Space to Value Time

Tim Urban (waitbutwhy.com) talks of time optimism. It is a euphemism/kind way of referring to being late. Busyness is a form of laziness. If you are time pessimistic, you leave space. You don’t start new tasks if you don’t have the time to give them the necessary container (focused attention). You allow space, to be on time. On time *for* people. As a matter of respect. If you are constantly making people wait for you, you are not going to get many chances. But that does mean, as the time pessimist, you are regularly going to be the one waiting. Because you have created space. That space is partly an acknowledgment that other people’s time is as important as yours. We all get 24 hours a day, rich and poor, powerful and powerless. Busyness is often used as a conspicuous signal of importance. We can’t know what people are doing that matters, but being late implies that thing is more important than the person you keep waiting. When you're doing a presentation, “sorry, I put this presentation together at the last moment” is not good enough. It means in a room full of 10-100 people, that you think that your time is worth more than all their time combined. Because it is the one true point of equality, we should not waste other people's time. 

"Why I am always late", by Tim Urban

Hand to Mouth

Some common ground between anti-capitalists (labour should get all the reward) and anti-welfare (work ethic/ safety nets make people lazy) is a romanticising of work. Work for work’s sake. This commits us to hand to mouth living. Hand to mouth living commits us to cycles of booms and bust when our hands aren’t sufficient. Hand to mouth living commits us to hunger when there is not enough work. If you think of work as problem solving, then presumably you want the problem to be solved. We shouldn’t be afraid of technological advances solving problems, or increases in supply of people able to solve the problem making it cheaper to solve. We shouldn’t build borders that keep problem solvers out. We shouldn’t want to create fake problems just to keep people busy so we can pay them with “dignity”. We should welcome the spread of knowledge. This can only come if we turn everyone into owners. With Capital that moves from solved problem to new or harder problems. Work isn’t just a way of keeping us busy. The last thing we should be killing is time.

At the Centre

My income comes primarily from my Engine. I spend very little time managing that Engine. My investment philosophy has become gradually more aligned with that of my Yoga teachers and Natural Bee Keeping Father-in-Law. When students love their yoga classes, they can get obsessed with the teacher. It’s not the teacher, it’s the yoga. In the same way my Father-in-Law sees his primary role as getting out of the way of the bees. It’s the bees doing the work. The key advantage I have with investing is I don’t manage other people’s money. This means I don’t have to do any of the fake work required by our activity obsession. I can let the management and staff at the companies do the work. I can get out of their way. It’s not about me. When a problem needs solving, our intuition is to do something more. I believe the real solution lies in the opposite direction. Accepting that problems will arise. That noise is learning. Building structures that can adapt, adjust, and accommodate. That can listen to change. That can rest, heal, rise, and shed in their own natural rhythms. Learning to hold space rather than fill it with our determination to be in control. Our determination to do something where we are the centre of the story.

Boxes of Fake Work

Fake Work is partly to blame on time being such an easy container. Good business ideas are when we have a clear ask and a clear offer solving a problem. The ask-offer-problem needs to be put in a box so you can charge. Time is a lazy and easy box. Once the lid is on, you don’t need to know if the ask and offer are clear anymore. There doesn’t even need to be a lid once people get used to buying and selling boxes with fairy dust in them. Especially if the person in the box needs to be in the box to survive. South Africa has structural Great Depression level unemployment. This means there is plenty of Fake Work where we kill people’s time to give them “the dignity of work”. South Africa is not alone. Even in Rich countries, many office jobs have dead periods of time… but the employees aren’t being paid for the work. They are being paid to sit in their box and be busy.

Any old box will do

Popcorn

One of the ways to cope with our worlds feeling like they are falling apart is to focus. Narrow the number of people and issues we care about. Turn off the news. Turn off the phone. Work harder. Throw yourself into something that requires all your focus.

Busyness is a form of anti-depressant. A way of dealing when things are too hard to deal with.

When I stopped working four years ago, I stopped being busy. I became 'the guy with time'. Less money because the paychecks stopped, but more time. My intention was to put the effort I had put into building client relationships and growing businesses, into deepening friendships and strengthening my ability to deal with the challenges of life. To contribute in a non-financial way.

