Why I don't wear a watch

Thirteen years ago, I did something big. I was working for Delta Airlines at the time as a software guy and on my two year anniversary with the company (the first day I could legally quit), I walked away to work full-time on my small business which at the time consisted mainly of big dreams and meager profits.

It was shaky for a while. 9/11 occurred a few months in and business ground to a halt. But a few months later, things were going better than ever and I began to really enjoy my freedom as a self-employed entrepreneur. And I made a decision: I was going to quit wearing a watch.

The reason I decided to stop wearing a watch was because I knew that I had a tendency to be a slave to schedules. Like most people, I associate time management with productivity. There are many things I don’t manage well but I do manage time well. I am not late to things and I am always parcelling out my day into various productive segments.

So I quit wearing the watch and for a while, became very casual. Every day, I went and hit a bucket of balls at the driving range. Every Friday, I went golfing and blew the afternoon. If I wanted to stop working for a few days, I did.

Eventually, that all changed. Somehow, I got sucked back into an ultra-productive grind that is very driven by schedules. The only difference is that I still don’t wear a watch but I figured out that the time was on my phone and I started watching it there. Golf became a memory. Days off became infrequent.

The reason I bring this up is because I have been writing about productivity a lot lately and I want to give you the other side–the dark side of productivity. If you are not careful, you become a machine. You live under constant stress that is not necessary and you forget to enjoy life.

I was thinking about this today because I caught myself being silly. My routine these days is sort of like this: I get up and hang around the house during the morning. I exercise, practice the piano and work with the children. My usual goal is to get over to my office at noon and work there until about 6:00.

This morning, things went long and it became apparent that I would not get to the office by noon. I was maybe an hour behind schedule and I got antsy about it. Don’t ask me why. It is not like a boss is sitting over there watching the clock. That noon time is my own arbitrary deadline. It means nothing really. What I have to constantly remind myself of is that an hour here or there does not really matter so much. Sometimes I need to just let it go (Frozen reference!).

Some of us need to get more productive. Some of us need to relax a bit. I am more in that second category. I have a couch in my office but I need to spend more time on it doing something pretty unproductive like reading a book.

Balance matters.

And now, I think I will get off here and hit that couch.