Member-only story
I Will Teach You to Be Time-Rich
Prologue
I was hunted by time: a fluffy prey animal in a dark forest of nebulous unfinished business. Constantly over-busy, my weekends had become brief islands of unscheduled minutes: not a time for adventure or rest, but merely some dead time offering a brief respite. I fantasised about some future tropical exoneration, where I would finally be free.
This is a story about how I got out of the woods. And it starts with a once-in-a-multiple-lifetimes opportunity.
Pandemic-proof productivity
I’m writing this by lamplight deep inside a converted subway bunker, a mob of the infected probing the vents for structural weaknesses… at least, that was what mid-2021 feels like. A lot of the world is locked down with a bad case of the spicy cough, but living on an island during a global pandemic has its benefits, and here in Sydney, although currently in lockdown, we’ve been fortunate to remain largely unscathed. And for me, there has been a silver lining to the cloud.
Like many, my professional and social calendars were suddenly wiped clean. In a way, my fantasy had come true: I was as free from obligation as one could hope for outside of prison. But after months of barely leaving my “all-room”, I realised that I was still “too busy”.
For a decade I’d told myself that having a full schedule was my problem. Yet here I was, mid lockdown, still harangued by tasks and chores, mired in incomplete projects. I felt free as a flightless bird.
What was the problem? A time audit failed to reveal any smoking guns. Indeed, it reinforced what I already knew: there were much busier folks out there than me… and some were starting space programs and raising kids and making it all work, with the same 168 laps around the clock per week that we all have.