A result of this is that I have largely let go of 'the escape hatch'. In a world with multiple exit points, there is normally a door to run for. I don't run. But, what this means is that I am surrounded by popcorn. The way a friend recently described many of the things going on around me. I am not at all unique in this way. The difference is that busyness anti-depressant is no longer in my medicine cabinet.

I don't have the answer to this. It is something I am wrestling with. My sense is that in general we are too busy, and that is why the corn is popping. My sense is that we don't always put the work in, in time, on the things that matter, in order to stop the pop. 

Liquidity and Resilience

Never be a forced buyer or seller. Price (and salaries) are not a measure of worth. Price is a clearing mechanism. If you really have to sell something, the price is going to be much lower than if someone really wants to buy it from you. Value is deeply personal. Liquidity is the accounting measure for the 'availability of liquid assets', i.e. cash or things that are easy to sell quickly. Sometimes you have to pay bills when they come due. You don't have time to sell things for what they are worth. This is where Resilience comes in. The ability to deal with short-term knocks. The ability to respond to the things that are important now without putting at risk the things that are important always. This requires consciously building buffers. Not putting everything you have into every situation, so that when challenges or opportunities arise you are busy. So busy you put the things that matter at risk for the things that don't. So busy it kills you.

The Busyness Delusion

Being busy is not a sign of being successful. It is a conspicuous way of demonstrating that your time is very valuable to other people - even if it isn't. Much like finishing your work early, but then not leaving for home because you don't want to appear lazy. When you are starting a small business, there is no point in doing that. Your boss lives in your head. Chris Gardener has written a book for small business owners called 'The Busyness Delusion'. After several years working with various small businesses in an auditing capacity, then as an independent Financial Director, he has developed a framework to help those who want to venture out on their own to develop Financial Security. The kind that creates the foundation for the freedom to pursue the things that really matter to you. Which doesn't include being busy for the sake of it.

Are you busy?

Port Style

Many of us suffer from time poverty. An overwhelming sense of too much to deal with. 

I believe in Monotasking. We can only possibly have one conscious thought at a time. We can 'do' lots of things in parallel. We can build processes that automate action. We can't think in parallel. Which is why most meditation isn't thinking 'nothing', it focuses in on something - e.g. breathing. Then practices coming back to that focus point when you stray. Stilling, rather than killing, thought.

I am wary of specialisation. One response to 'busyness' is to be brutal in your selective ignorance. 'Say No' more. Ignore more. Specialise. Go deep. I am too keen to go wide to make that choice. I want to go deep in going wide. To be a constant beginner.

It is like we are at a bustling Port City during the age where far-flung places that used to be connected by foot, were now connected by sea. Do you choose to focus on just one language and only speak to those who speak that language? Move away from the Port. Or do you listen to the rhythm of the noise. Open up to whatever new words arise. Open yourself up to learning. Develop comfort in the discomfort of the Port.

Languages like Afrikaans and isiXhosa show lots of influence of the various cultures that brought them into being. A Pidgin is a simplified language formed by a few groups that don't share a common tongue. A Pidgin is kitchen talk. Cooking. A Creole (like Afrikaans) is a more stable language that has developed from a variety of languages. Afrikaans only stabilised by moving out of the Kitchen. The formal Afrikaans I learnt at school is not the stuff that gets spoken in the homes of the diverse communities that make up the original kitchens. Eusebius McKaiser argues that it is time to 'decolonise Afrikaans' and get it back into the kitchen.

That 'Age of Discovery' must have been similar to the tech ports (social media) we are now facing. It must have been overwhelming. New smells. New sounds. New tastes. New animals. New buildings. New colours. New, new, new.

The challenge is how to sit on the docks, being open to the new, while not jumping around excessively. To always have time. Being open to learning Pidgins, while leaving the Port now and then to focus.

