Time for THINGS

My head is a buzz this morning and it is not because of the two sips of coffee I have barely ingested. I have scheduled myself into oblivion and worry that I will not have the time necessary to breathe, think, and just process (let alone produce). So I find myself up against my need to learn time management skills…the elephant in the room I thought I could ignore until I had a moment. Ironically, one does not have “moments” if one is not managing their time. So I Googled “time management” and, obviously, got multiple hits for various sites using motivational imagery that seem to always include extreme sports. And then I clicked on Jeremy Wright’s site, ala: a list apart, and he explained the “pickle jar theory”:

I am sure the significance of this little exercise hasn’t escaped any of you. Each of us has many large priorities in our life, represented by the large rocks [in the pickle jar]. We also have things which we enjoy doing, such as the pebbles. We have other things we have to do, like the sand. And finally, we have things that simply clutter up our lives and get in everywhere: water.

None of these are bad things. After all, we need the gamut of these objects—from large priorities to times of rest—in order to feel truly fulfilled. No Time Management theory should be without balance, and the Pickle Jar theory is all about balance. You make time for everything, and everything simply fits well where it is supposed to fit…

I appreciated the reminder, I am sure I have heard this theory in my early days of university, and the clear language (no motivational imagery or quotes); but what really struck me was the affirmation that it is ok to ignore my email and turn my phone off.

Email is a lot like the phone in that even though we all have our phones on just in case an important call happens, when we look back on our year it is rare that we can remember more than one or two occasions where we absolutely needed to answer our phone or email at that precise instant.

Friends/family don’t always understand, or like this tactic to steal back some time from the edge of the void, but how else am I going to focus on the myriad of activities I want to pursue in my life? Don’t get me wrong, I would certainly classify the people in my life as priorities. I just want my life to be about more than socialising. I want to have a worldview where the horizon goes beyond what I have already experienced. It blows my mind that there are so many THINGS I don’t even know exist. Forget modern science telling us that there are x species undiscovered in the rainforest, y types of unknown genetic material even in our own bodies, what about the people, places, THINGS, that we have just not experienced or seen through mainstream media sources?