Time matters
Some thoughts about time, and 2014.
I’m not one for new years resolutions, but I care deeply about how I spend my time. The reason’s quite simple: the people and things you choose to surround yourself with are directly correlated with the types of things you’ll be able or likely to accomplish.
While there’s nothing inherently wrong with resolutions, most feel far too oozy to lead to any tangible behavioral change.
Typical examples go as follow:
Lose weight.
Sometimes, they’re more specific. In which case they look like:
Lose 20 pounds by x date
But in both cases the follow up question undividedly becomes:
How do you intend to do this?
The fundamental problem is that most resolutions take the form of desired outcomes more than pathways to completion. Put differently the resolution is one level abstracted from the necessitated action. This doesn’t make them very good at producing results.
I’ve set out to do things differently for myself — because I had an inkling that I could come up with something that suited better. A framework to help guide the way I spent my time, in 2014 and beyond.
I’ve ended up with a bit of a to-do list. It’s looser than commands, yet stronger than intentions. More like principles to live my life by. Behavioral guides that constantly seek to reduce decisional burden when faced with dilemma.
I used a simple formula to create each item on my list. It’s neither perfect nor exhaustive, but I like it quite a bit:
(This behavior) over, equal to, or less than (that behavior).
This loose syntax dictates a preferable course of action. It suggests how I should spend my time. It gently nudges. More importantly, its allows for several objectives to be tackled at once:
(Reading over and above Television) + (Standing over and above Sitting) + (Activity over and above Passivity) opens the door to something like:
Read while standing on the bus.
Which in turn translates into something like:
Give yourself the time to learn new things, by freeing up the hands you’d otherwise use to drive, all while theoretically lowering your probabilistic risk of long term heart disease and adverse posture (as a byproduct of stimulating your brain while increasing your sitting to standing ratio).
No one in his or her right mind would spell out such a resolution, but the combination of a few principles makes way for these kind of results. The depth of the behavioral matrix that emerges from a simple list is really quite astonishing.
So here’s my list. In no particular order. It’s incomplete and I’ll be adding to it. But that’s fine: life isn’t static and neither should my list.
Above anything, just remember: you get to choose how you spend your time.
Smiles > grins
Tea > coffee
Non fiction > fiction
Ale > lagers
Wine > ale
Whisky > any other hard alcohol
Vegetables in equal or greater proportion to meat
Reading > video content
Films > TV
Biking > running
Quality > quantity
Standing > sitting
Emotional reward > monetary reward
Giving > taking
Fixing > complaining
Screens > paper
Platted food > sandwiches
Signal > noise
Challenge > easiness
Doing in equal proportion to saying
