A Skewed Sense of Time Screws Up Your Schedule
Casinos play some interesting mind games to keep players at the tables. They’ll do anything to make you forget the outside world exists.
There are attractive settings with enough class to make anyone feel like James Bond in Monte Carlo and free drinks as long as you’re playing at the slot machines or the tables. Floor plans are designed so that you have to travel through gaming areas to reach restaurants, shops and shows.
Dealers are friendly enough and might even grant you a small winning streak. (Then tables will change dealers and you can say good-bye to Lady Luck.) If you win big enough, you may even get a few perks, like a free dinner or room.
What’s even more subtle is the way that casinos suck you in to a bizarre vortex where you lose track of time completely. Clocks can’t be found in casinos. Time is out of sight and out of mind. You may sit down with the intention of playing only a hand or two of blackjack only to look up and realize you’ve lose both your last dollar and a whole night.
Of course, as the saying goes, time flies when you’re having fun. And time flies when you work online, too.
Where Did The Time Go?
How many of you have been trapped in the online vortex? You send an email, then wait impatiently for a reply, thinking it’s taking forever when it’s only been minutes or maybe a couple of hours. What about days of the week? You lose track and think it’s Monday, when it’s actually Wednesday and you’ve blown a deadline.
Then there are days when you’re so absorbed by your work that you glance at your tiny clock in the corner of your desktop tray to realize you’re late on starting dinner or that you’ve nearly missed picking up your kids from school.
Time’s All Screwed Up
The internet skews the perception of time. Losing track of time is common for online workers. It’s easy to get focused on the virtual world and forget the real world is moving past you.
This skewed sense of time has damaging effects on your life – and on your business, too. When you don’t have a clear sense of time, you’ll forget about what you have to do and eventually run your train off the tracks when it all catches up to you.
You may be in trouble if:
You’re starting to forget important things.
Your memory can only hold so much information, and eventually something just doesn’t get stored properly. If you’re trying to keep track of all you have to do, what you haven’t done yet, what’s late, what’s finished and what’s coming tomorrow, you’ll have trouble focusing on right now.
The Fix: Get tasks out of your head. Make a list, jot them down, put them on a calendar, use checklists, and find tools where you can scribble tasks so you empty brain space. You’ll be better able to prioritize your tasks and free your mind for the focus you need to get them done.
You feel like you’re constantly short of time.
Sometimes it’s necessary to burn the midnight oil, but eventually that oil runs out. If you find yourself constantly staying up late, working through weekends or days off, scrambling to keep up, and you still miss deadlines or come too close to them, you need to get some breathing room.
The Fix: Take a look at the way you’re planning your day. You could be scheduling far too much into the hours you have and surpassing your personal limits. Be realistic about what you can do in the time you have available.
You have no motivation.
Poor time management and procrastination go hand in hand. The more you have to do, the less you want to do it. You start to put things off, thinking, “I have three days left; I can get it done.” Before you know it, the three days are up and you’re scrambling because you haven’t started anything yet. Maybe you’re the type that says, “I have so much to do that I can’t seem to get anything done!”
The Fix:If you have a long to-do list, start with the easiest task. Focus only on getting it done, and then move to the next task. Break bigger jobs down into smaller tasks, too, and do a little bit each day. Don’t assign a huge block of time to only one project and especially not in a single day. Use a whiteboard and cross tasks off as you complete them. The visual representation of your progress is going to help you feel better and more motivated.
You’re Driven to Distraction.
When time gets tight or you just can’t seem to get started, you may find yourself focusing on unrelated tasks instead of what you have to do. Maybe you work on a project that really isn’t urgent or important. Maybe you clean your desk, do housework or play a quick video game. You tell yourself that the distractions will help your creativity. This is not useful, productive work.
The Fix: Distractions you create for yourself are often a sign of avoidance. You may have fears that you’re not up to the work you have to do, or you’re expressing a lack of interest. Sure, the housework has to get done, but when there are other priorities, you need to make time to focus on them – even if you don’t want to.
