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time management

So. This is time management according to I Love Lucy.

Ok.

Who would have ever thought I would be using Lucy from I love Lucy to make a point? (certainly not me)

Ok.

Seriously.

Who would have thought anyone would be using I Love Lucy to make a point.

Lucy: I drew in an extra hour at the bottom of the chart.
Ethel: Where did you get the extra hour?
Lucy: From the next day.
Ethel: From the next day?
Lucy: Yeah, It’ll work out fine till the end of the year and then I’ll be two weeks short.

It used to be that time management was a business issue. Constantly assessing how effectively people were using their time and how could we be “more productive” within the “8 hour day.”

But.

Now time management discussions are a personal life issue. It is all about how we can be more productive in a 24 hour day. Seminars. Experts. Websites. I need a time management course on making time for all the time management tips.

Lucy didn’t need an expert.

Lucy simply steals an hour from the next day.

And, oddly enough, she was ahead of her time.

This is truth to many in today’s world.

People steal hours from other days. One hour less sleep.

Stay up past midnight doing stuff. Work if you want to get ahead. Laundry if you are a single mom. Your own project if you aspire to do something else.

And while life isn’t as compartmentalized as “the end of the year” if you look around at the end of the year you will have lost 2 weeks. If not more.

And you cannot get them back. Time is disposable space. Once gone it is gone forever.

Okay.

Sure.

Someone is gonna argue you got something material back from that lost time. But I would argue most of us don’t.

We use that extra hour in the day mostly to “maintain” not “gain.”

That is not a slam on anyone.

That is simply an observation of life today.

I guess I find it funny that we talk so much about the stress of today’s world yet Lucy (in the 1950’s) addressed the same issue.

Anyway.

Do I have a solution? Nope.

How can I? This seems to be an eternal issue (if you believe I Love Lucy).

Maybe my point is we stress out over having enough time and yet if you believe this quote it is something everyone has struggled with forever and we still haven’t found a solution (despite all the time management seminars and time management experts).

Maybe it would be healthier for us to get done what we can get done.

And not steal hours from other days (or let’s say “minimize stealing hours from other days).

Easier said than done? Probably.

But, c’mon.

I would imagine I used an I Love Lucy quote to humorously point out the silly extremes we put stress into our lives all with the intent to be ‘more productive.’

At some point you just have to be as productive as you can be and let the rest of the world live with that.

Thanks Lucy.

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August 6, 2010 by Bruce

Written by Bruce

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