 Making
the most of your time
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Since I was a young child, I have
been afraid of dying young. While this cast a pall over my life,
it yielded a silver lining: it made me appreciate time.
I've had many years to acquire strategies for
making the most of each moment. These are the most important:
Have a little voice always
whispering in my ear, "Is this the
best use of my time?" That translates to thoughts such as,
is there a more time-effective way to write this column? Is it really
worth taking the time to go to my cousin's wedding? Golf is fun
but it's too much of a time suck. So is TV.
Have a personal mission statement
and allocate my time accordingly. Mine is: To use my best
skill -- the ability to communicate verbally and in writing -- to
help people with their work lives, to expose higher education as
America's most overrated product and to advocate for the most unfairly
maligned group: men.
I used that personal mission statement in crafting
my career, and on the micro level, in choosing which discretionary
projects to take on.
Work to the sweet spot of
time-effectiveness. For example, if, in writing a column,
I could do a good job in a half day, a very good job in a day and
an excellent job in two days, I'll probably aim for getting it done
in a day. Why wouldn't I shoot for excellence? Because I could write
a whole other very good column in that second day, and I believe
two very good columns do more for the world than one excellent one.
Besides, I enjoy the feeling of having completed something. It feels
better to have, in two days, gotten two columns done, not just one.
Of course, occasionally, as with the book I just finished
writing, "The Silenced Majority," which I am now trying
to get published, I'll spend all the time necessary to make it as
good as possible. Getting it published is important to me and its
thesis is controversial -- that men and boys deserve better treatment
in the schools, colleges, media, employment and government policy
-- so the only chance of getting it published is to make it as excellent
as I can.
Work at home. Most
people who live in the suburbs waste an hour or two of their day's
best hours merely getting to and from work. So, it is nonnegotiable
for me to work at home.
Be kind in a time-efficient
way. My dear neighbor, Ray Mattoon, was an Army colonel and
after he retired, got a PhD in philosophy. I asked him what he thought
the meaning of life is. He said, "Be kind. That's it."
But kindness usually takes lots of time: volunteering for good causes,
nursing a friend back to health, etc. How do I reconcile my desire
to be kind with my desire to make the most of my time? I generally
confine my kindness to acts requiring little time. For example,
when I see someone doing something praiseworthy, I make a point
of complimenting them, whether it's a supermarket clerk who packs
my bags carefully, a colleague who makes a good point or the Earthlink
technical support person who calms me down.
Advice I'd give my child:
Young people tend to think money is more important than time. It's
not.
P.S. Any of you wish I spent more time working
on this column?
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