Time-Management

I always get a little chuckle out of people who have time management problems, mostly because I don't think that is really their issue.   A very small percentage of people actually have a time management problem.  A time-management problem is usually just a symptom of something else.

When I was a child, I took organ lessons twice a week and in order to be successful, my parents and I were both told that I had to practice atleast one hour every day.   I had a time management problem finding this one hour every day.  My mom didn't think it was time-management.  She thought I was just lazy and not grateful for the opportunity I had.  She was wrong about me being lazy, the truth was that I simply didn't want to do it.  My parents and I had different goals when it came to the organ.  They wanted me to be a professional organist.  I just wanted to know enough to walk into a bar anywhere in the world and be able to play enough to warrant someone buying me a beer.  I also wanted to truthfully say that "I have pumped a few organs back in the day" at social gatherings.  My parents and I had different priorities.  They wanted a return on their investment.  I wanted to watch The Bionic Woman.  

In my current job, I have one task that I have to do once a quarter.  Four times a year, I have to do this task that I can't stand doing.  There is no particular reason.  It is not particularly difficult, it is just that I have talked myself into thinking it is the worst thing about my job.  I complain about it bitterly to myself.  I have to complain to myself because everyone else is sick of hearing me complain.  I always tell myself that I am going to do it and I often book off a whole afternoon to do this task.  Somehow that afternoon gets overbooked and I always end up doing this task at the last possible minute.  I'm always a little ticked that it only takes 20 minutes to do when I have spent hours complaining about it.  So, for this task, it is not a time-management problem, it is a motivation problem.  

My partner has two chores to do on the weekend; vacuuming and dusting.  It is amazing how busy his weekends are.  He always has so many errands to do; he has so many family obligations that magically appear at the last minute; he often has to rush into work for something or another; he forgets that he made arrangements to see friends; he finds things for us to do together; he brings me surprise gifts; he thinks we should go for a long walk together to talk about our future: all of this work for one purpose.  To get out of vacuuming and dusting.   Poor man.  He can't relax at all on the weekends because he is so busy getting out of 20 minutes of work.   So, he doesn't have a time-management problem, he has a procrastination problem.  

For his problem and my current problem, we are both acting like donkeys.  So, we should be treated like donkeys.  We need a carrot hanging in front of our noses to get us to move.  Obviously, the carrot of  "doing a job well done" is not the carrot that either one of us need in these scenarios.  But, if I made a deal with myself on a Friday at around 1 pm, that after I completed this task, I could start my weekend early, I bet I would have this task done in 15 minutes.  For my partner, he might respond to a different carrot.  If I could negotiate with him that if he completed his tasks by noon, then, he would get to watch 5 uninterrupted hours of sports, I bet all the rest of his avoidance tasks would magically disappear.  

I have a friend who is a stay-at-home mom of three children and two of them are toddlers.  She thinks she has a time-management problem because her home is never clean enough for visitors and she doesn't have time to get her hair and make-up done.  I look at her life.   She has three beautiful children who are full of love for the world.  Their house is full of toys everywhere and a lot of laughter.  I don't really notice that her hair is not professionally styled because all I see if a loving mother.   So, the friend doesn't have a time-management problem, she has her priorities straight.

People who exercise common-sense rarely have time-management problems.