Time Management

**This 1800 page text was written about a month ago. I wrote this near the end of my writings, during the time where I wanted to explain a technique to begin your day with. But not a 5-step process–this teaches you how to analyze the process and learn how to achieve your own proper routine. This is also unfinished, but should be plenty to begin your self-discovery process.**

Morning Rituals

During my latest engineering position, an interesting fellow introduced me to podcasting. I was unaware of this aspect of entertainment and quickly fell in love with the art. I listened to hundreds of conversations through these podcasts. The conversation topics varied greatly. Many of these conversations would last for two to three hours each. Because my work was fairly dull (after getting accustomed to the position) this helped fill my day with intrigue and assisted me through the drudgery.

Learning much throughout this time, the knowledge came from all angles. I skipped most of the comical segments and listened to the deep conversations that could be about anything. Oftentimes, from these guests, they would be selling their own version of lifestyle management. This is what I do as well, in reality. I see mine as a whole version, but that is because I have not allowed myself to corner into a niche. Either way around, I have come to hear of many folks’ versions of their best time management strategies and I have attempted to employ each one at one time or another.

On one show, guests were asked to reveal their morning routines. One of the best ways to have a great day is to begin the day as great. This has become obvious through listening to each person. However, this “great beginning” is very subjective and could range from quiet time to intense intercourse. During the time of my listening to all of these ideas, I would have landed on the more intense side of this (though I was mostly solo). The ideal mode for initial waking — as subjective as it is — is very dependant on a person’s current goals and should reflect that course.

I will attempt to address this issue here. Providing a guide to find what your morning should look like. I have no need to tell you THE BEST MORNING RITUAL EVERY PERSON SHOULD TRY!!!

Rise and Shine

Waking to the new day should bring a smile to your face. If it does not, then that is where your problem should be addressed. Continuing on through a typical ritual of waking, you would roll your head to the side and look around. Wiping away the gunk from around your eyes or wiping the saliva from the corners of your mouth or stretching your arms out over your head and straightening your legs with quivering motion. Releasing the tension from the night, you begin to loosen each joint in succession. While your first thoughts come to mind and you think . . .

This is the time to consider.

You think and then say what is on your mind. You may think and exclaim that the alarm is driving “you bonkers” and that “the noise is dreadful to your ears” or “I must have missed the alarm”. This is the typical morning, of the typical worker (or perhaps that was just me). These things should be considered and then not said. The use of the statement is what confirms your initial thought — instead of saying the thought — you should decide to not confirm the initial thought by saying it. By doing this, you do not allow the thought to materialize. This would be your first step in changing your morning ritual.

Looking at the flow of this method as that like “Groundhog Day”. Repeat the story until the story becomes a masterpiece.

[You] now awake with a grimace to the alarm sounding to your most loved tune. The one that you set so that you would begin the day in a great mood, but now that song has become a less-favorite song at other times throughout your life because you now attach that wonderful sound to the negative aspect of “needing” to leave your otherwise comfy setting.

Should we pause here for a moment? Perhaps.

This is another time to consider your options as they may be addressed. This is the fate that I am aware of because I have mistreated three favorite songs in this fashion and I have barely escaped the connection of this reality even while I minimally use alarms in my current scheme. The association is a dire one, in my opinion and it should be addressed — the song should be removed from your morning alarm if you awake with dissatisfaction to the sound of an alarm. You should not associate your pain with your pleasurable music. There are multiple solutions to this problem, but the first should be to change your alarm to a normal — jarring alarm, as this is preferable to the pain/joy association going forward in your life.

[You] roll your head over and look towards the window that “should” have bright sunlight shining through, yet you see the dark silhouette of the trees behind the curtain. You hear the chiming from your alarm and quickly bash the device until it stops bleating into the still air. You think to yourself, “my life sucks, I should not have to go to work right now, this is stupid, why am I doing this shit still?”, but then you decide not to say these thoughts . . . instead you decide to say: 

“This day will suck a little less than yesterday”.

