I have five minutes to write something. Anything. I don’t have time to mess around and deliberate and be brilliant. I have to write. In the moment. Five minutes isn’t a lot of time.
One of the things I’m experimenting with at work is putting constraints into my day as a forcing mechanism. If I have too much time or too much freedom I inevitably mess around and procrastinate instead of doing the hard work. But when I “don’t have time” or have lots of meetings I have to be wise with the time I do have.
So it got me wondering if maybe putting some timers and measures into an open day might make me more effective. Tomorrow is my no meeting day. I am adamant with my calendar that I have one day a week without distractions and where I own my time and how I use it completely.
But I’ll be honest I haven’t used that time well about fifty percent of the time. Why? Because I’ve had no plan. I’ve set goals that aren’t realistic or measurable and frankly I’ve done things that are easier instead of the deep work I need to do to be effective. It’s easy to think you have more time than you do and then to squander it.
So tomorrow I’m going to get out my pomodoro timer and set short specific and achievable goals in small chunks throughout the day. I’ll measure my success at the end of the day against the goals I set in the morning.
And I guess the whole point is that constraint breeds good hard work and success. Or at least I think it does. Too much time on our hands can create a false sense of security. And then to wondering where the heck eight hours went at the end of the day and why you got nothing that matters done.
Ok I went over by about a minute. But hey the constraint worked. Five minutes to get something done. To write. This is a good start.
How do you use constraints in your day to get the important work done?