When you begin to be aware of how you spend your time, you’ll start to see where you can improve. Sometimes, you’ll be stunned to see how little time has passed when you feel like it’s been hours, or you’ll be shocked to see how much time you’ve spent when you thought it was just minutes.
How do you manage your time? Have you ever lost track of it? Do you find you get sucked into a time vortex often? Share your stories and the good time management tips you’ve found work well for you.
Image “The Persistence of Memory” by Salvador Dali
24 Responses to “A Skewed Sense of Time Screws Up Your Schedule”
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You’ve just described my last week! LOL! Thank goodness the craziness that caused it is over.
I use both a to-do list and my outlook calender. Everything goes onto the to-do list, and then I schedule it into the calendar with reminders that pop up and ring loudly at me. Even my daily routine tasks get scheduled.
I put in all family committments first, school assemblies, etc. Then work around those.
I realised long ago that if something wasn’t on the calendar then it wouldn’t happen!
I also have paper lists everywhere too, everything has to be written down or it will be forgotten five minutes later.
Sometime in the near future I expect to need to have to upgrade to some form of mobile calendar, however I’m attempting to avoid that as much as possible!
Melinda´s last blog post…Clutter vs Motivation – Clutter Wins But Not for Long!
Harry,
Sort of off-topic but I just watched an amazing (and sickening) video on Vegas’ manipulations of customers’ brains, now you’ve got me thinking about it again. Icky.
Me and time? LISTS. I would look like a 40-year-old with short-term memory loss without them. But I also would have looked like a 25-y-o without them, so… I’m not sure if lists saved me a long time ago, or if letting lists save me made me not exercise my brain enough. Too late now, lol.
No fair peeking in at my desk full of “stuff.” Yep, guilty as charged; when I let it pile too high, I don’t want to do any of it. I am a horrible rebel against myself.
Luckily, I know it, so I try hard to be chief in charge of not letting the pile get too high.
It doesn’t always work.
Regards,
Kelly
Kelly´s last blog post…What Polly Wants, Polly Gets
I need my to-do list. It keeps me on the straight and narrow, so to speak. I’ve tried various forms of them especially looking for something online, because I do spend so much time at my computer, but I haven’t found one I really like. So, the old pen and paper method works best.
Have you found any online to-do list you really like?
LisaNewton´s last blog post…A Los Angeles Scavenger Hunt
I have a couple of techniques to combat this.
1) I run both Windows and Linux on my machine and use Linux whenever I’m ‘at work’. By keeping my Linux desktop and application list slimmed down, I get fewer distractions (the fact that I can’t get YouTube or Tweetdeck working in it helps…) and psychologically the different looks and feels help me get into the right mindset.
2) Whenever I plan the hours in the working day, I always allow one extra hour for nothing at all – this then acts as my buffer zone during the day for distractions, unexpected problems, jobs that take longer than expected and so on. It means I don’t find myself constantly stressed by running late with projects, but does give me incentive to work quickly because I can finish work anything up to an hour ‘early’ on a good day.
@Melinda: I’d be lost without my to do lists, email stars and calendar too. When I get lazy and don’t write something down, 9 times out of 10 I forget it. In a pinch, I’ll say what I have to do out loud, sometimes voicing it helps me to remember.
@Kelly: I know, the casinos are both repulsive and fascinating. It’s amazing what they do to get people to stay and spend. And people wonder why locals don’t frequent them?
And I wasn’t peeking, I swear
@Lisa: I use the to do list in the project management system we use (Active Collab). I haven’t found one outside of that I really liked, but I do know Gmail now has a widget that functions as a to do list.
@John: Mindset is a big part of it, and so is forming the proper work habits. There’s also a lot of mind games we play with ourselves to get around the procrastination. Does that extra hour actually exist? Probably not, but thinking it’s there helps ease some of the pressure.
It’s amazing how much multi-tasking everyone does these days. And with so many ways to get ahold of people, we always expect them to be “on” and able to respond quickly!
