1.11.2008
In case you have been working with a time management coach (or have been
reading a time management book), you probably know that there is more to
time management than just optimizing the amount of tasks you can do in a
given period. It's not about cramming as much activity into your precious
hours. It's about making most of your time. And there is a difference.
Good time management coaches or books encourage you to reflect on what
you do, when you do it, and in what context you do it. An activity normally
is part of a bigger project: most of the things we do aim at a goal that
can only be reached by several linked steps. And obviously, there are
all sorts of projects: small and big ones, more or less important ones, those
that we just do by ourselves and those which involve many people, those where
we are pursuing a goal set by ourselves and others where the goals are
prescribed to us by someone else.
Consider all the things that you have done today. Some of them were
perhaps idle activities (relaxing and daydreaming perhaps for half an hour
in the evening); some were necessary to keep basic everyday life going (such
as shopping or sorting out your insurance paperwork); some were steps in
projects that you have chosen yourself, that are important to you (perhaps
you went to the Driving Range practicing your Golf swing, in order to
get nearer to that handicap you would like to have).
Have you thought about how you get to choose what to do next? Sometimes
this is more or less obvious, but often enough you have many options, and it
depends on careful choice here which of your projects move forward more
quickly, and which get stalled. Just getting into the habit of reflecting
on your next actions, and deciding deliberately what to do next, will make
you much more effective without any change in working speed or work load.
So much is common wisdom, at least among those who know a bit about time
management. (But still it might help to point out these things from time
to time, to spread the word to those who don't, and also to refresh the
point for those who did know already.) There is a more general point behind
this insight, however. Choosing which action to take next, with a view to
what your projects are, will make you more effective; choosing any action
with a view to what your personal projects are, and what you expect from your
life, will make you a better person - and ultimately happy.
For ancient Greek philosophers, this generalized insight is the entry point
to any serious ethical reflection.[1] As long as you just act (or react)
situatively, i.e. on the basis of what you see and want in the particular
situation, without a view on what your overall goals are and what sort of
a person you want to be, there is not much that you can gain from ethical
reflection. Ethics, just like modern time management, starts with encouraging
you to step back and think about your wider goals, and your character: what
do you want to achieve, and what kind of person do you want to be. Ethics
being more general than time management, it is not only choosing tasks and
activities, but also the content of your views and actions that is at stake,
of course. There are no longer just more or less effective choices of tasks,
but there are right and wrong actions, correct and incorrect views, and
good or bad sorts of behavior. Ethics has a very wide and general scope.
But still, it is very much about choosing well among the actions, beliefs and
attitudes that are open to you at any given moment.
In ethics, then, it helps to develop a habit of looking at what you are
doing and thinking, and asking how that fits with the view you have taken on
your life and your goals. Ultimately, anything you do moves you either
forward in, or astray from, what your overall goal should be: leading your
life as well as possible.
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[1] For more on this entry point to ethical reflection, see Julia
Annas, The Morality of Happiness, Oxford: Oxford University Press
1993, 27-46.
