Time Zen

Introduction – A New Paradigm

The truth of the matter is that most major success in this right-brain, internet-connected, uber-competitive world no longer comes from doing things consecutively.  If you do things consecutively, you lose.  That is a fact.  Slow and steady may have won the race in the past, but today, in order to even get into the race, you have to be the one organizing it too, and doing everything all at the same time.

In other words, in today’s world, it’s the multitasker who wins the race—because often you can’t get into the race unless you put the thing together too.  Sure, forty years ago, you could focus on one trade and get a job that would support you for the rest of your life.  These days, though, you’re fortunate if you have the same job in the same industry for a few years.  The time to become a little bit more diverse in your pursuits has returned.  Da Vinci would be proud.

And in this new day and age, if you can’t keep up with those of us who know ‘how to juggle’ multiple projects, then tough luck, you’re gonna be left in the dust.  Yes, we have entered the age of the time masters, and you would choose well to join us.  While time itself moves forward on a single timeline, that doesn’t mean your projects have to move forward on that single timeline.  Instead, the idea is to propel many projects forward on a whole bunch of timelines.

In other words (and here’s the basic time philosophy of the book):

Doing one thing at a time is a recipe for a life that won’t keep up with your dreams.

You see, while each of us does only have 24 hours in a day, that’s the wrong way to look at time management.  The key to successfully doing more, in less time, and with better results, is to stop thinking linearly, and start thinking spacially and synergistically.

Think about it conceptually: we may only have 24 hours in a day, but if we can each learn to juggle three or four balls during every hour (instead of just one), we essentially end up with 96 hours of effectiveness per day.  Quite a jump in productivity.

And while the floor space of our lives—like the floor space of our offices—may be limited, if we conceptually understand the idea of ‘juggling’, it should be clear that by juggling your various projects and dreams up off the two dimensional timeline, and into the three dimensional space above and around you, you are going to be able to take on and handle a heck of a lot more projects than you normally could.

Remember the key premise of this book: doing one thing at a time is a recipe for a life that won’t keep up with your dreams.  I know we’ve all heard that it’s better to do one thing at a time, and put all of our energy into that one thing until completion, and then move onto the next thing… but that just won’t work if you have great ambition and want to live a greater than average life.  Think of all those people who have done amazing things with their lives.  For example, Da Vinci, Edison, Thatcher, and even in our own time, Spielberg or Stefani.  Do you really think that they’ve done so much with their lives by focusing on just one thing, and then moving to the next in a linear manner?  Da Vinci was working on scientific musings at the same time he was drawing, inventing, and theoreticizing.  Spielberg was writing screenplays while he was directing them, producing them, and casting them.  Edison was failing for the thousandth time on the light bulb while he was working on hundreds of other inventions at the same time.  Stefani was recording while designing clothes.  And I am writing this book while I am also writing three others, while in law school, while shooting two films, while running my businesses, and while rehearsing my songs to perform at Pete’s Candy Store in Brooklyn.  Focusing on only one niche is a foolish gamble.  Do you really want to be one of those boring people who only has the ability to speak to one select group of people at a social gathering—seriously, folks, that is so boring.

I know that some studies have concluded that multitasking actually reduces the amount of brain power we are using, citing examples that today’s youth know all about multitasking and processing, but little about focusing and analysis.  There may be a lot of truth to that analysis but it leaves out an important point: multitasking and processing by itself may be of little use, but when you combine those qualities with focus and analysis, it’s quite amazing what one can accomplish.  And that is what this book is all about.