Fragments of Brazil

'World Map'

Seaport 1683

Meaning in Doing

One of the push backs on the idea of a Universal Basic Income is the belief that needing to work is a necessary motivation. That if we didn't have to work, many of us would just sit on the couch, drinking and watching TV. I don't believe in the idea of 'work for work's sake' - a job that is done to kill time, or keep someone occupied so they don't get up to mischief (idle hands are the devil's workshop). 

We are largely awful at handling leisure time. Some people are scared of free time. We often spend more time thinking about how to treat clients and colleagues than we spend on our most important personal relationships. They get relegated to the 'when I have time and energy' pile. 

Most of our education goes into thinking about how to work. We don't go to school to help us figure out what to do on weekends. Work is the default. Work is the meaning delivery device. We don't wake up in the morning and think if there is work to do. We get up and go. The work expands to fill the time allocated. There will always be more. The lucky ones have jobs where there is meaning in their work. Where even if the concept of money didn't exist, they would carry on doing what they are doing. Where work is more than need.

The questions of giving meaning to what we do is a more interesting one than just making sure we have to do something. 

The Little Things

The problems with only focusing on the big things, is you never get to the little things. They are never important enough. But they niggle and they gnaw. A friend of mine who has been a very successful businessman said his goal with the little things was to never give them more time than they deserved. The best way to do this was to do them straight away, not to put them off. Another friend said she started her day with three little task. Ideally in the first hour of the day she would be able to say she had got something done. If she was being very diligent, she would right them down on a list for those moments when you wonder if you are no further forward than you were a week, month, or year ago.

Another way to handle the 'less important stuff' is to delegate. I have a big problem with delegation. Not that I can't do it, but that I think there is an implicit message in delegation which sometimes causes problems. When you say, 'Can you do this, I don't have time', you are also saying, 'I have a list of priorities and this is not high enough up on the list, can you put it to the top of yours.' Delegation can be a power play. A statement that you are above a task.

It is different if the task is delegated as a learning mechanism. But I think this is often a cop-out. Learning curves are often quite steep and then flatten out. If you are still delegating a task to someone when they are already very capable at it, then you are back to power games. The best leaders I have known are the ones who roll their sleeves up and get stuck in alongside the people they are working with. There are some things that can't be communicated up. 

Make your own tea, for example. Obviously when you are busy, it seems like 'n las (a burden). Making for a few other people when you need to get a few moments away from the desk buys you a few free cups later. Write your own emails. Put your own presentations together. Cook your own dinner from scratch at least occasionally. Dishes. Bed. Rubbish. Dusting. Shopping. Don't ask other people to do tasks you aren't prepared to do yourself at least every now and then.

If you constantly delegate because other things are more important, you can end up losing 'competence at life'. The truth is, if you don't make time for the little things, the big things will swallow you whole.

Never be too big to make tea

A Little

Four years ago I did my first Yoga Teacher Training course. I spent a month in the Austrian mountains surrounded by snow. Not the sludge I had seen before. When the winter's sun shone and we went for walks, we would be surrounded by perfect snowflakes. In this beautiful space, our small group ate well, exercised, and sat listening to people who had spent a lot of time thinking. It was one of the most magical periods of my life. 

A little beauty

It normally takes a little while to wind down from work, and then time to wind up when you go back. I called it Concertina leave. You panicked to get things done before you left, and panicked to catch up when you get back. By having four weeks, and not checking calls and email, my mind and emotions were able to completely devote themselves to a healthy life.

A little unsquashed time

The days were very structured. But each moment made sense. Slowly, I was easing creaks out of my body and increasing my level of calm. I was surrounded by wonderful people. With time to think, there were moments when people broke down a little. Processing some of the stuff we keep bottled up when we are too busy. There was time. Time for the healing too.

A little exercise

At some stage, you come back to the real world. But it gives you pause for thought. I know there are these beautiful places all over the world where people live simple, fulfilling, affordable lives. It is interesting why that is not the life we aspire to? What is it that we return to?

