Most times I do well in getting the things that are important to me done through various strategies like waking up at 5am and applying the rule of “paying myself first” to time. This kind of time management is key for ever getting to do those long-term tasks that are really important but get pushed aside by less important tasks with real deadlines.

But despite putting effort into time management efficiency, there are definitely some high frustration periods when the external priorities of the tasks I am currently doing are grossly misaligned with the importance that I place on them internally. Often times this means someone else’s deadline supersedes the tasks important to me. I’ve found that sometimes this frustration can be healthy and has lead to some interesting side-effects.

I experienced this kind of priority misalignment frequently in math class, having to take 6 math courses to meet my degree requirements. Math at the university level is not something I have any real interest or requirement for, so for me it’s a massively expensive (in both time and money) and wasteful endeavour. Internally math had very low priorities, but professors had other ideas and were quite insistant that exams be studied for, written, and passed. What a priority mismatch!

In times like this where much of my time was dedicated away from what I really wanted to be doing (likely working on some aspect of my business), I noticed a strange creativity phenomenon. Frustrated by the lack of time I was able to devote caused my brain to really spit out a slew of ideas for the project that I wanted to be doing. I’m not sure what happens internally, but it’s probably some combination of short attention span and my subconscious making up for what my concious mind isn’t being allowed to do. I’ve gotten into the habit of scribbling these ideas down and capturing this creativity burst as fully as the situation allows. In lectures this meant bizarre notes that combined business plans, product design, and differential equations.

It’s hard to fully encourage this kind of technique since this would commonly be referred to as being a poor student or worker. However I’ve had some of my greatest ideas and “Eureeka!” moments during the kind of caged-in times where the short-term work fully overwhelms my schedule.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 8th, 2006 at 5:43 am and is filed under Productivity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.