Showing posts tagged time management
"Imagine there is a bank which credits your account each morning with $86,400, carries over no balance from day to day, allows you to keep no cash balance, and every evening cancels whatever part of the amount you had failed to use during the day.
What would you do?
Draw out every cent, of course!
Well, everyone has such a bank. It’s name is time.
Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds.
Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose.
It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft.
Each day it opens a new account for you.
Each night it burns the records of the day.
If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours.
There is no going back. There is no drawing against the tomorrow.
You must live in the present on today’s deposits.
Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success!
The clock is running. Make the most of today.To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade.
To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.
To realize the value of ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.
To realize the value of ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
To realize the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who missed the train.
To realize the value of ONE SECOND, ask a person who just avoided an accident.
To realize the value of ONE MILLISECOND, ask the person who won a silver medal in the Olympics.Treasure every moment that you have! And treasure it more because you shared it with someone special, special enough to spend your time.
And remember, time waits for no one.
"
Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.
— Author unknown but it was in the Project and Time Management Foundations chapter of “The Product Manager’s Field Guide” by Linda Gorchels
Productivity Costs
I went to Wal-Mart, Target and Office Depot after work today. I ended up with a quarter less tank of gas and a $10 pair of slip on shoes that I didn’t need. I wasn’t in the mood to shop and I dislike driving. I was in search of the perfect portfolio/padfolio/notepad and I’m left believing that I’m better off without one.
I am in the middle of reading MAKING IDEAS HAPPEN by Scott Belsky. I knew two things when I pre-ordered the book…
- “This book chronicles the methods of exceptionally productive creative leaders and teams”
- Scott is the CEO & Founder of Behance
What I didn’t do was research all of the products that Behance has, thus predicting that the book was going to be one long advertisement for their $100/yr web app called Action Method.
The methodology can be broken down very easily. You capture a log of Action Steps, References and Backburner items. In doing so, you increase efficiency by spending most of your time focusing on actionable tasks, instead of spending it planning potential projects which may never see the light of day. That’s all there is to it.
I’ve contemplated buying the app. They allow you to create an account for free with 50 Action items. I did this and downloaded the iPhone app as well. Verdict - I spent entirely too much time trying to add, manage and check off my Action Items. This process was the opposite of productivity. Thank you Behance for allowing me to test drive your app and methodology, as I probably would have bought it if I wasn’t able to try it out for free.
“Productivity” tools can get expensive…
- $100/yr for the apps for Action Method or even more for Things on a Mac + iPhone + iPad
- The $11.69 + Shipping for MAKING IDEAS HAPPEN and the lost time spent reading that this is the best way to push ideas forward
- A quarter tank of gas and an unnecessary $10 pair of slip-ons in search of a “Perfect” writing pad
- The toll that this developed obsessive compulsiveness would weigh on myself and those around me
- The impact of not completing the single most important task that you couldn’t list when your iPhone battery was dead
- The time wasted maintaining the logs
My point - Modern “productivity” tools are too expensive for my taste. I’m sticking with the “Just Fucking Do It” method.
