Underschedule to Overdeliver
Posted in Ambiguity, Behavior, Creativity, Culture, Curiosity, Happiness, Innovation, Less is More, One minute unlearning, Paradox, Passion, Spiritual, Unlearn Strategy, Wisdom
It sounds paradoxical. How can you over-deliver on results by under-scheduling your day? It's easy, really. First, by underscheduling your day you will give yourself some time to think and reflect. And, by taking this time you will, counter-intuitively, come to focus on those things which are truly important. You will drop the clutter from your life. To help you achieve this goal, I'd like to suggest making a not-to-list.
Second, as Cal Newport writes in this wonderful post on The Minimalist's Guide to Cultivating Passion, underscheduling your time will also leave you time for unstructured exploration and it is within this unstructured exploration that you will not only find your passion, it will also give you the time to follow-up on that passion and then deliver that product to the world.
So go ahead don't just do something, sit there. Unlearn your bias toward constant, hectic action.
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2 thoughts on “Underschedule to Overdeliver”
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Great tips. I am relatively diligent about scheduling my days (see http://ow.ly/2B4zp for my technique), but do not always program in enough white space. We all need the time to create and iterate. Important but not urgent, so we need to force the discipline to make it happen.
Jeff:
Thanks. I reviewed your technique — great ideas.
Jack