending the time getting proficient, and I really wouldn't want to take the time away from something else.
It's best to focus on those things I value the doing and the having done.