That works. Anything beats the other idea. Say nothing if you prefer — if you can manage. Say that the day will be beautiful. Say that you look forward to petting your dog in a minute. Say that you look forward to a hot shower. Say anything that isn’t fully negative. Say something that has a negative aspect but in a smartass way if you must — to morph that negativity.

Continuing on with this course of action, let’s jump to the meat of the point of what I wanted to address as I, myself just awoke to start my day. I have begun my work-day within the first five minutes of waking.

[You] awake to the jarring sensation of hostile noises in your room. Hastily and blindly smashing buttons on the clock with deceptive precision, you wipe your eyes and yawn, stretching your arms out, you think to yourself how the night seems shorter every day, but you decide to hold that comment back. Instead, you loudly growl, “GRRRR” and shout an unruly explicative!

You successfully completed step 1… Great job!

Before Leaving Bed

Now, to continue on with the practice.

The first step would have happened almost instantly — within seconds — the whole concept takes place. It is a normal reaction to awakening to a conscious state. As we leave the unconscious state, the occurrence always happens in the same manner. This could occur after sleeping, a knockout, a surgery, or other event.

• sudden awareness of new environment
• use of 5 senses to analyze your surroundings
• add location via context clues & hazy memory
• full awareness of time/location/duty
• instant realization that you must react
• repeated use of senses/memories/clues to determine scenario
• troubleshoot and decision
• take action

The process only allows a few instances to add your own input. However, at each interval, there is much that you add with your own experiences. You add all the knowledge that each bit of information may contain. You may happen to know more about the color spectrum, you may know more about the logistics of traffic at 8:00 am, you may have psychological training on behavior analysis, you could have studied any number of subjects that may influence any of these context clues that are to be analyzed (instantly) by your sensors.

The body is known to run on auto-programming for a large percentage of our lives. Once we have learned a task, that task can be done with excellent precision and with no driving force from the taskmaster in charge. This is the way that we are able to continually grow, otherwise, we’d still be intently concentrating on finding food. We never would have grown beyond that, much less any of the other tasks that led us up to that point. This auto-programming in modern society allows you to manipulate the gear-shifter in a manual transmission vehicle without realizing that you have done so. It allows you to zip your zipper and button your pants after urinating. There are far too many examples to show — the list is endless.

The ultimate point is to realize that in those tasks, you still have an opportunity to slow down and morph those interactions or actions into a more desired program.

Taking these ideas into account, you may look at any moment in your life and apply that same focus. Once you add the focus, you are able to change your perception of the event and create a more desirable outcome. At times, this is more challenging than others, but with the mindset that you are in a mode of evolution or growth, then you will always have a reason to continue — even if the action involves pain. As we have heard throughout our entire lives, “pain induces growth”.

“No Pain — No Gain”, is fairly true, but it is truth for the reasons that without the pain, then you would have no need to change. At times of comfort, we don’t want change. We don’t need change. We become normalized. [I almost said satiated, satisfied–but that is wrong]. We become normalized to our situations and with the situations of those around us and then begin to compare “our results to your results”. Results, experiences, expectations, or whichever way you would like to phrase — the meaning is of perception.

Looping these ideas into one:

• pain causes you to look at your situation
• see the opportunity to make a change within your routine
• take a moment to think about the task
• using your knowledge to apply a change in habit
• change of perception

Obviously, this all wasn’t fully explained, but the fact of the matter is that this scenario is what takes place within the loop. You must aim to continue to use this new change until a resolution occurs — either [this change] will fix the solution or it will not. If continued pain occurs, then you should re-evaluate and make another change. However, you very likely already know what you need to change and you need to buckle-down and try that. Especially if it will bring you pain in the process — once you conquer that pain, you will grow beyond the initial perspective and see through to the other side. You will then be able to see from your old perspective and also from the new; giving you the ability to see a wider scope and understand more about your peers.

Unswaddle Yourself

Look at those ideas that come to mind as you enter this process. The problems that you face are the sheets that bind you in your sleep. Remove the problems and you will begin to see your naked self. Only after seeing your naked self will you begin to see the true answers to those problems. You have to break down to this point in order to fully heal from your problems and begin to regrow with the new perceptions. Growth begins in the mind — without a change in perception, you will never grow out from under an old habitual problem.