I get frustrated with people looking at measures of 'poverty' which are relative. A common one is the percentage of people living below 50% of the median income. I am sorry, but that is a ridiculous measure. It ends up with you saying bat crazy things like 1/3 of children in palpably rich countries are impoverished. I prefer absolute measures of needs that distract you from living. Running water. Basic meals. Secure accommodation. Healthy lifestyles. Time and ability to read, think and be part of a community. The measures you choose matter. They are the things you will elevate in importance.

A little good food

If you look at relative poverty, those teachers who sat with us would fall under those benchmarks. Rather look at a life worth aspiring to. The more they want can't be measured. The little they have is inspirational. 

The Great Escape

One of our most powerful survival mechanisms is selective ignorance. We only pay attention to a few things. It's why time is so powerful a medicine. Even things that matter deeply to us lose their hold on our attention. It also means being busy is as powerful a drug as alcohol. Like the art of distracting a baby when they are crying, being busy can move our attention away from the things that get us down. Being busy also fits neatly into our love of progress and visions of a better future. If you are busy, and things go wrong, you have a pre-built excuse, 'Sorry, there is nothing I could have done, I was busy'.

Having time is liberating. It is also daunting. There are lots of big challenges in the world. There are lots of big challenges in our own personal lives. If you have time, you have time to think. You have time to gain perspective on your own worries by seeing the traumas others are going through. Sometimes it is much easier not to do that. Not to watch the news. Not to read books like 'Country of My Skull' by Antjie Krog. In it she covers the stories that came from the Truth and Reconciliation commission in South Africa. It is tough reading. Each page is hard. It is easier to be too busy to read.

When you are busy, your world shrinks. It focuses. If you are having troubles at home, there is no time to think about it at work. If there are political troubles in your country, you can leave it to someone else while you do your job. If there are people starving, people dying in wars, people who would love to spend time with you, you know this is true, but you 'don't have time'.

Many dream of escaping into retirement, but perhaps work is the escape?

Beyond Archy

I have always had a chip on my shoulder when it comes to people being in charge of me. I bristle when given instructions. Particularly when it feels like I am being treated as a machine. A thing that can do a thing. Go. Some of the biggest mistakes I have made in team situations have been when I have forgotten that most people feel like that too. I am not a unique snowflake. As soon as time pressure increases, there is often a thingification of people as corners create a task focus. Consensus, listening, encouragement and all the warm, fuzzy things that make us like each other get tossed aside. There is a job to be done.

Inner Darth rises when in a corner

We are not machines. As things get really busy, emotions like anger, frustration, and excitement bubble to the point of boiling over. Some people like this. They like the edge that jumping from corner to corner creates. It helps motivate them. A lack of time to breathe means you are always doing. Always being productive. The pressure outsources the need for an incentive to be motivated, because there is never a pause. 

I simply don't like myself in corners. There are few people I have met who manage the art of being in a corner while maintaining their appeal. I don't think it is worth it. I also think there is seldom a reason to rush. We can get addicted to the cocktail of emotion from pressure. It can be our fix that makes us feel we are 'doing something'. Adding space is the first thing you should do when you are really busy. The more important the stuff you are doing, the more important the breathing room.

Gandhi was once told he had so much to do in the day, could he cut out his meditation? His response was that if you are twice as busy, you should meditate twice as long. 

What this does is open the possibility of getting rid of the Archy that gets so annoying. If there is time, there is time to work together on problems. The need for Archy comes when the information is closely held. The plan is closely held. The various moving parts need central co-ordination for the grand plan to work. The addition of a little pressure helps with the cooking. Thinking gets upsourced but the person at the top is too busy too think.

I believe most of the thinking and decision making should be done on the front lines. The further from the action, the more real information gets lost in translation. Leadership should be a platform for action. It should remove obstacles. We shouldn't wait for some amazing, inspirational, insightful Philosopher Queen to arrive on her dragons and lead us from our woes.

We don't need instruction or permission, we need community. Communities need time and make more from it than busyiness. Beyond Archy is space.

The Cobwebs

I have had various stabs at playing the piano. Today is the start of another. When I purged most of what I owned and headed down under for a couple of months, I handed my piano over to a friend. This morning it has returned home. I can definitely not just sit down and play. I am still very much a beginner. When time and other things get in the way, you take a few steps back and cobwebs build.