Like you mentioned, it’s important to be aware how you are spending time – but also to make sure you are spending it effectively. That means if you’re out and have a few minutes to get work done, why not do it so that you can spend time with your family or catching up on chores when you are at home! Luckily our personal online webtop allows users to log on from any location, even your mobile phone, to work on a document, access files, or get some email out of the way.
GoEverywhere Team´s last blog post…What Saas is and how it’s changing the game
I use Google calendar that syncs with my Mac’s iCal and my iPod Touch. The key is everything must be sync’ed regularly.
There’s a bunch of to-do list apps as well. Things looks pretty good, although I’m waiting on The Hit List to come out of beta.
Thanks for the great article. If I didn’t have a family, I’d definitely lose track of the days. But thanks to the kids’ school schedule, I am quite aware of the time, thankyouverymuch!
Dave´s last blog post…Swing or Nothing Promo Shots
Oh, wow! Talk about a timely blog post. I am a *terrible* procrastinator, and there’s also the work writing/fiction writing division I have to make in my head.
Personally, I couldn’t live without my dayplanner. The days have HUGE spaces for writing, so I can pretty much fit my whole life within its pages.
Like others here, I also use Outlook Calendar, but I’ve been using it more for meetings than for deadlines.
I do have to kind of disagree with the “don’t assign a whole block of time to one project” suggestion, though. Personally, I’ve found that doing only a little bit each day (or scheduling only a little bit each day) leads to that project getting pushed back. If I say “OK, I’m going to knock this SOB out,” and just sweep my morning/afternoon clean and do it, I find that it gets done a lot faster than it would otherwise. (I picked that method up from Brian Tracy’s book “Eat That Frog!” It’s awesome for motivating.)
In terms of time management, one of the most helpful things for me is keeping a routine. I try and stick with doing the same things at about the same time each day and follow set patterns (I know, I’m SO boring!).
This also helps me to not forget things. My daily to do list, combined with my love for routine, helps to keep me on track.
Sometimes losing track of time isn’t all bad. If I am inspired, motivated and focused, hours can pass very quickly. When I’m done, I’m exhausted but satiated.
George
Tumblemoose´s last blog post…Guest posts are like dating 2.0
The long to-do list is a killer for me, but I’ve recently discovered Google Tasks, and I plan to post about my system. Totally rocks.
@ Tumble – Losing track of time isn’t all that bad, but when you say to someone, “I’ll be there in a sec,” and they tap you on the shoulder two hours later, that’s not good. Or when you forget that you need to be somewhere (even though you reminded yourself 40 times just a few hours ago), not good either!
@ Michelle – Breaking tasks down actually does help to accomplish them faster and to higher quality standards. For sure, if you’re on a roll, ride the wave for all it’s worth, but making a habit of only working on one project until it’s done actually tires a person out and makes their work less up to standard.
Try it, you’ll like it!
@ Dave – There are plenty of apps that all work together for a great system, I agree. The best ones are the ones that let you do everything from one place and avoid having to have multiple apps, browser tabs or programs open at once. I have to say, Google rocks for this centralized one-stop system.
@ Goeverywhere – Personally, I’m not so sure that the world is lucky that everything is available all the time no matter where you go. I think this exacerbates multitasking and the inability to get a break.
For example, a coffee shop used to be a place to relax and enjoy a coffee, take a break. Now it’s just another efficient place to get coffee, work, hear background noise, etc etc. The break time and benefits getting away used to offer are gone, and we’re encouraged to do a million things at once because of that access. It’s nice to get away just to get away, sometimes
@ John – Woot!! You get bonus points for actually scheduling in that buffer time! Yes! That’s an excellent, excellent way to live. You get a free hour to do what you want, and you didn’t have to compromise your schedule to get it – it’s already part of it!
@ Lisa – Yeah, without a to-do list, I’m lost too. Like I said, though, Google Tasks just rocks when used well!
@ Kelly – Hehehe, you think, “Icky” and I think, “Oh, coolness! Check out what they do!” If you have a link to the video, I’d like to watch it.
