PEBBLE
Time flows in the same way for all human beings;
every human being flows through time in a different way.
~Yasunari Kawabata, shared via Grateful Living
BOULDER
Help me to be less fearful of the measure of time, and more fully alive in the time that simply is. Help me to live time, not just to simply use it; to breathe it in, and return it in acts of love and presence.
~Avis Crowe, shared by Bridget in British Columbia
PONDER
I originally paired up these quotes to use in a talk on time & energy management that I gave earlier this year for the SentryU team at Sentry Insurance. I was giving them an overview of how my time management content had shifted over the last 30 years.
Earlier in my career, I focused most of my time management content on maximizing effectiveness and efficiency by helping people with four main skillsets: motivating, organizing, proritizing, and scheduling. I also liked how Chris Bailey framed productivity as a confluence of well-managed time, focus, and energy. James Clear’s Atomic Habits was definitely a game changer for me both personally and professionally, and we’ve quoted James Clear quite a few times over the past several years, including in Ripples #1291, #1254, #1222, #1172, and #1168.
More recently, I’ve tried to help people find the right balance of effectiveness and enjoyment: getting most (but not all) of the important stuff done while living a life that includes ample amounts of joy. Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals gets referenced frequently in my talks these days, and you may remember me raving about this book back in Ripples #1246: Happy Here, Happy Now.
I can’t cram in an entire time management workshop into a 60-second splash of inspiration, but how about I offer you this: if you’ve been on a furious quest to use time more wisely, could it be useful to pause a bit right now and wonder how time might use you a little more wisely?
Peace,
Paul
P.S. Both writers mentioned above have newsletters that I enjoy immensely. James Clear’s weekly 3-2-1 Newsletter includes 3 ideas from him plus 2 quotes from other folks, and 1 question to ponder. Oliver Burkeman’s The Imperfectionist newsletter usually comes out a couple times each month and is consistently worth waiting for. And guess what else? They are both FREE, just like these Ripples.
