Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Free Time

Is an oxymoron.

There, I said it.

Chris Brogan just wrote a post about managing your time, and that it's your business. Allow me to elaborate further. It is a business. That is yours. I'm not going to tell you how to manage your time, that's for you to decide.

I could make this a nebulous Seth Godin-like post and end here, however, I believe that would be a disservice, therefore, I'll elaborate. And maybe expand on a few of the ideas I've read lately, including Chris Penn's. He actually was elaborating on his previous post.

Now, I could make this an elaborate discussion about the various points mentioned in the somewhat referenced articles, complete with bullet points and action items, however, again, that's for you to decide.

Here's how I do it.

Twitter and Facebook are mentioned as distractions, and that may be true. For you. As all of you should know, they are part of, The Experiment, which as always, continues. I recently passed the two year anniversary of same, and so far, it's been successful beyond my expectations. Maybe for the three year anniversary, I'll actually let you in on what it is.... But of course, if I do that, it will taint the results. Something about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle at work.

I have seven blogs that I write for, at various times about various subjects, including this one. I realize now that I should've put this one on my Idea Masters™ blog, as time is an idea that I may have mastered.

"Bow down to me, Time!!! I am, your Master!!!" And when I say that, I'm actually writing it for you to do, as your evil laugh is quite possibly better than mine. And I don't have the time to create the 12 second Twitvid required. Maybe I'll do that later.

We are all time travelers. We move forward, one second at a time. Well, that can be broken down further if you're a computer, but for the general populace, it's a good enough measure. Here's where the business part comes in. I charge for my time. $150/hr, minimum 2.  Of course, first contact is free, and I don't expect you to pay me to show up at your party, if you're inviting me. Just don't ask me to pay to be there. I'm not showing up.

There are certain things I do at various times of the day, and I've been pretty successful at compartmentalizing them. Some would argue that multitasking is a bad thing, however, I find this not to be true. While I'm writing this, I'm also tweeting, answering email, listening to the TV in the background, and finishing up a screenplay adaptation I got hired to do.

Some would argue that at any particular second, you can only focus on one thing, and that's probably true, for them. It's a learned practice to be able to do more than one thing at once, and then not think about the fact that you're actually doing more than one thing at once. The five senses come to mind here, as you're probably not actively responding to those stimuli right now, however, you are quite possibly doing at least two or three of them while you're reading this.

So, if you truly believe that you have free time, meaning, time that you're not charging yourself or others for, then go ahead, have fun this week. Or, you can do what I did yesterday. Figure out that time with your family is more valuable than anything you would possibly charge for, and spend time with them. Just realize, you are spending time. Not free.

56 and rainy in Redondo Beach.

Let me know what you think after you adjust your expectations accordingly.