@ Melinda – You get bonus points too, just for being a maverick. Scheduling work AFTER family? That just rocks, simply because the norm has become the opposite now. Good on you.
James,
It had the “oh, cool” thing going, too, but… well, I’m not going down that road again here.
Do watch the vid, you’ll see what I mean.
(Link’s in today’s post at MCE, by the way. Says “if you do nothing else today…”)
Later,
Kelly
Kelly´s last blog post…MCE Round Table: Tell Me a Story…
Oooh, bonus points! I feel honoured! LOL!
I haven’t heard about Google Tasks, so I’ll be looking forward to seeing your post about it.
Melinda´s last blog post…Monthly Book Giveaway – Win in Business by Peter Irvine
Hmm. Not a big fan of the online to-do list (I like drawing arrows, brackets and other symbols on my to-dos too much), but I might give Google Tasks a try for the big overarching projects.
I take a 3-pronged attack to time mgmt: my calendar, where all appointments are written down; my SwiftFile (my favorite tickler file), which gives me all the papers I need to do those things that day; and my to-do list (on the back of a piece of scrap paper, and always in pencil), which is sketched out the night before and put in that day’s SwiftFile folder.
Writing it out, it looks complicated. But it’s way easy to follow and helps me get a lot of stuff done.
Catherine Cantieri, Sorted´s last blog post…Your family (is a) business
Thanks for the wake up call Harry.
Nothing you said is earth shaking but it is all things that are easy to forget. I have to make lists, and it’s not just old age, I’ve always needed to supplement my limited brain capacity.
Your comments about avoidance are spot on. In fact I should be writing an article right now but I thought I would check my reader for a little inspiration. I was inspired by this post to get to work. So in this case it was a good thing to see what others had written. Usually it is just a way to put off the inevitable.
Back to work.
Andy@no carb foods´s last blog post…No Carb Starches
@Catherine: Hey, whatever method works, right? I have a clipboard with a pad of paper on it that I use for quick notes, only problem is, I also have all the pads I’ve used up before too. What if there’s something important in those notes in that pile over there? I try to use online as much as I can, it’s just neater for me.
@Andy: Nope, nothing earth shattering at all, just common sense really. Although today I feel like my time management has gone right out the window, I’m still scratching my head wondering how it got to 3 in the afternoon already.
“How many of you have been trapped in the online vortex?”
Answer:
“It’s simply beyond words. It’s incalculacable.†Michael Scott – The Office
Jonathan | EnlightenYourDay.com´s last blog post…Quotes from the book: Spiritual Sayings of Kahlil Gibran
As an inveterate procrastinator, I’ve found hundreds of online distractions that keep me from getting down to a task. There is always one more link to follow or one more e-mail to read.
The key for me is to corral all these distractions in their own time slot. Early mornings are for reading general mail and checking a select group of web sites. Unless I get a notice of a work-related e-mail or site link, I spend my day in Word, head down.
Naturally, I avoid Twitter like Dracula avoids garlic.
Ed´s last blog post…Thesis
In terms of time management, one of the most helpful things for me is keeping a routine. I try and stick with doing the same things at about the same time each day and follow set patterns
When we are interested with “object” we will focus at the object and will forget anything except that “object”
bmenews´s last blog post…Samsung MITs M400
I absolutely agree, Sometimes i just completely lost in to the work i am doing, and cant even realize how fast time passes..
You are right, in a way that it’s easier to lose track of time in Casino as well as on the internet. But when it comes to which is the bigger addition for me, I’d have to say the internet. Casino I play until I lose to a certain limit, but with internet, there is no end!
One of the things I want to do is develop a good sense of how long it takes me to do something. Better time estimates lead to better scheduling, better sense of what I can commit to, and ultimately less stress and more happiness. =)
lol, yes, nicely said.
I am working from my home office and I’m experiencing the same issue of losing track of time.
Im forced to plan my working hours and daily activities on the paper so I can do more in less time.
I liked the “casino story”, Ive got pretty similar situation at my desk and coziness of my office makes me forget about outer world..
At the end of the day or night I’m always asking my self “where did the time go”.