I went to a meeting last week that ended up being about time management. (Is there anyone who will admit to having time on their hands?! Being busy is some sort of macho - but equi-gendered - badge of honor: I'm SOOOO busy; I have SOOO much to get done.) There was the usual whining about the uniqueness of one's time demands (Is there anyone who will admit that they are LESS busy than other people they know?!) and then a sharing of a spate of techniques, touted as the New Thing, to manage time more effectively, when in reality business consultants have been teaching these techniques to the rest of the world for three or four decades.
Ah, academe. So out of touch.
In my view (because I can't resist being a Time Management Consultant to these over-important people), there are only two ways to free up time: 1) do less; and 2) do everything faster. It's like losing weight - eat less, or burn more calories. Everything else is, so to speak, gravy. The "do less" strategy was broached at this meeting, but the person who raised it was stomped on because he suggested that one's colleagues might be able to provide a second opinion to help one figure out what projects are no longer relevant and should be dropped: "How dare someone presume to tell me what I should or should not work on?! They don't know my work as I do!"
Again, I say: Ah, academe.
I haven't been doing any serious reading lately, which is why I am crabbing about meetings instead of musing about European history. B. guilted me into starting the Neil Stephensonson trilogy. I am about 1/4 through the first book, and it's fabulous!! - in the root sense as well as the populist sense of the word. Ah, well - what's a summer for if not to enjoy life? Theorizing the transition to capitalism will still be a problem in September and I will deal with it then.
Hey, I've spent the past year + mastering "doing nothing", it's been GREAT! It sux now that I'm going back to work.
Posted by: chris at July 18, 2004 05:08 PM