How to Get Shit Done

Time management is a frustrating issue for a lot of people. Everyone has the same 24. It doesn't get bigger or smaller. Yet, there are people who get more stuff done than others. How do they do it?

There is a lot of advice on this matter and almost all of it is wrong. The first school counsels planning. You go out and get some schedule, calendar, planner, back of a grocery receipt-whatever-and plan out your day. By the end of the day, you will find that you are no more productive than you were before except you blew some additional time with all that planning. Beyond writing important dates down on a monthly calendar, this is a waste of time.

The second school counsels having a To Do list. This is somewhat helpful. Having a litany of good intentions will increase the guilt a bit.

The third school counsels elimination of all distractions such as videogames, television, email, etc. All this achieves is to add boredom to idleness.

The fourth school is the minimalist school which counsels diminishing your expectations to your present level of failure. By focusing on only the essential or most important goals, you will get more done. Less is more. This is bullshit. Anyone who manages his or her life on a crisis-by-crisis basis already does this.

When it comes to time management, we need a real world solution that gets it all done but is also very simple. To appreciate the solution, we must first diagnose the problem.

Let's take a fictional example. We will call him Billy Bob. Billy Bob has 168 hours in his week (the same as the rest of us.) He sleeps 8 hours each night. He works 40 hours per week. This leaves him with 72 hours of Waking Free Time or WFT. This is three whole days!

Now, let's take Suzy Q. Suzy Q is driven. She sleeps 6 hours per night and works 80 hours per week. Her WFT? 46 hours--almost two whole days. She could work another 20 to make it an even 100 and still have an entire day of WFT to blow. You can do the same exercise with your own life, and the results will surprise you. Simply put, you have no excuses. You have plenty of time to do the things you want to do. But where does all that time go?

Idleness. There is your answer. All that WFT you have is frittered away on idle pursuits. Maybe you have a long commute. But even time behind the wheel is time that can be spent on doing something productive.

The secret to getting shit done is ABD--Always Be Doing. That's it. Determine never to be idle, and your problem won't be finding time to do things. Your problem will be finding things to do with your time. You will quickly exhaust that To Do list and will need to think of new things to add to it.

The problem with all those other time management strategies is they spend more time thinking about the problem than actually doing something about it. This is just another form of idleness. It is called daydreaming. Stop thinking and start doing. This is the answer.

Like any habit, ABD takes time to develop, and you won't be perfect at it. But it is the only one that works. Even an incomplete habit of ABD will yield more results than those other methods.

Critics of my ABD strategy will say that this will lead to stress and burnout. This isn't true. It isn't the activities that you do that cause stress. It is all that shit you didn't do that causes stress. Getting shit done leads to a greater sense of control and less stress.

When you follow ABD, you get into a flow state. You live in the zone, and you actually enjoy life more. The good life does not lie in idleness. ABD brings happiness, control, and freedom to your life. This one habit becomes the cornerstone of many other good habits such as exercise and eating right. I know most of my bad eating habits come from eating fast food, convenience store garbage, and vending machine crap because I never have time to fix myself a healthy lunch. With ABD, I have the time and quit making excuses.

ABD will also do wonders for you on the job. You will produce more and achieve more. You will also enjoy your work more. There are also practical tips for doing ABD. Sometimes, you get trapped in the car or a long line or a waiting room. It helps to have projects for these times. I read about one fellow who wrote a novel during the daily ferry ride to and from work. You can listen to audiobooks or learn a language during your commute. I carry an iPod shuffle for just such times. Thanks to iTunes U, you can get a college education while you drive. There are endless possibilities here.

There is a downside to ABD. Other people are not going to share your life for productivity. You may have to tell the office slacker to fuck off when he comes by for his daily shoot-the-shit session. Being a doer instead of an idler is a revolutionary act. You may lose some friends.

If you follow ABD, you will get more shit done. GUARANTEED. You will experience a more robust way of living, and the habit will reinforce itself as you go along. You will also quit wondering where all your time goes. The end result will be achievement and happiness.

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