Time Management for Mortals

Here are my very rough notes from Sam Harris | #289 - Time Management for Mortals, followed by a summary generated by GPT-4.

Introduction

• It’s common to feel like there’s always something about our life that isn’t quite right, like we’re always trying to fix something about it
• It points to a fundamental issue: understanding our finitude (finiteness of existence) of around 4000 weeks, we will all be dead any minute
• Our choices therefore matter, as with finite time every time we choose to spend a portion of time on one thing, we’re choosing not to spend it on a million other things instead
• However, this also means that with so many options of things to do (articles to read, career ambitions, places to visit, people to see/date, etc.) there’s always vastly more to do (that’s worth doing) that you will ever have time for
• There’s a mismatch between what we can conceive of doing and what we can actually do, and this mismatch can be painful
• Even worse, we have little control over how our time unfolds, so while our choices matter we can never know if they were the right ones so we’re totally vulnerable to events
• We can therefore never achieve the “authentic sense of security that we crave”

Responding to our finitude with emotional avoidance

• We find ways to not deal with the finitude, believing that things will be “figured out” in the future
  • e.g. Real life will begin when we graduate from college, or get married
  • e.g. Time management obsession: we believe we can eventually be so efficient and disciplined that we can do everything that matters to us, avoiding the tough choices and not having to risk the emotional vulnerability of not knowing if things will work out
• We will do a lot to avoid feeling claustrophobic or imprisoned from our sense of finitude
• Can lead to managing time not to make the best of our little portion of time, but instead to make ourselves feel like our time is limitless/omnipotent or will be as soon as we manage time/discipline better
• This doesn’t work as it fails to acknowledge our real situation, may even make you busier, more scattered, less fulfilled
• A main goal of these lessons: give up on the impossible quest, put down the burden of escaping non-negotiable limitations, recognize that:
  • There will always be too much to do
  • None of us will ever enjoy certainty about the future
  • There is no moment of truth coming when things finally make sense and life can begin
• Recognizing this truth involves a defeat that’s also liberating and powerful, and leads to better things:
  • Ending the struggle with time
  • More accomplishment, success, joy, wonder, focus
• “There’s no time like the present”

Busy vs. overwhelmed

• Busyness not be the essence of your problem if you feel like you don’t have enough to do, or the things you’re doing are insufficiently challenging/meaningful
• It’s still a good place to begin undoing the mistake in our relationship with time, and the idea that we need to master/dominate time
• Solution: step wholeheartedly into our non-negotiable human limitations
• Often complain about feeling busy when the actual problem is that we’re overwhelmed
  • “Busy”: having plenty to do and plenty of time to do it
  • “Overwhelmed”: more things we need to do than we can do in the available time, can be things to realize potential, meet obligations, etc.
• Can feel anxious about neglecting things or resentful about the world’s demands on us
• Feels like we must do more than we can, and we experience pain in confronting this gap
• A lot of time management advice maintains the promise that we can bridge this gap if we’re optimized enough, that we can do enough and (if self-worth is tied into this) justify our existence

Efficiency trap: quantity vs. quality

• Pursuit of efficiency can actually make you busier, more stressed, less focused on what matters
• Trying to fit more can lead to delaying the most important things that “need our full focus”, spending our time on less important things that need less concentration
• If convinced that we’ll get to a time when we can handle everything, if some new request or obligation comes up we’re much more likely to accept it without asking if it’s truly worthwhile
• Efficiency can play a role (e.g. finding a pair of socks shouldn’t take half an hour), but it’s never the main answer
• Need to be willing to not clear the decks, to accept that there are things on the to-do list that we’re not doing currently, and to know there are things we could be doing but turn our attention now to what matters to us
• John Keats called this “negative capability”, the ability to stay with one activity whether it be a project or person that matters to you even while there are other things calling for our attention
• We can’t get rid of those other tasks, but we can give up hope of getting to the end or of achieving peace of mind when we’re on top of it all
• Treat it as something you dip into occasionally with no expectation of completion
• Can move something like reading emails to the end of your work day, focusing on just spending a prescribed amount of time rather than on completion (inbox zero)
• Spend your most energetic time on the things you care about most even if the other decks aren’t clear
• Allow the anxiety from undone tasks, spend a few hours on what feels important anyway
• Can be a surrender or “giving up,” but we’re giving up an escape from the reality that there’s no chance we can ever get everything done, instead making the most of the time we do have

