The Way of Martial Arts

Lesson 41

M O N T H L Y I N T E R A C T I V E L E S S O N S T O H E L P I M P R O V E Y O U R D A I L Y L I F E

B Y M A S T E R E R I C S B A R G E

I wrote a poem during my senior year of high school, the theme of whichwas time. I won’t bore you with the poem, but it was basically about look-ing at the clock thirty or forty times per hour while some teacher droned onabout the degree of an angle in a trapezoid, or who marriedKing James III, or the cellular composition of cilia, or… orit doesn’t matter what else, it was all killing me.

Apparently the editor of our yearbook could relate to myfeelings, because she published the poem in the yearbookand it got a lot of reaction from my classmates. Many of usfelt like time stood still as we suffered day after day throughclasses that we intuitively knew had nothing to do with ourfutures. I was 16 when I graduated from high school, and I think thatremains the happiest day of my life.

Suddenly I felt free. I had a million things I wanted to do, and now Ihad the time to do them. Though I planned to go to college, I knew you

could choose college classes in topics that actually inter-est you and my older sister had told me that even as afull-time student you still only had to go to a couple

of classes a day!But an interesting thing happened. During the summer after

high school and my entire first year of college, I got practicallynothing done that I wanted to. I drank a lot of beer and Jack

Daniels, smoked and ingested a lot of illicit substances (yes, that was

It’s About Time

-2-

the ‘70s), hung out with a lot of nice girls (not the kind my mother thoughtwere nice), managed to read a few good novels, and nearly flunked out ofcollege.

What was the problem? I suddenly had lots of free time on my hands,but I didn’t have the knowledge – or the discipline – to manage it correctly.

M A K I N G T H E M O S T O F M Y T I M E

Recognizing my deficiencies, I decided to make some serious changes inmy life. Seventeen, I said to myself, was way too old to be wasting time.

I transferred to a different college so I could start with a clean slate. Ididn’t really learn how to manage my time, however, nor did I develop astellar level of self-discipline. Back then my strategy was to simply elimi-nate all my free time. I set about making myself busy with the things I real-ly wanted to do.

I began studying karate and Zen meditation in earnest; I joined the icehockey, cross-country skiing and downhill ski teams; I began running five toten miles daily with members of the cross-country runners team; I tookweekly classes in dance and yoga; I joined the photography and poetry clubsand traveled to other colleges doing poetry readings; I became a contribut-ing editor for our college literary publication; I became a Big Brother to alocal fatherless boy; and I worked 20 hours a week at a drug store (fromwhich I never stole any drugs).

To my surprise, I was infinitely happier when I seemingly had no freetime than when I had all the unstructured free time in the world. Most ofus are the same way. Of course it’s not really that I had no free time: It wasstill my time to do with as I freely wanted, but I had filled it with activitiesof my own choosing that meant something to me at that stage of my life,rather than squandering it.

In going from having endless free time for studying as a freshman to hav-ing hardly any free time to study in the three years thereafter, I went fromnearly flunking out to graduating with high honors. This is a phenomenonthat you’ve surely seen as well: Nearly all of us are much more productiveand efficient when our time is structured and organized and doesn’t seemendless.

I pushed this approach of structuring and organizing my time to the

limit during the two years right after college: I worked full-time as execu-tive program director at the McGraw-Hill Publications headquarters inManhattan; took a full-time course load of evening and weekend classesfor my master’s degree in Media Studies at Parsons School of Design andNew School University; spent countless hours every weekend shootingand developing photos and films to fulfill the additional portfolio require-ments for my degree; took a weekly Chinese language class; traveled anhour and forty-five minutes each way to Putnam County to take three-and-a-half hours of kung fu and tai chi classes with Grandmaster twotimes a week; and practiced my kung fu daily -- or nightly as it were, usu-ally from about 11:00pm – 1:00am. (As an aside, I practiced outdoors inFt. Tryon Park which was near my apartment at the edge of Manhattanand the South Bronx. At that time of night the park was full of groups ofrowdy guys who hung out drinking from rum bottles in brown paper bagsand 16 oz. cans of beer, and blaring salsa music on their boom boxes. Forwhatever karmic reasons, though they gave me curious looks they other-wise generally left me alone. I grew to love working out in the rain orsnow rather than moonlit nights, because I would show up while everyoneelse stayed home.)

