Illusion of Time... How does it affect you?

At my day job, I'm a legal assistant. I work in a nice firm, with cool people, and A LOT of work! :)

In a law office, you "always" have work. If you say you don't have something to do, you're not looking around yourself enough. There's always something to do and if you want to be ahead, you'd better keep your eyes open.

There are deadlines, court hearings, arbitrations, trials, etc. You can have so much work, you don't know where to start and where to stop!

Such is my desk :) ... An interesting thought process came up for me over the past couple of months that I want to share with all of you.

It's the illusion of time... It's relevant, you'll see.

I've been going in on the weekends from say 5:00 - 6:00 a.m., so I could be ahead of time frames and ahead of all the work on my desk. Usually, lots of firms do certain documents the day before an arbitration. My goal is to have that puppy done and out at minimum a week or, if I'm really focused... two weeks "prior" to the hearing.

That requires ME to do some significant shifting in how I run my desk and the work that comes across it. Including but not limited to the interuptions, phone calls, emergencies, etc.,

I also... don't like being all wigged out that I'll be down to the wire, that stresses me out. I dont' like being stressed out... it feels "bad".

So to alleviate that AND to be ahead... I go in on the weekend for like 4/5 hours, I'm done by 9:30 - 10:00 a.m. and there are NO distractions... just me, my mp3 player and pure uninterupted work time. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHH... no interuptions, no phones, no nuttin! YES!

How time is relevant is... the first few times I did it, I'd go in on a monday with this false sense of security that the rest of the week would be a breeze. I was wrong...

With all the things I mentioned which is and are a distraction, I lost time anyway...

Why? :) Because I made an assumption, not based on FACT ... that in doing the extra on the weekend and having my desk be massively organized according to due dates and scheduling etc., that I had more time.

So what did I do? I stopped working at a frenzied pace.

Meaning, not that I didn't still do everything that I was supposed to do, but I made the assumption that I now had all this TIME ... w/o considering that if I kept at the pace I was going "prior" to going in on the weekends I could be ... as much as MONTH ahead and have no stress whatsoever.

Wouldn't that be a massively wonderful goal. Especially considering that my goal is a week to two weeks.

So, I'd go in... I"d have this illusion of control wherein I'd feel like I'd have ALL THIS TIME to get to things...

Yet ... it wasn't true. Time kept slipping through my fingers... the days still zipped by and I still had all the normal distractions during the week and the work still pours in and... POOF... all that time disappeared.

I decided, after seeing this little pattern of mine where I had an illusion of time and deadlines being met in advance due to my going in on the weekend that... I had to make time my friend.

Use it to my advantage. Right? Can you do that?

Sure you can... this weekend I went in not with the idea of cleaning up certain items which have dates on them but to clean up the busy work like putting files away, diarying them, follow ups, filing etc., that takes time away.

Then, I did an arbitration package which is due on April 2, 2009 ... if I want to have time be my friend and be ahead of it... instead of doing the "right now" stuff... which is okay to set aside a little bit... I did the stuff that I'm not able to "get" to because there's so much to do. So the goal was to go in and do the first arbitration package that was due and have it prepped and ready.

If I wait, until I do the other stuff, times going to catch up to me... and it's going to be done the day before. I'm not having that kind of stress... nope.

My goal, is to destress myself so much that time is no longer an issue because I've used it wisely.

Not this other thought process of "the illusion of control" over time where I dont manage it properly.

It may seem so silly to write about this but I think the illusion of control over time is something very important to talk about, becuase it affects many other things.

Life... how many of you were 20 years old a minute ago? I know I was... I'm only 22 :) LOL ...

We can't control time but we can control what we do with it and make it manageable... we can use it to our advantage and focus on how to use it wisely. Like I'm doing at work...

Focus is the primary goal here. Whatever it is that you're doing, you can restructure it to make things easier, less adrenaline filled and more smooth... I like the hustle and bussle HOWEVER ... doing things and getting ahead... where you can produce things and do things in a way where you're not always rushing... and thank goodness I have a boss who gave me the key :) ... and the ability to go in and use the early morning silence to my advantage... whenever I want to... makes other things mroe streamlined too.

Think about it... I know lots of you have massive workloads or things that can run you ragged... I don't think it has to be that way... If there's a way to manage your time more efficiently, find it... I've tried several different processes and the most recent is to start the package and do nothing else... but the package when I go in... a file review, based on how large it is can take a good ... 4/5 hours... that's a long time. When it's uninterupted it can still take that long but it's still faster and it's not being interupted.

Then you're ahead... We don't want you to fall into the "illusion of control" when it comes to time... and assume that becuase you're ahead in one area, that other area's aren't going to come and distract you from making more time by doing the extra.

You want to focus on the long term of managing it in a way that's going to help you overall.

Thoughts? I tell ya :) I'm a happy clam right now... LOL :)

Oh... was it worth getting up that early? Sure it was... because in wanting this goal to be accomplished, I had to shift some things and chores in my daily routine too... I had to make that more efficient and make some changes.

Nothing is engraved in stone... NOTHING... don't fall prey to the illusion of control over time or life... it's going to come and go... what you do or don't do, is all relevant.

Dont' you think?