What I am interested in as I jump back in is how long it will take to get close to where I was after a shorter gap. I bought the keyboard in about October last year. The gap then had been about 13 years. I had only been a beginner pre-gap, having done lessons while teaching at a school in Chichester, England. I tried to push on teaching myself, but put it aside when my studies got overwhelming. Priorities and all that jazz. I really enjoyed getting back into it. There is something quite magical when your fingers seem to detach with a life of their own and the sound starts to have feeling.

We often put aside things we love because of 'more important priorities'. Some call it the Protestant Work Ethic, but it is not just protestants who work hard. There are things that are seen as indulgent and things that are seen as realistic and contributing to the greater good. We can be seduced by success and sucked up into only the things we are good at. When you dive into the indulgence, the guilt soon kicks in. Should I be do something else? Often it isn't even indulgence. Simply sitting still for a bit can be seen as an unproductive use of time. Laziness. 

I don't see time spent on things that don't make anything explicit as indulgence. I am a big believer in looking after your energy levels. It is not about balance. It is about filling your self up with creativity and passion to be able to solve some of the more vexing problems in the world. The idea that we need to 'put aside our childish ways' in order to achieve more important things than play is just plain silly. 

If you brush aside the cobwebs, which of your childish ways would you breathe life back into? 

Scary Time

We are scared of free time. When Keynes started to speak of progress leading to 3 hour work weeks, largely for those who felt like it, social psychologists started to panic about what people would do! See this article by the Economist on 'why is everyone so busy'. History has typically been about survival. Survival sharpens the mind and keeps you active, busy and alive. Survival keeps you alive, good one Trev.

We have a goal of retirement and we think, a little, about what to do in those golden years. There are dreams of fishing, or golf, or reading but typically most people never get to the point where they can comfortably retire. Sometimes this is a strong motivator that drives us to do work we would rather not be doing. My friend Megan has done some detailed work looking at retirement adequacy targets. I will need to find updated figures, but when I was working in the space in South Africa the figures were about 6% of people could afford to retire and about 1% of people could afford to retire and maintain their the standard of living. The figure thrown around is you need to be able to continue to generate around 75% of your pre-retirement income from your investments. Much of Meg's discussion is whether this figure actually needs to be higher. Most people never get there, and when they do they often have very little energy left or feel daunted.

My Father and his wife run 'Potential Unlimited' where they put together courses for people making the transition to retirement. They focus less on the financial side and more on the psychological journey. Retirement 'involves restructuring your time, changing your role, re-defining your social interactions and finding new goals, meaning and purpose in life. Many individuals approaching retirement experience increased anxiety about the nature of retirement and what to expect.'

I think their project is interesting. I also think that that type of thinking should maybe start when you are 6 rather than 60. Education is wrapped around how to generate an income. We don't actually spend much time at all on how to spend that income, and more importantly how to spend that time. Our answer has always been to spend our time surviving. A very small slither of the community has had to deal with the 'problem' of how to occupy themselves when at leisure. The irony discussed in the Economist article is that while 'work' used to be a dirty word for the financially free, many of the very wealthy are becoming more stressed. The job of Chief Executive Officer is usually rather unpleasant in many ways. A case of careful what you wish for.

We think very consciously about one side of the equation. How to generate income and how to generate a nest egg. My suspicion is that we need to give more thought to the other side of the equation, and perhaps escape from the direct financial terms. Instead of Income Replacement, perhaps we can think of time replacement and the perfect day. If your perfect day includes a good nights sleep, a walk in the park, visiting friends, a swim in the sea, an afternoon snooze, a little reading and a couple of hours doing something you love (dancing, painting, music) you may find you are a Cultural Billionaire. You may find getting better at using your time is an easier way to reduce the amount of money you need to do it. That is part of the aim of this blog. I have spent years focussing my attention on trying to understand money and how businesses work. Now I want to spend time thinking about time.

One way of spending time as a Cultural Billionaire