Time management

I have a problem with time management. I know I am not alone in this; in fact, I know I am not alone in practically any of the problems I have, except for the dilemma I experience each day when trying to decide whether to put on my right or left shoe first.

But with time management, just the fact that when you Google that phrase you get more than 40 million results shows how important the topic is to so many people. However, let’s face it, Googling itself is one way that many of us waste inordinate amounts of time. Can you imagine if Google had been available in Shakespeare’s day? He would probably have written a play or two, and maybe a couple of sonnets, and that would have been that. He would have become so fascinated by things like tracing the origin of the term “methinks” that we’d never have had Macbeth or Hamlet, not to mention Coriolanus.

The only real reason we have a need for time management is that we are mortal. Sure, you can always counter the admonition, “We don’t have all day,” with the retort, “I can always do that tomorrow.” But when someone says to you, as they most surely will some day, “Come on, you don’t have all century,” how are you going to respond to that?

I could look up stuff on some of those sites that Google listed, but who knows how much time that would waste? So I’m just going to share with you some of my own ideas on how to waste less time and do the things that are truly important.

1. Don’t set any goals. If there is nothing you feel you have to achieve, the whole concept of time management becomes moot.

2. If you must set goals, make them very easy to accomplish. For example, some good goals are to brush your teeth every morning and every night, and to get dressed before you go outside.

3. As an extension of this, make your “to-do” lists as undemanding as possible. It’s so much easier to do all the things on your list when it’s “brush teeth, go to the bathroom, eat, watch TV, look at YouTube, etc.” rather than “go grocery shopping, drive the kids to soccer practice, do a wash, etc.”

3. Get less sleep. Did you ever notice how much yawning successful people do?

4. Don’t spend unnecessary time talking to people, including your spouse. If your spouse says, “You hardly talk to me any more,” just grunt. If that doesn’t help, grunt twice.

5. Since keeping quiet all the time could be off-putting, learn how to use your words manipulatively, in order to get people to do the things you misguidedly think you should be doing. Learn to reinforce everything anyone else does that is helpful to you. It is amazing how a well-timed “You’re so good at that!” can relieve much of your burden, while making the other person feel good — until he or she is exhausted by their workload.

6. Learn to say no. Keep saying no to everything anyone asks you to do. Eventually, people will stop asking. No one will call you. Your friends and family will have nothing to do with you. You will be left alone. And then time management will be easy.

7. Drink or take drugs. It won’t help you manage your time, but you won’t care.

8. Stop texting so much. I don’t know if it’s wasting your time or not, but it’s annoying the hell out of me.

9. Prioritize. What is it that you really have to do? The answer: Nothing. So go back to sleep, but, in line with #3, not for too long.

10. Keep asking yourself this one simple question: “What is the point?” The planet is heading toward oblivion. Nothing matters. Stop worrying about how to manage your time, and enjoy our spring-like winters. Remember those immortal words by songwriters Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey: “Take it easy, take it easy/Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.”

I mean, “easy” and “crazy” don’t even rhyme, and do you think they cared? They could have wasted much of their time playing with lines like, “Don’t let the dust of the desert make you wheezy,” or “Don’t go outside, it’s too breezy.” But no, they knew that they didn’t have forever. So “crazy” was close enough.

Writer’s note: If going on YouTube is one of the things you have on your “To Do” list, check out the new video of my song, “Please, Professor” (“Please, professor, give me a B…”). It’s the official music video for the song, directed by Allyson Ferrara, starring Sam Borenz, and featuring a rockin’ recording made in 1977!