2828: A Personal Perspective on Time Management by Tonya Lester on Making More Time For Yourself

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[00:00:57] Subscribe dash swap. Level up your money game. Subscribe to the average Joe now. This is Optimal Living Daily episode 2828, A Personal Perspective on Time Management by Tonya Lester of TonyaLester.com. And I'm Justin Malik, your personal narrator reading to you every day, hoping to help both you and me find a little more happiness, inspiration and motivation in our day.

[00:01:24] So with that, let's get right to our next article and continue optimizing your life. A Personal Perspective on Time Management by Tonya Lester of TonyaLester.com. Pre-pandemic, I was hosting Thanksgiving for beloved friends who were about to move out of the country.

[00:01:46] Although my schedule was already packed, I decided to squeeze an exercise class in the crack between putting the turkey in the oven and starting on the mashed potatoes. I raced to the gym, scooted into the locker room, and hurriedly bent over to untie my shoes. Standing back up, I immediately felt a searing pain in my back. I could barely move. I hobbled home and ended up spending the holiday lying on the floor, my back packed with ice.

[00:02:15] As I called out instructions on how long to leave the dressing in the oven and try to participate in the dinner conversation without moving a muscle, I thought to myself, this is so stupid. I've had to learn the lesson not to rush repeatedly. Believe me, the universe has done its best to teach me the lesson. I have a comic history of physical injury when I'm rushed. I've fallen downstairs, off street curbs, and walked straight into various structures, door jams, pillars, you name it.

[00:02:45] When we were first dating and racing around was my habit, my now husband called me Hurricane Tonya. Every time I take a fall, I resolve to slow down, to stop overcommitting, and to live my life more consciously. But the siren song of doing more and doing it all as quickly as possible is still hard to resist. Productivity, efficiency, and quick accomplishments have become a religion in our culture.

[00:03:12] We celebrate doing everything faster and faster. And for what? The few minutes you shave off various tasks by rushing, even tedious ones like waiting in line or commuting, aren't adding to the quality of your life. And it's not like you get to the good parts and suddenly slow down, lose all the anxiety, and enjoy meaningful moments. You're still amped up. We prize efficiency over depth, engagement, and enjoyment.

[00:03:40] Every moment, both mundane and meaningful, is your life. When we're trying to make everything go faster, we're wishing our one precious life away. We're living, but not really living. The secret to a sane existence, one where you can be present, notice the small details, and take the time to enjoy simple pleasures, isn't doing everything faster or even organizing your time better. It's doing less.

[00:04:08] Much like productivity, the internet will have you believe that there's a hundred methods, products, and hacks necessary to getting your things organized. In truth, 95% of organizing is just getting rid of stuff. No matter how messy the closet is, if you get rid of most of whatever you have in there, it will be organized. The remaining 5% of getting organized might be pairing like with like, and alphabetizing your spices, but that's just extra.

[00:04:37] 50 t-shirts, even if they all spark joy, will never stay organized. 5 t-shirts always will. Organizing your time works the same way. In his excellent book, 4,000 Weeks, Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Berkman puts it like this, quote, rendering yourself more efficient, either by implementing various productivity techniques or by driving yourself harder, won't generally result in the feeling of having enough time.

[00:05:06] Because all else being equal, the demands will increase to offset any benefits. Far from getting things done, you'll be creating new things to do, end quote. There may be some people who are able to rush through the minutiae of life, but then really slow down and be present for the moments that are most meaningful. But I haven't met them. People who rush tend to rush through everything. Their commutes are as efficient as possible,

[00:05:33] but their time with their children or having a great meal also goes by in a blur. These are the same people who say they can't focus long enough to read a book or make time for a vacation. If that's really the case, then what's all the rushing for? Berkman writes, quote, There's a sense in which every moment of life is a last time. It arrives. You'll never get it again. And once it's passed, your remaining supply of moments will be one smaller than before.

[00:06:01] To treat all these moments solely as stepping stones to some future moment is to demonstrate a level of obliviousness to our real situation that would be jaw-dropping if it weren't for the fact that we all do it all the time, end quote. So, the friends who moved away after that Thanksgiving are never moving back. The odds that we'll spend another Thanksgiving together are slim at best. While I wouldn't say that my decision to fit too much activity in too short a time ruined the dinner,

[00:06:30] I certainly wish I'd at least been sitting at the table. Next time, instead of asking myself if I can possibly fit in one more thing, I'll ask myself, Is there a way to make this easier, more enjoyable, and more meaningful? What would it be like to slow this all down? The laughing and the eating, yes, but even the cooking and cleaning. This is my life. I want to be here for it.

[00:06:59] You just listened to the post titled, A Personal Perspective on Time Management by Tonya Lester of TonyaLester.com Thank you to Tonya. It's funny that this podcast started back in 2015 with an idea of providing some productivity hacks to take our to-do lists, learning, work, even sleep, to the next level. But now, I'm not so sure. I'll read articles talking about productivity, but not necessarily with the same intention

[00:07:29] that I had when this podcast first started so many years ago. The more I read, and digest this information, the more I realized that it becomes a sort of rat race or spinning in circles, chasing our tails when we're trying to increase productivity just for productivity's sake. And it's quite counterintuitive. Slowing down can actually speed us up. And here's the key, when we need it. Take multitasking, for example. On the surface, it sounds great,

[00:07:59] tackling things at the same time. But in reality, we're probably doing both tasks significantly worse, often where it'll need to be repeated. In some cases, we're risking our health, possibly even our lives. It's simply better to slow down, do one task correctly and with our full attention, and then move on and do the next thing, which, by the way, doesn't have to be quote-unquote productive. So it's something to think about today for me too.

[00:08:28] Thank you for being here. Have a great rest of your day. And I'll be back tomorrow with another post where your optimal life awaits.