Here we are on another Monday. We have finished another week and are starting the next. How did you do last week? What will this week look like for me? I would give myself a “C” for last week. Not a particularly good week but some progress was made on what I wanted to do and where I want to go.
What is time, and how do we use it wisely?
We all get the same amount of time each day. Some days we use it wisely and get things done, build new relationships, and mend the old ones. We learn new things and relearn old things. We change our views and reflect on our perspectives.
Using our time wisely.
To use our time wisely, we need a certain level of organization to get things done. We need to use the time to meditate and exercise to stay healthy. Sleep is another necessary use of our time. For some less than for others. I now spend more time in sleep than I ever had before. Perhaps I am catching up, but I doubt it.
Another important use of our time is to spend some of it reflecting on each day and week to see where we could be more efficient or handle the events of our lives better. This reflection time is different from our meditation time.
Our meditation time should become a daily habit so we can become more aware of and be more in sync with our bodies’ cycles.
Organizing our time is simple, keep track of what needs to be done and when so we don’t forget.
This can be done, as my wife did when she was alive on a handwritten calendar or as I am now doing on my computer. The main reason I want to be organized is that since I can’t save time, I want to use what I have effectively.
As you know, time management and how we organize ourselves have changed over the past 50 years. The first phase was paper lists and paper calendars; other than keeping them in our heads, we had no other choice. Then along came computers which have evolved exponentially until today. Early on we all used floppy disks, then diskettes, and now we have so much storage on our hard drives that I will have two-trillion bytes available on my new computer next month. An amazing growth.
Besides getting my tasks organized, my biggest organization issue is getting everything I’m saving organized for easy retrieval. It is easy to save articles, book highlights, newsletters, and anything you run across on the internet.
Two solutions occur to me: quit saving everything you run across, and find an easy way to organize the important out of each thing you capture. I will continue to be a digital hoarder until I figure this out and systematize it to fit my needs. I have 10,000 or so notes each in Evernote, roam, and my current obsidian. Without the search functions that exist today, these notes would be useless.
So, where do I go next?
I am starting my simplification mode and considering reducing my computer applications to as few as possible. I am using TODOist for tasks and Google calendar for meetings. My biggest problem is putting everything in the right place and remembering to check each day to ensure I don’t miss anything. I think I will use Evernote to capture and store random notes of interest and obsidian for summarized notes and ideas. Then I will use my summarized notes for idea generation for my blog articles.
