📄 Me, Make, Meet

One of the reasons we struggle to be productive is because we think time management is the solution. But, as David Kadavy tells us, it's about mind management, not time management. You can't really manage time: it's there and it runs out, and there ain't nothing you can do about it. If you then fall into the trap of trying to 'manage' your time, all you'll achieve is creating a frustrating exercise in futility. No matter how carefully you plan out your tasks and meetings and projects, you'll always need to deal with disruptions and distractions - no plan survives first contact with reality. But there's one thing you can do, and it's really effective: Carefully avoid switching from one mental context to the next. Because that act - moving from one type of mental activity to the next - is extraordinarily costly. Think about it: Doing research on customers requires an attitude of absorbing information and making connections.

Nor can you do much about the constant interruptions, the distractions, and the way algorithms aim to

How much time do you tend to give to taking care of yourself - mentally, emotionally, physically…?

How much time and attention do you give to making things?

Whether art, or writing, or whatever your creative activity is?

And, how much time goes into connecting with people?

Emails, meetings, social media, phone calls...

For most of us, one or more of these things get underserved.

Especially in the artist world, there’s a lot of ‘mostly creating’ where the other two suffer.

But in order to have a healthy business, each of these three need to get the attention they deserve. Otherwise it’ll be hard for you to prosper.

One of the things I’m doing to improve my business and live and productivity, is - you guessed it - creating systems around how I spend my time.

Because while I can - and usually do - get a lot done, I often end my day wondering what exactly I’ve accomplished.

Horrible feeling: you can tell that you’ve been hard at work, you can feel it - but you kind of forget at what.

So here’s something that I’m going to be putting in my calendar every working day:

Three blocks of time: Times for Me, Make, and Meet.

I came across an article by a former manager at Google, called Graham Jenkins, where he explains - and it makes so much sense!

Sure, I already have my ‘me-time’.

That’s my morning ritual, which includes reading and meditating and going for a walk.

But very often, because I don’t have an actual plan, I jump from task to task without actually really being focused.

And inevitably, either the make time or the meet time suffers.

But that’s going to change.

I could try to explain how to make use of the me, make, meet principle, but Graham does a much better job at it.

So today, I’ll simply point you at the article: http://grahamjenkin.com/2010/03/27/me-make-meet-how-to-manage-a-ux-managers-calendar/

Because hey, I’ve got things to make, you see?

Check out the article, see if this is something you should also implement.

Obviously, you might not have ‘meetings’ like a startup founder does - but you still need to connect and communicate with people, so when he says ‘meet’, just think of it as connect&communicate.

Have fun, people.

Cheers,

Martin