I planed to write at least 4 articles each month on this website, but I think I am going to fail at it this month. Actually looking back to the whole period since this website was set up, I seldomly managed to make it. If I am asked why I have failed so many times, the first excuse coming to my mind will be I am busy and I have a lot of things to take care of. But I know this is not true, or at least not the real reason why I can’t write 4 articles a month, because after all, it’s just casual writing as blogging and I do not need to spend much time thinking of the wording or format to meet certain requirements. The real reason is probably, even though I don’t want to admit it, I am not managing my time well.
Yes, I am busy, every day, like most of the people around. Work, life, relations, studies, etc., so many things to take care of and they all compete for my time and energy. But I still think I can do it better by learning more about time management because I feel the current way that I am managing my time is not an efficient one and there is much room for improvement. The current way I am doing things focuses more on the DOING part, not the HOW part, meaning I put too little time and engergy on the thinking and planing and too much on the actual doing and carrying actions out. I always think the sooner I get into actions, the more efficiently I am managing my time and energy, but the truth might not be so. There is no doubt that putting plans into actions is an important part if we want to get things done and goals achieved, but the first part of thinking and planing things is equally important if not more important. Sometimes better planning can help us doing things more smartly and more efficiently, and can help us achieve more by doing less. And nowadays, doing more is far from meaning getting more. It’s not like old days when people could reply on nothing but their sweat and strength to get payed and doing more would very likely get more payment.
If it’s a few years ago, I will probably try to get some books or online courses on time management and start from the very beginning like a complete new starter, but I won’t do it this way now as I already know some of the basic concepts and some general methods on time management, like prioritizing tasks on their priority and urgency, etc., and there is no point for me to go through these things again. This is not a smart option either for better time management. What I will try is I won’t even try to get another round of systematic training of concepts and researches even though there are some concenpts and new researches that I am not familiar with. Instead, I will take some courses or read some books on this subject and put more attention on what I don’t know yet, even though it might mean I don’t complete certain course or certain book, because I think it’s more important for me now to know what I don’t know yet and get it fixed and then move to the next new knowledge point.
No one can become professional enough on certain field that they can just stop studying new things and stay where they are for the rest of their life. There is always something we are not familiar with and also something new and we need to keep learning. So it will not be smart of us to try to know everything about what we have been working on and treat it as losing face if we meet something we don’t know while we have been working on this for a quite long term and we think ourselves as experts of this field. No. Try to think us as some kind of students and keep it in mind that there is always something new to us, no matter how long we have been working on it and how professional we have been for most of the time.
It’s ture to time management and to a lot of things we are trying to do as well.