Rethinking Time Management

Posted by Mike Smith :: December 1, 2007 @ 5:51 am

We’ve all heard that time is money, and anyone who’s applied my post on what your time is worth can attest to that fact. Knowing how valuable your time is may inspire you to work on your time management skills.

Some of the most innovative time management ideas I’ve heard of late come from Timothy Ferriss’ book The 4-Hour Workweek. You’ve probably noticed that a few of the Lending Club blog contributors, myself included, have mentioned this book in recent posts. On the subject of time management, the book tries to move the mindset from trying to do more with your time to trying to do less. That idea sounds counterintuitive, particularly in our society where productivity is often confused with staying busy.

The point is that there are usually a small number of critical tasks that, if completed, would make it a successful and productive work day. While this discussion deals with tasks at work, the method also works in other situations, such as household tasks. The problem arises from the fact that the critical tasks are typically associated with some level of discomfort and so we do our best to avoid them. We introduce other, less important, tasks into our lives to stay busy and avoid the tasks we really need to get done. By removing those non-essential tasks and focusing on getting the critical, yet uncomfortable, tasks done, we can accomplish a successful day's worth of tasks in a short amount of time.

This concept ties into the subject of procrastination. It always seemed like my semester-long projects in school were accomplished in the last few days before they were due. If I had worked on the project up front with the same amount of focus and desperation, despite the discomfort (i.e., lack of sleep, etc.), that I put into it at the end anyway, I could have completed the semester-long project in the first week of the class. If that was the major contributor to my grade, as was often the case, I would have freed up a significant amount of time, since I might not have had to go to class anymore or put in the same level of effort for the rest of the semester that I might have otherwise.

What distractions are you using in your life and what are your critical tasks? Perhaps you've been avoiding doing something about your debt because you're afraid to take an honest look at your finances or because you assume that doing something about it will be difficult. It may be time to push aside the distractions and take decisive action such as consolidating your debt through a P2P loan from Lending Club. Doing so might do more than just help your finances; it may free up time that you would otherwise fill with distractions to avoid taking action.