Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
The Focusing Effects of Mortality
Last week I read a great article on trade-offs in an online magazine called 99u. The article confronts something that I talk to clients about all the time, sometimes obliquely and sometimes more overtly.
We are all going to die.
There, I said it. Shocking, isn’t it? How can we be free to pursue happiness if we are busy outrunning death?
We have a limited time on Earth; we shouldn’t just be buffeted along in panic/reaction mode. We should contemplate our values and allocate our resources—time and money—accordingly. For example, are you passionate about your career? If not, is there a way to work less? Are you on six committees, but only one of them is exciting and meaningful to you? Do you spend too much time sorting your stuff and not enough time with the people you love?
I have found children to be wonderfully focusing. When my first son was born, he was my diaper-clad excuse to turn down invitations to join various activities, and when eventually I did have more time, I had learned both to be more discriminating and also how to decline gracefully.
Time management isn’t just the micro, like answering your e-mails for half an hour and then turning off your alerts while you do an important project, it’s also macro: Do my choices align with my values? Or, to put it more succinctly, What am I doing with my life?