I stand in the middle of a war that is coming at me from all directions, the war of getting everything done. It is a war of work.
Some of which I accept, these may be urgent things, things I want to do, things that possibly occur and happen in the moment.
Some of which I might do, I know they should be done, I sometimes plan to do them.
Most of which I do nothing about, the normal state of operations.
I guess it doesn’t help if I take one piece of work and become obsessive about it. Often picking up on an idea and wanting to delve into its very fundamentals before letting it go.
I guess it doesn’t help having thousands of ideas during the day and the addiction to the endorphins that creating gives. Wishing at times just to be an ideas person, not doing anything but pulling new ideas from the ether.
I guess it doesn’t help living and existing on a ton of high ideals. Things that I really wish to pursue but never really having the time to investigate fully. Of course, there is a life to live…
There are bills to be paid, things that must be taken care of, responsibilities to others, yourself, your society and whatever systems your are burdened with.
It is a war! For years one I have been losing with the incessant battles of priorities and urgencies of things to do.
Many strong battles have been fought through the years, armed with Time Systems, Diaries, To Do Lists, filing and organising. It used to be fought on the terrain of paper, now it seems it is more and more in the theatre of electronic devices.
This war is becoming larger, it used to be just an academic thing, dealing so many things to learn, then it became a corporate thing, with so many projects and responsibilities, but now it’s personal…
But now I am winning…
Small successes at first, little skirmishes here and there, but they are important ones. Enough to give me confidence in fighting larger battles.
Studying much of the material in this area about Getting Things Done, Pomodoro and other popular ideas, old and new, I am putting together a battle plan. I will be writing a lot over this as the battle continues and getting right to the heart of what is going on. Some of it may not be very decisive at first, as I tread into new terrain. I have found the whole area fascinating, the war is on so many fronts, so much so that when delving deep into it at the beginning of the year I ended up immersed in it for months. Ironically of course, I was looking at ways originally to be more productive and the effect was to stop production totally.
I’m not sure how long the war will continue, or whether indeed it will ever end, but I will be continuing until I win. The cost of losing this war is in fact losing the most precious and important resource you will ever have in life – and this is TIME…