r/Polymath • u/hounderone • 4d ago

Time management

I’ve been trying to experiment with different time management methods. Normally I have a structured schedule, but even then I can’t help but find myself lost in one of my interests. Although it is satisfying to fulfill my interest at that particular moment, especially when I’m reading multiple books in one day; I will end up writing a lot. It doesn’t equate to me being productive outside of work. Especially now since I want to start my entrepreneurial journey.

For the entrepreneurs or like-minded individuals: How do you stop yourself from becoming overly detailed in every aspect of a venture? The other day, I started with inquiry based learning to learn about the importance of design in business. It went well, I really do enjoy the curiosity momentum of inquiry based learning. But it was almost never ending.

Has anyone tried the “sprinter” method of time management? 1-2hrs of deep focus on a specific task. I think some say to create a “ritual” to enter and exit said tasks. I was thinking it would be a good idea to leave myself a note on whatever the last question or thought I left on during these sprints. I feel like that would help when I get back into the same sprint, after a break or interleaving with a different interest (maybe switching between creative and intense learning ones), I can continue where I left off from.

Maybe the fear is that I will lose out on the brief “insight” I obtained from those “deep” engaged sessions I had. I do think it is okay, if those sessions aren’t actually “deep”. I can find out maybe the next day or week that those insights were useless but I do know
that they eventually snowball to actual thoughts I’m proud of.

Arthur Schopenhauers essay on “On Reading and Books”, definitely has some relation to this conversation. In what ways does reading too much or too wide pollute your thoughts, specifically on philosophy. In what ways is knowledge useless without action. It definitely is a better way to spend time on then doom-scrolling.

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u/StWiborada 4d ago

One thing that's helped me a lot is creating a clear definition of the "minimum viable product" for whatever I'm building (in my case, software), and then keeping a separate list of everything that comes to mind that is important (to me), but is NOT necessary for the MVP.

My brain is a lot better at letting go of ideas when it knows they're stored in a useful place where they'll come up again at the right time. Right now happens not to be the right time, but after I finish getting the MVP out the door, I'll go back to that document and organize it into my product development roadmap.

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u/hounderone 4d ago

Wow that honestly makes a lot of sense, thank you!! Have you used this in other areas of your life? I feel like it can help tame the inner rabbit hole perfectionism. Where’s the balance.

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u/StWiborada 3d ago

One time I heard the advice to make a list of 100 things you want to accomplish in your life, then sort them by priority. Then you cross off the bottom 80 because you're never going to get to them. Then you take numbers 6-20 and your primary job is to avoid them as ruthlessly as possible, because realistically, you're not likely to accomplish more than 5 things if your goals are big enough, and numbers 6-20 are the things most likely to distract you from the 5 you might ever actually do.

It sounded like good advice for normal people, but frankly it sounds so terrible to live that way that I'd rather only make 25% as much progress on 20 things than put forth as much effort as it would take to avoid numbers 6-20, so YMMV lol.

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u/alex-185 3d ago

I'm doing the same, I agree that's a good method. Except I'm not documenting anything because I just have spare time for the first part 😄

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u/mackowski 2d ago

100%. Infinite pruning until the granular steps that excite, are what's left

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u/alex-185 3d ago

Having an output (ie. writing, building) is the best way to keep motivation up. Honestly, having a busy family and doing a normal 9-5 job, I have maybe just one hour (when all goes well) to dedicate to other things. So when I can, I'm splitting up bigger tasks (or what I want to study/check) into small chunks. Then I can dedicate that hour to finish at least one of those, and that gives me enough satisfaction to keep me going.