Rule 11 - Finding Time

Time is the measurer of all things, but is itself immeasurable, and the grand discloser of all things, but is itself undisclosed. – Charles Caleb Colton

It all boils down to time. After all, money is just the value we place on time. It makes sense then, that the most valuable gift you can give is your time. Because, we don’t know how much we have, we cannot make more of it and once it has turned into yesterday we cannot get it back. When we are young it seems to go on for ever and yet our time maybe up tomorrow.

If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of. – Bruce Lee

If time is the most valuable thing we have, then it makes sense to maximise our return. How? Through the routine and discipline of prioritising our demands, executing on our priorities, measuring our output and adapting as needed.

If you are not the master of your time, then time will be the master of you - i.e. you will not have any. Routine is about setting up habits, rituals and behaviours to optimise your time. It is the discipline in these routines that gives you freedom, the freedom to choose what we do with our time.

Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back. – Harvey Mackay

The first step in prioritising your time is to apply the Pareto Principle. Research has shown that 80% of your output will typically comes from 20% of your input. With that in mind you need to figure out what your 20% input is and delegate as much of the remainder of your input as possible. Leaving you time to improve the quality of your 80% output.

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life. – Charles Darwin

My favourite tool to manage my time (priorities) is the bullet journal. To quote the Bullet Journal website, it is “the analog system for the digital age. The Bullet Journal is a customizable and forgiving organization system. It can be your to-do list, sketchbook, notebook, and diary, but most likely, it will be all of the above. It will teach you to do more with less.” I would call myself a digital kind of person, but there is something about writing things down and the customisable nature of paper that has won me over. I have been using it for two years now and think it is the best tool for solidifying thoughts, remembering tasks, prioritising demands and tracking output.

The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience. – Leo Tolstoy

It is safe to say that you cannot make a baby with nine women in one month. That sometimes things take, what they take and putting more resources on it will not accelerate time. So you need to deploy a little patience, with some determination thrown in. You can always throw an extra scraper fleet info it, but a D11 can only do so many pushes an hour. Meaning you can physically only fit so many scrapers into the one area and a D11 can only push so many 651s per hour. This is particularly true when it comes to changing groups of people, changing cultural habits.

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin. – Mother Teresa

Question: How do you find time? Answer: Take control of your time, to find time.

Time is, time was, but time shall be no more. – James Joyce

Check out The Engineering Rule Book for the other rules.