Kim Witten, PhD wrote a great article on Medium entitled “Stop Trying to Manage Your Time”, in which she gave us lots of alternatives to try-out.
I particularly liked Dr Witten’s focus on managing energy rather than time, and her reminder that small actions can have a huge impact on our wellbeing (She gave the example of removing a tiny splinter from a finger bringing huge relief).
For me, personally, this focus works so well as I have many health problems and a lot of fatigue to go with it. Thus, as you can imagine, I experience a great deal of variation in my energy levels, and planning / scheduling / timetabling is pretty much a waste of time, as there are good days where I can get a reasonable amount done, and bad days where very little gets done apart from reading, if I’m lucky enough to manage that.
However, since thinking about this a bit differently, I now have a new approach to my days, whereby I now consider how much physical energy I have, and how much mental energy I have, and what these reserves can be spent on. I aim to target physical requirements first, as I know that I will run-out of those reserves very quickly. And I will choose exercise first, if I can, as that will benefit me the most, and I often have trouble with exercising, given mobility, circulation and breathing problems.
I now have days that are a bit of a mash-up between physical activities and mental activities, taking breaks during the bigger tasks to help me get through them, but also with the smaller ones on occasion (Given the temperature of 29⁰C in Bristol (UK) today, it took me twice as long as it usually does just to change my bedding).
I have ‘To-Do’ lists as I have always done, but these days, they are more about reminding me what I haven’t done yet instead of what I intend to do, and they help me to ensure that I am at least cleaning to some kind of hygiene standard, for example, even if it’s not going to win any awards for detail or perfection. I become more and more aware of my imperfections and limits, which I feel is probably a good thing.
I have been talking about the days where I am not employed, but employment days are about doing as I am told, following someone else’s agenda in a way, and at a speed, determined by others. I always come away from those days sucked dry of all energy, and the damage done bleeds into the rest of my week. Nonetheless, despite there being no prospect of managing either time or energy during employment days, I do find that focusing on energy rather than time is an approach that works well for me on all other days, or at least as best as I can manage.
I have been describing a particular approach that works best for me, but it may not suit many others. I particularly like it because it allows for embracing a slower approach to living life. Whilst these ideas have been implemented by me over the years (based on previous learning), it was good to have some validation for them by Dr Witten’s article, and her ideas are likely to find a wider audience; and the solutions that are developed as a result may be as many as there are people working on them.
Fraser
September 2023