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You cannot have productivity or time management without priorities
Tinjaw | Oct 26 2005
My problem is that I have too much Stuff TM that I want to do. I have tons of hobbies and I love to learn, be it by reading, watching documentaries, whatever. I also like to participate with various communities I am a part of. What I am coming to realize is that the main reason why I am not productive and cannot manage my time well is that I am scattered all over the place. And it's not like at work where I can go to my boss and say that I have time for four project out of these ten so choose six for me to work on. This is my personal life; my so called leisure time. Reading one book means missing one documentary which means not participating in some online game which means not working on one of my four or five hobby coding projects which means not playing one of my 25+ computer games, etc. I spend my entire day always thinking about what I am not doing. And pulling a GTD and brain dumping will not solve my problems as there is absolutely no way I can get 10% done of the stuff I want to get done. The thought of giving up hobbies because I don't have the time for them is one I can't seem to bear. How does one go about choosing Anime over PC strategy games, yoga over tai chi, electronics over philosophy, or Everquest over World of Warcraft!!! Until I make a painful decision give up whole meaty chunks of my life I drive myself crazier trying to time manage it all and I will never be productive; even if in some cases productive means finishing a science fiction novel or a module of Neverwinter Nights. 9 Comments
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 Fillanzea has a good point...Submitted by shivalemur on October 27, 2005 - 8:15am.
Fillanzea has a good point - dropping something temporarily doesn't mean dropping it forever. These are all leisure activities, so presumably there's no deadline to work to. I tend to switch between my hobbies when the mood strikes me - there are some that I stick with constantly, others that reappear on a month by month or even year by year basis. Perhaps you could pick a few activities that you want to focus on now, and then switch other activities in and out of rotation as you feel like it. Personally I feel a lot better just concentrating on a few things at a time, and in greater depth. When I was dividing my time between many different interests I never had chance to get very far in any of them. It can be hard at first - the mind can start obsessing over the activites you've put aside - but stick with it and the mind retrains itself. This doesn't work so well for physical activities where you need to stay conditioned, so I try to stay with those on a permanent basis. » POSTED IN:
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