For the New Year: 2 Thoughts About How to Spend Your Time

Image entitled Time by Sean MacEntree, licensed under Creative Commons

I'm not into resolutions, but I read two things recently about ways to approach time management in the new year that I wanted to share.

From Oliver Burkeman, one of his resolutions worth making (and I recommend reading them all):

Select something to stop doing this year. I don’t mean bad habits, such as injecting heroin or picking your nose; I mean something worthwhile, but that, if you’re honest, you don’t have time for. 

In our hyperbusy era, there’s an infinite number of potential things to do: emails to read, groups to join, ways to become a better person, parent, employee. Yet still we proceed as if “getting everything done” might be feasible. It isn’t; the wiser plan is to get more strategic about what you abandon. (One technique: list your 10 most important roles in life, rank them, then resign from at least the bottom two.)

From Neil Gaiman, as part of his New Year’s wishes and gifts:

Try to make your time matter: minutes and hours and days and weeks can blow away like dead leaves, with nothing to show but time you spent not quite ever doing things, or time you spent waiting to begin.