This postTime management is hard. And I’m now starting to accept that I’m not really all that good at it. My inbox is perpetually chock-full (more than usual, too — 252 emails at the moment, all needing to be replied to), and while I do get a decent amount of stuff done, there’s always so much more. I’m a month behind on replying to blog comments.
About the only thing I have been able to keep up with lately is this blog (after a not-so-hot period) and Twitter. Twitter’s lovely because it’s only 140 characters and takes all of 5–30 seconds. (Granted, most of the emails I have to reply to would only take 5–30 seconds to reply to as well, if I just learned how to be more concise. And Twitter’s helping me do that. Seriously, Twitter’s making me a much better writer.)
Anyway, I’m going to blog soon about an epiphany I had regarding simplicity and getting stuff off my plate. And how it’s been devilishly hard to implement.
This whole productivity/time management thing, by the way, is a topic I keep coming back to because it’s a dragon I do battle with regularly. Still haven’t figured out where it’s weakness is so I can slay it once and for all. At the core, it’s a question of how to figure out (a) what’s important and (b) how to make time for what’s important, but also (c) how to deal with everything else.
Generally I let things get to a crisis point and then deal with emergencies as they arise. Or when I’m feeling completely stressed out, I read a book or watch a movie and let things slide (like emails). I do feel vaguely guilty about it, like I ought to be replying to emails instead of indulging in entertainment, but at the same time I have to recharge my batteries. And the inbox gets fuller.
Mostly ramblings today, I’m afraid. I’ll try to have a more coherent post when I write up that epiphany…whenever I find the time to do it.
