#110. Improvement

All of us yearn for improvement. We try ways we have tried before. We try ways we have not tried before. But sometimes, it just doesn’t stick. Is there something missing?

Today, we try to crack this facet of life, so that we can get sticking results, and move one step closer to our good lives.

“Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still.”

— Chinese Proverb

By virtue of working in different time zones, my wife and I get limited time together. We only get to spend a few hours every day with each other. Most of that gets spent in talking about work, so we basically spend our entire days working. That being said, both her and I love our jobs, so it is not the worst thing in the world.

That changes during the weekends. During our weekends, we try to talk about things other than work. We usually do that over a cup of coffee in cafes around our neighborhood.

I truly cherish these dates with her.

I had been living alone for a hot minute, and I had gotten really used to being that way. Now that she has relocated with me, the past four months have been a nice change of pace. We use this time to catch up with each other apart from work. We ask each other the not-so-obvious questions. Questions that elude us in the hustle-bustle of our working week.

I have been writing for a while now. She is getting started on her journey of sharing her expertise with the world. So this is yet another thing we discuss in our conversations. We use these coffee dates to discuss what our plans are for the upcoming week. We bounce ideas off of each other, as well as learn a little bit about each other’s preferences.

During one of these round tables, we happened to be talking about our challenges. Both of us have been finding it hard to manage time. Both of us understand the fundamentals, and we determined that social media had been consuming a good chunk of it. So we decided to move off it for sometime.

You may have read some of my earlier articles. If so, you know about my love-hate relationship with this digital demon. I spend a few days in peace without it, only to return back to it with double the force. It is like being shot out of a slingshot. If I had been spending an hour scrolling, I would do 90 minutes after my relapse. I eventually settle back at the baseline of an hour.

This time was no different, which put me in deep thought.

Why does this happen?

My intentions are good, my actions are in line.

Why do I return back to my old ways after being good for sometime?

Upon further brainstorming, I realised that a lot of us face this problem. And it is not limited to social media. It could be any vices we struggle with; like junk food or irregular routines.

Now, I am not a guru, far from it. And I do realise that each one of us has our own process. But there is one thing that does cause hindrances in attaining our target.

We put optimisation before planning.

Let’s say we plan to manage our time better. What is the first step?

We set the best schedules. Install the fanciest calendar and to-do apps. We watch our favourite productivity pundits on YouTube.

We start off with a huge burst of motivation.

And in a week..

It fades. We fall back into our old patterns.

Well then, what should we do? In my opinion, a better plan would be to understand where we are spending our time. By doing this, we get a clear picture of what we are doing. As a next step, we can plan to replace any frivolous activities with relatively more productive ones. We can improve it later, by adding things we think should be a part of our routines, but aren’t now.

This is just one example of planning before optimisation. And honestly, a very simplistic one. The intent, however, is to demonstrate the reasoning in a simplistic fashion. Because, we ought to understand this, because ignoring this prevents measurable progress.

Optimsing before planning is like putting the cart in front of the horse.

If you stuck around this far, thank you for your time. If you enjoyed this, share this with one friend of yours whom you think will benefit from reading this. Thanks for reading, and I will see you in the next one. 🙂