An Analyst’s Start To The New Year
“Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks. Nobody needs telling there isn’t enough time” — Oliver Burkeman
It’s Jan 1, 2022. On my flight back from Istanbul to London, I decided to give reading Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals a try after becoming increasingly conscious of my brain’s inability to pause and just be. Over the years, my mind slowly mastered the art of calibration, seamlessly and tirelessly working in the background every second of every day, prioritizing and re-prioritizing everything I had planned on doing that day. It constantly tries to catch up with how fast the time goes by, becoming increasingly aware of its finiteness and providing me an updated plan so I stay on schedule.
Burkeman has the stance that “maximizing productivity” is a misguided fallacy that’s talked about way often than it ever needed to be, constantly contributing to a feeling of inadequacy and falling behind. Modern people are programmed to be as efficient as they can be and squeeze as much into their 24 hours as possible to achieve as much as possible as consistently as possible. Ultimately, multi-tasking for the sake of “maximizing productivity” has turned our lives into a constant marathon that only seems to get longer the harder we run it.
His views aren’t entirely foreign, but one point sticks out to me: We multi-task to avoid making hard choices about where to spend our limited time.
Below, I break down my own prioritization in an attempt to better own my choices.
Multitasking as a way to challenge the zero sum game…
Perhaps the biggest implication of the finiteness of our time on Earth is that every decision we make is, in fact, a trade-off. It’s true of the smallest things like choosing to give 30 mins to making breakfast every morning, I consciously give up 30 mins I could be giving to sleeping. Or bigger things like by choosing a particular career path, I gave up pursuing any other profession I could have chosen or ever considered, at least for the time being.
The modern notion of “multi-tasking” (as defined as getting as many things done as possible) fundamentally challenges this zero-sum game. While it can’t entirely get rid of it, by creating parallel paths of execution, it eases the pressure and the weight of the tradeoffs we make. It says “sure, you decided to give 30 mins to making breakfast but why not listen to this podcast on investments so you can kill two birds with one stone?” Soon, our minds start looking for ways to squeeze >1 things in any given time, silently giving us a small pat on the back the more we squeeze in. I can surely send an email as I am watching my favorite TV show or chat with my friends on the phone as I am enjoying a Sunday stroll in the park. In fact, why wouldn’t I? It’s about work too. Hobbies quickly turn into side hustles that turn into a “given”, a societal expectation from the “I can do it all”.
Let me be clear — As someone who has many passion projects, I am not against the idea of trying to make space for the things we love and being intentional about the time we give to create what we love. There is nothing wrong with multi-tasking if we are conscious of why we are doing it and why the things we want to do really truly matter. Or sometimes, we are forced to multi-task just to hold onto the few things that do matter to us given how much or how unexpectedly certain other things take time. At the end of the day, we only have a limited time here. Why wouldn’t I try to fill it with my favorite people doing as much of what I love as possible?
What I do have a problem with, however, is hiding behind multi-tasking to avoid the gravity of the trade-offs we make and why we choose to make them in the first place. There is something really powerful about saying “I recognize I only have an hour and I choose to spend it with you and you alone” than saying “I am choosing to spend my hour with you but while also messaging this other friend, checking my work email and thinking about what to cook for dinner tonight so I can go shopping for groceries after”.
Multi-tasking is reducing the meaning of our choices to almost nothing, making sure that we can avoid tough trade-offs as much as possible…ultimately, I think, leading to a life of very little reflection around what and who really truly matters to us.
The power of choice and how we make better ones
The reality is that many of us do not avoid these trade-offs because we necessarily want to but because our thinking is often not structured enough to grasp the dimensions worth considering that matter to us. Ultimately, in the absence of an easy decision making mechanism, we make none. No decision leads to long lists and long lists only get done by multi-tasking.
Going into 2022, I want to be more mindful and respectful of my choices by reflecting more and being more intentional about the value each of the trade-offs I make hold in my life. So I decided to create a framework for myself that aligns to my values and priorities.
Finding the core driver of our prioritisation is perhaps the hardest and the most time consuming part. It’s so personal. I had to think long and hard about what fundamentally drives me, think about the decisions I made in the past to be able to identify a common thread. I landed on Inspiration.
Prioritisation Matrix
- Inspiration (Status Quo vs. Inspiring & Uplifting)
- Effort (Quick & Easy vs. Takes Time & Effort)
Categories that make up my time…
Peace of Mind
- Low inspiration but quick & easy → This is the category of daily or routine tasks that make my life easier and more orderly. They are quick to accomplish and help my mind clear space for other things.
- The trick with this category is to reduce my dependency on what I think I need to get that peace of mind. The challenge is to get to a leaner set of routine tasks with maximum value.
Responsibility
- Low inspiration and takes time & effort → This is the category of responsibilities that may be unexciting but important to do and take effort, mentally or time-wise. I find that this is also the category that often has the most movement with items coming in and out. It could be a particular task at work, a family duty that has become a route expectation, an important conversation we are not very excited to have.
- The key is to manage our time here so we are not overwhelmed or consumed by a list of responsibilities that only grow longer. Or alternatively, think of ways to make these responsibilities more uplifting, exciting and inspiring, moving them to the growth category.
Energy
- High inspiration and quick & easy → I call this the “small wins” category. To me, it’s simple things like waking up early so I can watch the sunrise from my kitchen window as I sip my coffee. Or sending my family a quick message or giving them a call. Or chatting up my local flower shop owner because I just love how excited she gets talking about the new flowers she got that reminds me the importance of loving your craft. It’s sending a kind note to someone, it’s treating myself to a long walk that always ends with chai tea. It’s reading a chapter from a book, a thought-provoking article or listening to an inspiring/informative talk.
Growth
- High inspiration but takes time & effort → This is the category that unless I intentionally make time always falls through the cracks. It’s the people, projects, experiences, and places that make me think and reflect, and feel deeply moved, inspired, and challenged. These take either time or significant mental effort but give my life a sense of novelty and wonder, profound experiences of change.
On the back of this, this year’s New Year’s Resolutions look much shorter than previous years’. It is a much more focussed list with more uninterrupted time given to who I love and what I love doing….where my energy and growth really comes from. 2022 isn’t a year of endless checkboxes but instead hopefully comes with an abundance of savored milestones and memories. Fewer things intentionally chosen and done well, fewer experiences that are abundantly cherished by being present and people who are truly and deeply appreciated and recognized.
