Thursday, January 11, 2018

Time Management

Over a year ago, I  promised future blogs on:

Developing an action plan to reach goals

Work / Training / Life Balance

Time Management






I am working with Myron Cossitt on co-authoring blogs on those  first two topics, based on classes he has developed for Violence Dynamics. (Life Dynamics)

Which leaves ... Time Management.

Why time management?  Also, why write about time management before those other two?
They are all interrelated.  Regardless of what your goals are, you will need to develop a plan in order to achieve them.

You may come up with a fantastic plan, but it will be of no worth if it is impossible to follow.




Similarly, if your plan makes you, or your loved ones miserable, chances of success drop greatly, and really if that is the case, what is the fucking point?

So, why am I writing about time management?  Well, a couple of reasons.  

First, I've been on the planet for a few rotations and I have learned a thing or two through simple trial and error.





Mirmir's well is a term often used in reference to the steep price required for certain knowledge. 


One should always learn from their own mistakes.  However, it is even better to learn from the mistakes of others.




I have had to have long uncomfortable talks with my wife about priorities.  I am stubborn.  I didn't want to hear her "bullshit".  But, I needed to hear it, and I am better for it.

You can learn from my mistakes.  Maybe you can skip Mirmir's well

If you justify the purpose of your intense training is so that you return home safely to your wife and daughters, but that self same training doesn't allow for you to spend any time safely at home with your wife and daughters, what is the fucking point?

I had to learn to better balance things out.  Time management is crucial in order to do that.

Secondly, my day job is developing plans for tactical operations.  Logistical planing.  Assuring that the people and equipment needed to achieve the goal are at the right place at the right TIME for the plan to succeed.

Regardless of what your goals are, you will need to develop a plan in order to achieve them.

Building your plan based on the time you have available to expend on it has a higher success rate than trying to cram a plan into your already busy life.


Time management is a super power

If you have talked with me for more than five minutes, or read more than one of the blogs, it is clear I am a comic book nerd.

Comic book nerds are known to argue about which characters could beat which other character in a fight.  
The ongoing joke is, Batman, despite having no super powers always wins.




The other part of the joke is that Batman always wins because of one of two reasons.

One...

BECAUSE I'M BATMAN!!!!!

Two...



PREP TIME

Batman is known for beating the odds through the use of prep time...and he is super rich so he can obtain or create those wonderful toys.

The clock king is a super villain who's only power is excellent time management skills


None of us have super powers, so in order to stand a chance we have to take advantage of prep time.  In order to take advantage of prep time we have to set aside time to prep.

The first step is to perceive your time.  There are 168 hrs in a week.  No matter how many goals you are pursuing.  No matter how many responsibilities you have, that is actually a lot of time.  However, like affordances, which you have to see in order to use, you have to be able to see your time in order to use your time.

Otherwise it becomes all too easy to "accidentally" binge watch an entire series on Netflix and wonder why you never have any time.

So to start chart it out.
Click HERE to visit the Violence Dynamics Facebook page to get a google sheets time management template.

Then prioritize, you will need to start with your have to do's.  Things like work, school, eating, etc.  From my life experience you are also going to want to block out time for other things that can only happen at a particular time.

For example, hanging out with my girls doesn't make a ton of sense at 10:00 pm Sunday night.  They have school the next day and that is past their bedtime.  There are only certain times during the week that all of us have no other have to do's.  So, I need to reserve that time for hanging out with them.  I can do other stuff at 10:00 pm Sunday night.

After that block out sleep.  It may sound silly, but I have found that good sleep is the poor man's steroids.



For example, let's say that the only time you have to work out is 5:00 am.  Ugh, that is tough, God bless you.  Waking up at 5:00 am to train sucks.  If you get up that early to work out to improve your fitness, but you are only getting something like 5 hours of sleep, you will quickly become catabolic.  Catabolic is detrimental to your fitness making the time and effort you put into those early morning workouts worthless.

So if you are training at 5 seriously consider going to sleep around 9.

Batman is only human, he takes down gods with prep time.  However, we have to remember Batman is HUMAN.

We have to give ourselves permission to be human.  We have to set aside time to just be human.

For example, let's look at waking up at 5:00 am again.  As I said that is tough.  However, if you set aside say one morning every other week to sleep in, it sucks way less.  If it sucks less, the chances of sticking to it increases.  Ugh 5:00 am again this sucks, but man sleeping in tomorrow is going to feel extra good because I got this done today.   That is how winning is done.



As opposed to Ugh 5:00 am again this sucks, my life sucks.  If that is the case, what is the fucking point?

For me, I have what I like to call fuck off Friday's.  Every other Friday I have off from work, I have off from the Dojo, and I have off from training.  A whole day to just be human and recharge the batteries so I can spend the next 13 days trying to be more than human.  

Once have to do's, can only be done at certain times, sleep, and time to just be human are blocked out, the rest is what you have to work with.

Regardless of what your goals are, you will need to develop a plan in order to achieve them.

Building your plan based on the time you have available to expend on it, has a higher success rate than trying to cram a plan into your already busy life.

Once you know the time you actually have to expend, you can customize your plan to fit that schedule, increasing your probability of success.

Because knowing is half the battle.





Train hard, Train smart, Be safe

Plan the work, work the plan.












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