Fear of missing out → joy of missing out

• The idea that there’s something different we should be doing may be more common in modern times
• Hartmut Rosa: A few centuries ago, most people probably believed in an afterlife (so less depended on making the most of this life) or they believed in some cyclical history, or they were more fixated in the socioeconomic roles they were in, so this FOMO may not have afflicted them as much
• Instead of ceaselessly trying to close the gap between our life and our available experiences and discovering that we can’t do it, we can shift the fear of missing out to a joy of missing out
• Even the most successful life involves constantly waving goodbye to an infinite number of possibilities
• The hundreds of choices we make in a day make a life, but also close off the possibility of countless other lives

How we avoid taking responsibility

• Facing up to and taking responsibility for the fact that we’re always making these choices is daunting and anxiety-inducing, so we evade responsibility in some of the following ways:
  • Numb ourselves with distractions and busyness
  • Convince ourselves that we don’t have choices that we actually do have (no option to leave a career, leave a marriage, etc.)
  • Obsession of personal productivity can allow us to avoid the finitude and feel like we can do everything without making tough choices
• The internet promises to help us make better use of our time while exposing us to more uses of our time, including distractions when we want to shift our focus from stressful choices
  • The tool we use to make the most of life makes us feel like we’re missing out on more of it
  • FB shows us events we may enjoy but also ones we cannot attend, online dating, etc.

Fear of missing out doesn’t make sense

• The human condition necessitates that we will miss out on nearly everything, so the fear of missing out doesn’t make sense
  • It’s like worrying that we’re unable to make 2 + 2 = 5, but we don’t need to worry about this as we definitely can’t do it
• Missing out isn’t just unavoidable but it’s what makes things worth doing, life worth living, and gives meaning to our experiences as our finitude gives weight to our choices and means that something is at stake
• We often think of our finitude as a problem, which is perhaps arrogant and entitled
  • When we say “life is short” we often compare ourselves to a hypothetical immortal being
  • Makes more sense to compare us to the people that were never born in the first place
• Can think of life as a menu in a restaurant rather than a to-do list
  • Instead of viewing our possible experiences as a to-do list where we miss out if we don’t complete everything, we can view it as a menu with a list of items we can choose from
  • The choices we make are then an opportunity rather than a terrible fate
• Can embrace forgoing certain pleasures or rewarding experiences, because what we decided to do instead (e.g. make money, feed a family, etc.) is how we chose to spend time that we had no right to expect

Deciding is a crucial time management skill

• Develop a habit of making more conscious decisions
• Aside: decision fatigue has a bad reputation, and it can be real but is worth putting aside for now
• We don’t know (and may never know) which decision is better
• We avoid feeling compelled to make decisions because we don’t want to acknowledge what we’re missing out on
• Want to avoid the negative aspects of the path we choose so we avoid making choices, instead clinging to a feeling of control with perfect fantasies
• However, keeping our options open and staying mired in indecision is also a decision

GPT-4 summary of key ideas from my notes

• We find it tough to accept our finite existence and the limitations it comes with. We indulge ourselves in believing that we can eventually manage and control all aspects of our lives.
• Our choices matter immensely as each decision on spending our finite time eliminates millions of other possibilities. We must accept that we will miss out on some things and this is not something to fear, but a condition of simply being human.
• We often try to escape the reality of our finiteness by obsessing over time management and efficiency, hoping this would allow us to do everything that matters to us.
• The key is understanding and accepting our limitations. There will always be too much to do and it’s okay not to do everything. Accepting this reality is liberating and leads to ending the struggle with time, subsequently, enabling focus, joy and success.
• When feeling overwhelmed, we often misattribute this to busyness. True busyness is having a lot to do and ample time to do it. Overwhelmed refers to having more tasks than time, creating a gap that can cause stress and anxiety.
• The pursuit of efficiency can make you more scattered, stressed and less focused on what matters. It could make you procrastinate the important tasks and focus more on the less important ones.
• We need to cultivate ‘negative capability’. Be willing to not clear all tasks, focus on what matters the most, and let unfinished tasks be.
• The Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is more about our inability to bridge the gap between our life and available experiences. Transforming this into the Joy of Missing Out allows us to wave goodbye to endless possibilities and focus on our choices.
• We often avoid taking responsibility for our choices leading to distractions and busyness. Numbing ourselves per se isn’t the solution, acceptance and conscious choices are.
• The internet appears promising to optimize our time, but it often exposes us to even more distractions and possibilities, amplifying the sense of missing out.
• Accept that missing out is not just unavoidable but a part of what gives meaning to our choices and our lives. Instead of viewing life as a to-do list of experiences to be completed, view it as a menu from which you can choose based on what you value and deem important.
• Developing the habit of making conscious and deliberate decisions is a critical skill in managing time. Avoiding a decision is also a decision in itself.