When you start your computer, what is the first thing you do? My answer, until today, was open the internet browser to check email, then Facebook. If you own a smart phone, you might not even wait until you reach your computer to initiate this ritual. I used to check my BlackBerry in my first thirty seconds of wakefulness each morning, and often before nodding off every night.
Today I realized the terrific folly of this arrangement: I am letting other people dictate the FIRST THING I DO EVERY DAY. This sets the tone for my whole day. Equally egregious, the last thought that enters my mind before sleeping is, again, someone else’s priority. Who knows how much sleep – precious unconscious time for problem solving – I’ve wasted sorting out someone else’s worries?
This is completely backwards. My own priorities should be my first priorities. Other people’s priorities should come after mine.
This sounds obvious to me now, and might to you also. But email and Facebook have a way of making us feel good. They give us something to do, make us feel busy, validate that someone else is thinking of us. When I boot up to find ten unread mails and five Facebook notifications, my ego is there in the background shrieking like an excited chimpanzee.
Starting tomorrow, BlackBerry charging will occur in the office, and my home page will be my Big List, a Google doc where I capture all the projects I’m working on, planning, or contemplating. I will check email at 11am, and remind friends and colleagues to call with any urgent matters. We’ll see how things evolve from there.
Credit for my revelation goes in part to Tim Ferriss. His book, The 4-Hour Workweek, illustrates how most of our assumptions about how to spend our time are wrong.
Today I realized the terrific folly of this arrangement: I am letting other people dictate the FIRST THING I DO EVERY DAY. This sets the tone for my whole day. Equally egregious, the last thought that enters my mind before sleeping is, again, someone else’s priority. Who knows how much sleep – precious unconscious time for problem solving – I’ve wasted sorting out someone else’s worries?
This is completely backwards. My own priorities should be my first priorities. Other people’s priorities should come after mine.
This sounds obvious to me now, and might to you also. But email and Facebook have a way of making us feel good. They give us something to do, make us feel busy, validate that someone else is thinking of us. When I boot up to find ten unread mails and five Facebook notifications, my ego is there in the background shrieking like an excited chimpanzee.
Starting tomorrow, BlackBerry charging will occur in the office, and my home page will be my Big List, a Google doc where I capture all the projects I’m working on, planning, or contemplating. I will check email at 11am, and remind friends and colleagues to call with any urgent matters. We’ll see how things evolve from there.
Credit for my revelation goes in part to Tim Ferriss. His book, The 4-Hour Workweek, illustrates how most of our assumptions about how to spend our time are wrong.
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