an illusion of urgency

[keryx]

There's a bit in this chapter of Save the World & Still be Home for Dinner [Click on the pdf download link to read the full chapter - the teaser's not what I want to talk about.] that should be required reading for everyone I've ever worked with.

The answer to our stress is supposed to be something called work-life balance. This is achieved, we are told, through time management. But it’s an illusion. We try to balance work, family, and play on a preset schedule. The problem is, nothing important ever happens on schedule. Great opportunities and painful crises usually show up inconveniently.

Indeed. And particularly fun to see this coming from a dude who used to train for Covey (the "7 Habits of Disempowered Highly Effective People" dude), whose life's work was all about managing time and tasks more "efficiently". If you can't tell from the snark, I dislike the proscriptive diet Whole New Way of Living approach. I prefer to think of value and values, which are unique to each person - and that's what Marre is now doing. Obviously he's right, now that he agrees with me!

I know a fair number of people for whom every task seems equally important as the next, and are caught up in an intense feeling of busy-ness that leaves them with a looming sense of something undone all the time. This, I think, is that "illusion of urgency". Marre goes on to attribute this sense of everything as urgent, every project or activity having the same priority, as a result of the constant connection many of us have to information and work. I'm not sure that's entirely true - that connection is just a thing; our relationship to it is what throws us off balance.

There's an old-school management psych term: "locus of control" that I think is in play here. Feeling caught up in this Grid thing seems to me like a form of externality. I like my ability to plug into various types of work when the urge strikes, and not on a particularly fixed schedule [This is sometimes at odds with the sort of work I do for pay, since it needs people to interact directly & therefore to agree on when and how to do so.], but then, my locus of control is so internal it's annoying.

I'm still affected by the MUST DO EVERYTHING NOW OMG HOW DO WE MANAGE OUR TIME sense of urgency that pervades work & communication, though - and that's where value comes in. Rather than responding to the OMG of the moment, I try to think in terms of what I value, or if that's irrelevant, what is of greatest value to whomever (the latter is a newer addition to my thinking, thanks to a few years of Agile and exposure to Lean).

Comments

[zhenzhi.livejournal.com]

ha! i knew i was doing something right! it is only once a week that i have to mind the clock... when i take my son to a music lesson. but even then, his teacher is as relaxed as us, so starting time is 'around about' 3pm. no problem id we are late, she counts the hour from when he starts, even if it's 40 minutes later.

now before i go and pat myself on the back too much, i do have the luxury of being a stay at home parent this year (i am homeschooling too). as soon as we engage with "out there" (not home) we are assaulted by timetables and time limits. in theory it is wonderful to live like this, but in practice it can be a bit like swimming against a strong oppositional current because everyone out there is slave to the cockclock.

also worth a mention when i lived in bali, indonesia (3yrs).... there was an expression balinese use: jam karet. it means "rubber time" which invites one not to take exact clock hours so seriously. for example, if i was to meet someone it would not be at exact o'clock; rather, it was meet you in the morning/afternoon/evening, which gave you literally a few hours of flexibility. being two hours "late" was no problem. i very much enjoyed it because as anyone who knows me will tell you i am notoriously tardy! again though, because i had enough money (worked like a slave for 3 years before that in japan and made heaps.... ooooh! now there was the complete opposite! so efficient were they with their schedules and time adherance, that if a commuter train was more then 30 seconds late you got a free ride: cash your ticket in and they apologise for delaying you from your time schedule!!!!)

interesting post. just this week i was discussing the concept of time with my nine year old during homeschool. he found it fascinating that time was a man made concept. we've done some experiments, trying to command nature by the clock in our garden. nature NEVER listens to the clock! so surely "time" is unnatural!

lol though, imagine if usa ran on jam karet! i mean, it's easy to ignore the clock when you don't have to be employed, use a supermarket etc. if all the people around you are on the clock, by default, so are you!

ok, that is my essay on time! lol! :-) xo