31. When You Can't Do It All

Father and Daughter talking at home. The Daughter is attending the Time Management course at NILS.

F: How is the course going?

D: Nicely. Yesterday we had this applied session and that was loads of fun.

F: What did you do?

D: The teacher gave us all some individual tasks and asked everybody to finish them in three hours.

F: What type of tasks?

D: Different types of activities. I had to type a one page handwritten report on a computer, had to go to the canteen and get a coffee, go up to the roof and take a photo of the street, watching YouTube videos, make an appointment table for the next two weeks..

F: Since when do have enough appointments to keep a planner?

D: No, no. It was a mock assignment. They had given some appointments and I had to schedule them along with regular NILS classes.

F: Okay. Then?

D: Then I also had to chat with another participant in WhatsApp. The topic was what we both did on Saturday. But we both needed to describe it in chat only, not by talking. Then I had to allot some time for prepping lunch and eating. Not in reality, but I had to give some time for that and had to just sit quite when that was going on.

F: Like you cannot do anything else when you are cooking or eating?

D: Exactly, but I utilized that time by doing the chatting task. And the guy I was supposed to chat with could not multitask. He stopped working every time to write or reply. He ended up very much beyond time.

F: So, they gave you a bunch of jobs to do in three hours so you learn how to share time among different tasks?

D: Initially, yes. But then nobody could finish. Then for the last hour it was a question of what to do and what to let go. Basically an application of priority analysis.

F: Hmm. It started with time sharing and ended with prioritizing. Did you learn anything?

D: I told the teacher that it should be the other way round. First, do the priority analysis and cross out things that are not important. Then do the important ones with all the time in the world.

F: That way you will label everything you don’t want to do as unimportant and won’t even bother trying to do it. I know you very well.