This essay,
Nothing-At-Stake Time,
is the companion piece to
My Scripted Life.
It's often said (if not verbatim then in the general sense) that even
the King of England has only twenty four hours in each day, just like
everyone else. His twenty four hours is all he has in which to run the
empire. That said, what excuse do you and I have for languishing under
there's not enough time to get everything done that we have to get
done? I use time, my daily ration of twenty four hours, well. It's all
I got. It's all the time I'll ever have. It's all there is.
At the start of each day, I look at my diary to see what I've scheduled
to get done that day. I'm a pencil-and-paper
guy.
I enter my schedule in long-hand into a classic Letts of
London diary,
eschewing
online apps for this purpose. At the start of each day when I look at
my diary, whatever's there, whatever I see I've scheduled, that's what
there is to get done that day. That's what's at stake. If there's
unscheduled time, I use it for any matters which arise to be handled at
the last-minute. If nothing else arises, then this free time is
nothing-at-stake time. And I've looked at what this
nothing-at-stake time really is.
Here's what I've come to see: it's taken some digging into this to
determine if free time, arrived at in this way, is actually
idle time. And if it is idle time, is that the same as
wasted
time? The truth it would seem, is somewhere in between the two: idle
time is free time - but free time isn't necessarily
wasted
time. And if I do consider free time to be
wasted
time, doesn't that represent an unhealthy obsession with staying busy
just for the sake of staying busy?
For me, it's actually a luxury, a measure-of-success to
have free time. If I've gotten everything done that I've scheduled to
get done, and I still have time left over out of my twenty four hours,
that's free time. But it's really more than just a luxury: it's proof
that I run my life without it running me. It's proof that I'm being
productive, proof that I run my life and live with something at stake.
And what I got clear about is that living with something at stake
allows / includes having free time ie nothing-at-stake
time. That's actually the measure-of-success (don't mis-read it as a
failure to be committed to doing more).
But look: nothing-at-stake time is more than free time, and it's more
than it idle time. It really is a measure-of-success especially when
it's scheduled time. Typically I consider getting
everything done, then taking a break. In the context of
all my twenty four hour workdays, what there is to aspire to at the end
of it all when everything's done, is having a long, well-deserved rest.
But listen: why wait? Nothing-at-stake time in the midst of a hectic
calendar, is that scheduled break, that control now. That's why
scheduling it is smart, very smart. Even before I've
gotten everything else done, even before I realize that nothing else is
scheduled, I can prioritize / schedule nothing-at-stake time. That's
what's even smarter: when I schedule nothing-at-stake time
deliberately
in the midst of a busy calendar, in the midst of at-stake time,
and not leave it to chance. It's this prioritizing of nothing-at-stake
time so it's
intentionally
scheduled and doesn't merely fill time when there's nothing else on the
book, which makes having nothing-at-stake time the measure-of-success
that it is.
That king who has only twenty four hours in a day in which to run his
empire? He's one sorry chap if with all that power, might, and
resources, he's still left with not enough time to be open to what
there is at stake in being king ie not able to schedule
nothing-at-stake time in which to revel in those
privileges.
