"I don't have the time for this..."

How many times have we heard that? We spend hours in front of the t.v. blah blah blah (almost boring myself here). The point is, we waste so many minutes each and every day that we could easily spend the time to do it.

How do I manage my time? Do I make little Excel spreadsheets with every minute of every day accounted for? Maybe I carry a little stop-watch around to make sure I spend exactly 00:01:17.427 on a task? Do you reckon I'm crazy? Of course not! 

You know what I never seem to only have one or two of, but heaps instead? Receipts. For a species about to destroy the planet and all its natural resources, we sure do love to waste some extra of these by printing receipts. I often ask cashiers, "Please...no receipt." only to be informed that I can "Throw it away, here." or "The system does it automatically." It absolutely breaks my balls, but that's another point entirely.

To answer the original question regarding the way in which I manage my time, "By filtering things I need to do and scribbling the results on a receipt or random piece of paper." Why filter? At any given point in our highly complex lives, there are a number of things competing for our love. "I wanna read that book." "I want to become expert at maneuvering my feet in a French fashion!" "I need to pay Eskom for the ability to not use electricity, because that's how they make their money."

The only way in which we'll get any of this done, is to filter it. We'll simply be overwhelmed if we don't. How do we filter it? Applying a handful of steps. Before we start filtering, we write down absolutely everything that would be grand to get done today. To the point where it would be a thing of beauty, a day to call the Guinness Book of World Records about, since we would have been so productive if we got it all done. 

Our first step of filtering: only mark the things we absolutely MUST do. As in - if we don't do this, the earth might never be the same. If we don't do this, our creditors will file a motion to put us away forever. Mark these with the letter "A". That's our first filter. 

But what if our list is wrong to start off with? Then the post-filter result would be wrong. I'll let you in Wednesday on the vital secret of how to make sure the original list is accurate, BEFORE we start filtering it.