Things That Matter
6 years, 2 months, 1 day, 21 hours
20 May 2023
I’ve spent my life trying to do too much in too little time.
I’ve measured success by the number of things I can say I have achieved in any given day. More than a decade ago the coach I was working with on a development course banned me from using the term ‘achieve’ to see if I could complete any conversation without it. Generally I failed. Ever since that time I have had Blu-Tacked to the wall beside my home computer a short poem, ‘The Orange’ by Wendy Cope. It conveys the happiness of ‘I did all the jobs on my list’, but it is ultimately an ode to being at peace with the ordinariness of life.
In Stephen Covey’s time management book ‘First Things First’, he uses the analogy of trying to get rocks, small stones and sand into a jar, to argue that you should prioritise the big (important) things first, then you can get them and lots of other things done. Start with the myriad smaller things and you will never get to what matters. That has always sounded logical, and pleasingly efficient, to me.
And then I started reading ‘Four Thousand Weeks’ by Oliver Burkeman. Four thousand weeks is, if you are fortunate enough to live to 80 years old, how many weeks you have to play with. Oliver points out that there is an infinite number of big and small rocks in the world and the challenge is not how to stuff as many rocks as possible into the jar of life, but to be reconciled to the inevitability of leaving nearly all of them on the beach, and spend the tiny amount of time you have on this planet to take pleasure in the moment, to do the things that matter to you (rather than planning to do them in a tomorrow that may never come), and avoid your life being consumed by things you never really wanted to do.
It feels to me that this book pivots on a truth that is integral to everything I write about each week. We don’t have much time. The time we have is therefore exceptionally precious. We must use that time on the things that matter, which for me is the future of our planet and society. Oliver also rails against attempts to control the future. I accept we cannot. But we can by our actions today give the future of our world its best shot.
I said to colleagues in a meeting last November that I was determined to only spend my time on the things I think really matter. I recognise that in any relationship construct (business, societal or interpersonal), that may sound selfish and anarchic, but it is not intended as such. It is intended to recognise that we only have four thousand weeks each and we can, individually, and collectively, use them on the things that truly matter, if we consciously make that choice.