Over the past week, we’ve been engulfed in voices telling us how we should be spending our time. But guess what? They’re all wrong. Find out why in this short invitation to a new narrative for minute-management.
I was two months into grad school and burnout was fast approaching. After weeks of grumbling about my hazy mind, incessant anxiety, and never-ending workload, my next right thing struck: ask for help. I requested a meeting with one of my professors. Attempting to communicate with him sometimes felt like having to slowly tap out morse code. As I word-searched, shooting dots and dashes his way, his expressionless face made my foggy brain doubt my signals were getting through. In faith, I completed my message and awaited his reply. He began slowly nodding, took a deep breath, and gingerly began:
“That teaching job--you wake up at what time?”
“4 am.”
“I mean… it’s great that you want to stay involved like that, but just hearing that makes me feel cringey.”
“You think I should get a new job?” It was a novel idea from where I was sitting.
“Yes. That’s not at all conducive to a graduate school schedule.”
“May I ask how you navigated things when you were in graduate school?”
“I had a reading time. Every day. Four hours, scheduled into my calendar.”
“Okay... I think I can do that. I’m sure I can find different work. But, I’ll be honest, the only way I’ve ever gotten through school is by not sleeping. That’s always been how I’ve managed. I’m wondering if self-care and school are mutually exclusive for me.” Storms loomed, radio waves weakening. I looked at the floor.
Despite his body’s rigidity, his signal was strong: “They’re not.”
“Do you have any advice you might offer about how I can balance things better?”
Without pausing, he delivered four suggestions that would swim in my mind for weeks to come:
Prioritize your self-care and wellness; that should always be your first priority (and, that includes having fun).
Let your interests guide your learning. When you find an article that really interests you, read it thoroughly. Otherwise, skim things--get the gist, move on.
Find a job that will help you cultivate rhythm--a schedule that suits you.
And, I’d continue to pay attention to your time management.
The mystery of this final recommendation (admonition?) lingers in my mind even still:
I’d continue to pay attention to your time management.
How am I managing my minutes? What an uncomfortable question. When I honestly look at a day’s time budget, what do I see?
Perhaps, something like this:
Everyone’s time management charts are as unique as their fingerprints, especially once we consider all the work we’re each doing in our imaginations. What matters much more, though, is how we wish to spend our time. James Baldwin describes this wishing part of us as our “passionate conviction of personal authority.” How did we intend to spend our minutes today? How do we want to be using our daily effort? To keep our own rules for living, our own commitments to ourselves and each other--that’s what matters.
Over the past week, we’ve been engulfed in voices telling us how we should be spending our time. But guess what? They’re all wrong. They’re all wrong because any voice telling you what to do is yet another voice disempowering your own passionate conviction of personal authority. If you’re not making decisions from a place of personal authority then you’re making bad decisions. How do YOU wish to be spending YOUR time? How would you like to be using your imagination? Before you know the answer to these questions, pie chart interpretations are useless.
I knew I needed to email my professor because I’d created a rule for myself (i.e. get eight hours of sleep each night) and, averaging three, I was clearly unable to keep it. So, I asked for help. I didn’t change my rule (I knew it was a good one), so I adjusted my behavior instead. My rule for myself showed me my limits. My conviction motivated me to receive assistance from outside myself. My personal authority activated me to respond to the help I’d been given. Here, I encountered my humanity. And after years of living asleep, I started waking up--refreshed.
You are an adult. How you spend your time is your choice. This is your freedom. This is your gift. So, what are your rules for living? What goals do you have for how you spend the minutes of your day? Are you in alignment, or did you break your own curfew?
Below, I list three action steps you can take to better gauge your answers to these questions.
Taming Time
1. Track
For the next seven days, try tracking your time. You can use the categories I did in the chart above, or you can make up your own. What’s worth tracking? Your daydreaming? What you create? Who benefits from your actions? Consider why these categories are worth tracking. I highly recommend rounding to the nearest 15 or even 30 minutes. This exercise is less about precision and more about ratios. Don’t miss the point.
At the end of the week, add up the minutes in each category and take a look at your pie chart. How are you spending your time? What do you see? How do you feel about it?
2. Yearn
Don’t feel in alignment? That’s a sure sign that you’re breaking your own rules. The question is, what rule did you break? It may not be obvious at first. Try to consider what’s stirring up friction for you. Where in your minutes are you not keeping your own word to yourself?
Another way I like to say this is: what are you longing for?
Again, these desires may not be immediately apparent. Decide a timeframe in the not-too-distant future in which you’ll develop and solidify your “rules for living.” One month might be a good range of time. Maybe 6 months is more appropriate. During this period, set aside some time weekly to consider what you would rather use your time for. (Consider journaling, exercise, music, art, meditation, or prayer to help you engage).
Remember, too, how you live out these “rules for living” for each season of your life may differ. But, if you aren’t using your own personal authority to activate yourself toward action, if you’re passively letting others’ voices have power over your own, you’re making bad decisions, no matter what they are.
3. Pivot
Ah, and here is where we find my favorite mantra: Activate yourself toward your longings! Now that you know what you want your rules for living to be, you can pivot your minutes! Small pivots built momentum. Big pivots build burnout. Take this process slowly and mindfully.
Missed Your Exit?
When you lose your way (because we all do), return to step 2 (not 1!). Don’t waste time beating yourself up. You are enough, and you have what you need today. Instead, return to your longing, your “something to look forward to.” This is your fuel for fire. Write stories about the life you long to live. What story do you want to tell 5 years from now? Paint it. Draw it. Sing it. Shout it. Meditate on it.
What’s Your “Next Right Thing”?
Nobody can tell any of us, actually, what our next right thing to do is; we each must individually discern that for ourselves. While we may often choose to follow others’ directions, we can never forget that this is always our choice. If we’re making decisions solely by listening to the authority of others, or worse--following fear, we’re making bad decisions.
And so, of course, as we practice creating our own rules for living, we simultaneously learn to respect others’ convictions, too. Each person has a different story, different resources, different energy levels, and different gifts. No one chose their body or their heritage, but each of us chooses what narratives we live and how we respond to that body and heritage. How? Through our rules for living.
How do you wish to be spending your time? What is your right next thing?
Track.
Yearn.
Pivot.
Note 1: After writing this, I came across another blogger who articulated a similar idea two weeks ago. For Curt Thompson’s take on activating ourselves toward longing, click here.
Note 2: In Episode 93 of Emily P. Freeman's podcast The Next Right Thing, she clarifies that this tagline "'[d]oing the next right thing' isn’t a phrase [she] came up with...it’s been used by Mother Theresa, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Theodore Roosevelt, Elizabeth Elliott, and Anne Lamott, to name only a few. It’s a guideline for living in Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s become a common catchphrase for coaches and athletes in board rooms and in corporate motivational speeches." And now it's mine, and maybe yours, too.