“Instead of trying to crunch time available for “work” so that you speed it up, focus on spending more time doing the stuff that helps you come alive and minimize or eliminate the rest.”

EXACTLY. This is where productivity comes in though. There are certain tasks that we don’t like doing and that drain our creativity so if we can develop some systems to more efficiently handle those activities then more time can be spent on doing what you love.

Sometimes it takes removing yourself from the entire process, including the organizing process. It could even be in the form of a sabbatical. At any rate, I think people need to focus more on how to live their life rather than what to do with their life.

Tim found that. He broke away from the tedious day to day management of his business to focus on what he loves to do best – deconstructing systems. Whether it’s figuring out the most efficient way to run his business, becoming a champion at the Tango, or putting on 20 pounds of muscle in a month (or whatever it was), Tim discovered his passion – analyzing systems, breaking them down and figuring out ways to achieve the end result more efficiently.
.-= Nate´s last blog ..Life Lessons from Steve Jobs: Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. =-.

We’ve been living in a very left-brained world that’s all about high structure and thinking in linear ways that fits into existing categories. And a lot of the time management, goal-setting and productivity stuff that’s popular has come out of the very left-brain way of being.

Here’s where I’m at with it all: if you’re sitting on your ass and you don’t know how to achieve basic goals in life, then the left-brain way is a good place to start to get some movement, but left-brain ways of doing stuff will never be enough to get to genius. They’ll always be essentially coloring in the lines and trying to squeeze your unlimited resourcefulness into a small space. Highly left-brained productivity management techniques squeeze out creativity because they’re too tight for the mess that is creativity.

I love what Max Kaizen said in her recent call with me: “Geniuses have good taste in problems.” If you want to solve interesting problems rather than just following linear procedures to get stuff done, creating scaffolding that encourages right-brain-directed thinking is required. And right-brain-directed thinking is often unruly, surprising, tangential and messy. So I like your reframe of creating the space/ time container for this, rather than being forceful and trying to squeeze all your tasks into spots on your calendar.

Awesome stuff, Charlie, and I think it fits well with a lot of the goodness you shared when I interviewed you about the Bottom-line on A Whole New Mind for the Bottom-line Bookclub.
.-= Cath Duncan´s last blog ..Martha Beck’s Top Tips on How to Unleash Your Genius =-.

creativity cannot be calendared. when we are marinating on a new big (huge!!) idea, when we are nurturing it, deadlines and goals don’t work. especially for me, as a woman, if I try to set goals it kills the very feminine energy that all my most amazing ideas come from (and the work flows from).
.-= Elizabeth Potts Weinstein´s last blog ..Magic, Energy & Ecstasy Outside the Seminar Room: Post-#Shine Wrap Up pt 3 =-.

“think more carefully about how much of your time, attention, and energy you want to spend avoiding doing things instead of figuring out the right things to do”

both ring true for me. Right now there are two projects I’m balancing, but really, one is just a productive way of avoiding the “real” work I have to do which will allow me to expand the meaningful play side of things. It’s difficult to map either one of them directly on the side of either “work” or “play” because in some sense they are both trying to get me closer to productive, meaningful play even as they both still function as “work.”

Thanks for fleshing out these ideas, I’m sure I will be back to reread this.
.-= MoneyEnergy´s last blog ..Final Stock Market Trading Days for 2009 =-.

I’ve been working on reframing my approach to scheduling so it becomes something that serves me instead of something that restricts me (I get v. nervous when my calendar starts to get filled in) and you’ve given me a lot to think about here.

Just thinking of time as a container is so freeing.