Ways the Status Quo is Wrong
December 7, 2009 in Productivity
James has a provocative post at OrganizeIT on how “conventional wisdom” is wrong on some is wrong on some important issues. Since Time is pretty important to me right now, I thought I’d riff on this part:
Modern Life Sucks: 4 Ways The Status Quo Is Wrong – Work smart, play smart
There’s never enough time
Time management. It seems everybody is at it nowadays trying to squeeze more out of their time and constantly looking for ways to add a few extra minutes into their day. We want more time to do stuff, more time to be able to get things done, more time to be able to do a good job, be with our family, enjoy ourselves and indulge in hobbies and interests. But every time we make more time we always seem to fill it with the same old stuff. It’s like trying to dig a hole in the sand when the tide is coming in (read my post on time wasting for a better understanding).According to Parkinson’s law we’re coming at it the wrong way. Work expands to fill the time available to it. When time is tight or you have a short deadline, you’re focused to focus on the essentials. When you’ve given a week to do a job that should take a day, it suddenly becomes a BIG DEAL!!! We can’t make more time for ourselves – there will always be only 24 hours in the day. However we can do our work in much less time than we often think.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately, especially since my job is taking 80% of my time and contributing nearly 90% of my income. I need to change that ratio, but that will require making a serious change. Do I back off from my responsibilities at work, thereby reducing my income considerably (in the short term)? Or do I hunker down for a while and invest more time in some other revenue streams first?
The first choice means losing income right away and living with some serious uncertainty for a while. The second choice means much more work and much less play for a while, until things ramp up. This means a serious cost/benefit analysis.
But it is something that I have to do, because I just can’t go on like this – spending so much time at work and away from my passion. the internal satisfaction just isn’t there. In addition, the potential income is limited: no matter how much time I put in, or how successful I am, my income doesn’t change. That’s salary for you.
