What you said about time last week
Thanks for voting
TLDR: Discussion on the results of last week’s poll - about whether you timebox, distractions, another book, plans, control, having a system, living an intentional life, non-work meetings, and the impact of timeboxing. Image is the pretty normal distirbution
Word count: 651
Read time: 3 min
Last week, I asked eight poll questions. Below is how you answered, along with some commentary from me. Please Restack if you like this post / these posts.
Exactly what I’d have expected! A small minority never timeboxes. Another minority timeboxes always. But most people dabble.
I’m curious to hear from the dabblers on what’s stopping you doing it more. And from the No’s — why you don’t timebox at all (and yet subscribe to a newsletter all about the intentional use of time!)
There’s work to do with 88% of you. That feels worthwhile.
This is what the science says too — that we are the prime orchestrators of our loss of concentration, mostly through our own unbeckoned thoughts. We can do something about the emails and our smartphone as they are external elements from our environment.
But we can’t escape our own brain and our thoughts. The only available option is — much like with meditation — accept the distraction and then calmly, collectedly bring yourself back to the one thing you need to be doing at that time. That mantra and mindset is why this newsletter is called One Thing at A Time.
Apart from elves, pretty even. Looking at the list again, the top three all sound rather similar to each other. I wonder if those three were combined how the statistics would look.
Actually, over the weekend I was reading Rovelli’s The Order of Time and a potential title for the new book jumped out at me. More on that very soon.
70% of you need to do something here. You have just under 3 months. You can confirm some goals and make some plans right now. Or, if you think you’ll need more time, timebox 30 mins for later today or tomorrow, so you do actually get round to it. This is a gift right here: the option to end 2024 with glee.
Slightly nebulous question, but I hope it — along with the 2x2 matrix I included last week — stirred some thinking and action.
When I’m faced with some kind of difficulty or dilemma, I run through this algorithm:
↳ Can I do anything about it?
↳ If so, what are my options?
↳ What’s the best option?
↳ Choose it & do it
I remember first seeing this simple idea — focus on only what you can control — in The Art of Happiness. Very easy to say, harder to make it work in everyday life. But I can personally testify that it’s doable.
The poll is anonymous, but I’d love to know who the very few people are that will most likely refuse, in general, a request!
The people who agree to take the action but with no system to ensure it are likely living with some anxiety and/or some failure. Get a system (timeboxing is the best one I know) and make the promise you made watertight. More people will believe the words you say.
What a beautiful, believable normal distribution! Whether you answered the poll question or not, think about which answer you’d give, how you would go about levelling up, and what one or two measures you could easily take to get you there to enjoy a greater influence over your life.
As I suspected, most people don't prepare at all. But I bet many of you prepare for business meetings. Are the people you see outside work less important to you?!
I think timeboxing at least doubles productivity, as I wrote once a long time ago and also more recently. And this is mostly (though there are other factors too) to do with the time and headspace it systematically gives you to work on the right thing. As Peter Drucker said:
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
Thank you for doing this with me. I’ll do another multi-poll post in a few months’ time. But for now:
If you’re interested in an ticking infographic on this, see today’s LinkedIn post.
Marc
Links you may like
7 days of Timeboxing (the free email micro-course)
Timeboxing, the book (US)
Timeboxing, the book (UK)
Timeboxing, el libro (Español)
Connect with me on LinkedIn (I will say yes!)