Estimated reading time: 5 minutes, 34 seconds
Things will take longer than you expect.
Plan for it and create some margin for error.
And when things still take longer than expected, give yourself grace.
Here’s a new Wisdom Made Easy doodle that perfectly represents today’s nugget of wisdom:
Things always take longer than you expect.
In fact, things often take longer than they should.
You get interrupted, distracted and pulled in directions that you weren’t foreseeing - it is inevitable!
But there’s wisdom to be found in recognising that things might take longer than you expect and planning for that.
Here is the Saying that complements today’s nugget of wisdom:
“It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.”
That’s Hofstadter’s Law.
We can get better at estimating, planning and creating margin, but sometimes things will still take longer.
Wisdom is learning to expect the unexpected.
I experience this all the time with Wisdom Made Easy.
I’ll think something should take an hour, only to find myself still working on it several hours later.
I outsource when appropriate, but in a creative business, there will always be more to do than I have time for.
We all experience this, right?
We overestimate what we can achieve at work, at the weekend, or during a week off, and then feel disappointed when we only complete a fraction of it.
So today I want to share 3 Reminders when encountering Hofstadter’s Law:
Pick Your Priorities.
Instead of starting with ten things you could do, identify the three that matter most.
Identify the things that if you accomplished only those this week, you would still consider the week a success.
Change Perspective.
We’re sometimes the worst judge of what we could realistically achieve.
So ask what someone else would reasonably expect from you.
Your manager, customer, partner or friend may be far more realistic about your capacity than you are.
Give Yourself Grace.
Sometimes you’ll still fall short.
Take responsibility where necessary, learn from it, then move on, because there will always be more to do.
Let’s dive deeper into today’s wisdom with these 3 journal prompts:
What 3 things matter most for me to accomplish right now?
Where might I be expecting too much from myself?
What do I need to give myself some grace for?
Today’s resource is the reality check that you need to come to grips with what is achievable.
Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman is a book that instead of teaching you how to cram more into your days, explores what happens when we accept that our time is limited.
This book will help you to identify what truly matters to you, helping you to know what to prioritise.
To learn more, consider purchasing this book from your friendly local bookstore. Alternatively, purchase it online here:
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Catch you in the next issue!
Thanks,
Michael