What if …
What if you lived in a country without live music, libraries, decent bookstores or shopping. Or, forget decent, any art museums at all.
And what if this country was on an island (Borneo), where getting anywhere else (anywhere else = offstation) was an effort as well as an expense. And what if it was the norm to have help (help = amah) live in to cook, clean, iron, take care of house guests and additional staff, and look after the garden.
And what if you lived there nine years.
And if, during that time, you learned the how-tos of the design industry. How to: market your business, manage your work flow, handle delicate staffing problems, deal with demanding clients, work with printers as well as other professions. And, of course, the how-tos of design.
How much would you accomplish during your day?
A lot.
Then, what if you moved to one of the most exciting cities on earth?
Bangkok.
And what if there were no more live in amahs. Instead, what if there was live music, Quiz Nights, large Contract Bridge venues, accessible books, unlimited shopping, weekly foot massages, a new language and culture to discover.
What if all of this was available not by going offstation, but by walking out the front door and hopping into a roaming tuk tuk.
How much work would you accomplish?
Not a lot.
Not without fine-tuning the way you work.
Sure, in preparation for an increased workload I planned ahead. Taking a year plus, last year I got rid of unnecessary responsibilities. This year, even more.
Apparently, not enough.
This year I couldn’t work out why I was struggling so much. Not until this week. Not until I got to Mark’s second post in his Time Management series.
It took Mark’s series for me to realize the blindingly obvious. By exchanging my quiet island living for the beautiful chaos of Thai living, I had moved into just that: beautiful management chaos.
And I hadn’t factored in the biggest factor of all. The room at the top of the stairs.
Stripped down to the basic facts, bouncing from Brunei to Bangkok does not lack of management make. It’s because, previously, all I did was walk up to the home office at the top of the stairs. Shut the door. And get on with it. The amah did the rest.
While learning the design industry on the island of Borneo, I didn’t need to learn how to juggle work with cooking and dishes and cleaning and laundry and ironing. Chores that pile high if ignored.
I’m sure you live in a Bangkok of your own, so you already know where I’m going with this.
Bangkok is not Borneo.
Now, on top of work, I’m jumping up to put a load of laundry in the wash, running the dishwasher and emptying when done, making beds, folding towels, cooking dinner, shopping, arranging for workmen, cleaning kitty litter, feeding cats and gluing on their nails.
And all when I should be working.
Forget finding real time for myself – reading, painting, sculpting, learning the Thai language and the craft of writing – there is no organised free time.
Clearly, I need help.
I need better time management.
In Mark’s second post, Prioritise work that is ‘important but not urgent’, he explained “the value of ring-fencing time for your own creative work, in the midst of more urgent demands”ť.
To ring-fence his passions Mark became an early riser. This gave him extra time to start a Wishful Thinking, editing Magma, writing poetry and achieving a Masters. Impressive.
Quoting from Mark, “Yet when I look back over the last couple of years, the time when I’ve created most value, for myself and my clients, has been those first hours of the day I’ve spent writing blog posts, essays, seminars and poems. It’s the creative wellspring that feeds into all the coaching, training, presenting and consulting I do when I’m face-to-face with clients.”
I’m an insomniac, so getting up earlier won’t work for me. My bad days don’t come one at a time, they bring company: they come in twos and threes and sometimes stay for a week. When this happens, I compensate by sleeping all I can. When I can.
So instead of waking early, I’ll compromise by keeping my mornings for serious brain usage. For learning time.
No more distractions. No more detours. No more reading forums and blogs and answering emails while drinking the first cuppa.
And clearly, I need to find another room at the top of the stairsť.
A room where I just close that door behind me and get on with it.
The chores can wait.
Catherine (cat) Morley
Project Manager
As promised, my answers to …
Mark’s Time Management Questions
Think of the achievements you are most proud of, and that have added most value to your life and work. When you were working on them, how many of them fell into the ‘important but not urgent’ category?
NO!SPEC
Urgent and important (ongoing urgencies continue)
Creative Latitude
Important but not urgent (on going project)
Business of Design online
Important but not urgent (mostly not urgent)
DWB (Designers who Blog)
Difficult. I’m proud of DWB. Maybe it’s not as important as the others, but it’s important to me.
How do you feel at the end of a day where you have made even a little progress towards a cherished goal?
edited: Instead of feeling grumpy (like if it was hadn’t made even a little progress), I’d feel slightly more at ease with the process.
How do you feel at the end of a day that has been totally swamped by others’ demands and urgent tasks?
Irritated. Angry. Grouchy. Out of sorts.
What difference would it make to your life if you devoted more of your time to ‘important but not urgent’ work?
I’ll have to work on that and get back to you. But, I’m assuming I’ll be less stressed from not having to rush around. I’ll certainly feel less guilty because I won’t be failing myself.
Thanks Mark. As I’ve been too busy making busy, I don’t think I would have realised my basic problem this soon. Now off I go, to prioritise and ring-fence my week by deciding what’s urgent and important, important but not urgent, urgent but not important, not urgent and not important.
What about you?
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