Now I don’t necessarily recommend this level of intensity when allocat-ing and scheduling your time, especially if you’re a little older as I nowam. But it is to make the point that time filled up gets you greater results– probably with more happiness – than time wasted.

To conclude this short foray into my personal history, despite my gru-eling schedule – or because of it – I graduated with my master’s degreeagain with high-honors at the age of 22. Ever since then, I’ve felt like I’vebeen on a kind of perpetual vacation: All I’ve had to do is go to workduring the day and practice or teach my kung fu at night. Life is prettyeasy!

M A K E T H E M O S T O F Y O U R T I M E

Rather than going to the extreme of filling every moment of your timewith structured activities as I once did, I think the more sensible way toensure productive use of your time is to learn how to manage it well. It’sgood to keep some “free” time provided you accomplish what you want to

-3-

with the rest of your time.We’ve discussed time management periodically in our Mastery

Roundtable discussion group and elsewhere because it’s such an importanttopic, but I’ll recap some of the fundamentals here in case you’ve missedthose discussions, or for your review:

A. Create a daily, weekly and long-term “To-Do” list – and follow it!B. Set a routine schedule both for things you have to do, and things you

want to do.C. Block your time into 15, 30 or 60 minute segments.D. Do small but Essential things firstE. Break bigger projects into smaller chunksF. Avoid non-productive multi-tasking (texting while studying…)G. Plan for productive multi-tasking (listening to educational CDs while

driving…)H.You are not obligated to answer or respond to phone or text messages

right away, or even at allI. Limit TV to no more than one hour per dayJ. Plan and prepare for each day the night before, including updating

the To-Do listK. Never put things you want to do before things you have to doL. Remember that being on time shows respect – to yourself and to oth-

ersOnce you create a good time management system for yourself, remember

that it is only as good as its implementation. If you fail to follow your sys-tem, you will fail to make productive use of your time.

The reasons for failing to adhere to a time-management plan can bemany, but the common ones tend to be emotional: You feel overwhelmed,stressed out, depressed, scattered or too boxed in -- so you simply vegetateand procrastinate. Many studies show that the best way to overcome thesenegative emotions is to get your endorphins activated, and the best way todo that is to exercise.

So whatever else you schedule into your day make sure your kung fu/taichi practice is at the top of your list – and you’ll have a better chance ofaccomplishing even the To-Do items at the bottom of your list.

-4-

-5-

E X E R C I S E

If you don’t already do it regularly, create a To-Do list. Ideally youupdate your list every night for the following day. The list should havethree sections: Daily, near-term, and long-term. The daily items are thingsyou must complete the next day. The near-term items are things you mustcomplete within the next week or so. Long-term items aren’t pressing, butstill need to be done at some point. As you check off your daily items, typi-cally you move up your near-term items into your daily items, as well asadding other daily items that pop up. Then as you check off your near-term items, you can start moving your long-term items up to near term.This might sound complicated, but in practice it is very simple. The morechallenging part is getting started and persevering until it becomes an ongo-ing habit. Some people start out enthusiastically and find great results, butthey stop after a week or two and revert back to having no time plan, andgetting poor results from the use of their time.

A S S I G N M E N T

After creating your to-do list, tell me two items in your daily section,two from near-term, and two from long-term.Send your thoughts to me atlessons@thepeacefuldragon.com. Please put “Lesson 41” in the subject line.

R E C O M M E N D E D R E A D I N G

No B.S. Time Management for EntrepreneursBy Dan Kennedy

Dan Kennedy is one of the most practical business consultants andspeakers I’ve come across. You don’t have to be an entrepreneur or be inbusiness to benefit from his “no b.s.” approach to managing time. You justhave to be ready to get past your own laziness and excuses for wasting yourtime.

SSSS

-6-

Every month a book or article will be suggested by Master Sbarge.Reading about topics related to the arts you are training in will help you getthe most out of your practice. Just remember that reading can never replaceyour practice! Each month’s recommended reading is purely optional,though Master Sbarge may on rare occasion ask that you do read a particu-lar book.

For additional reading suggestions by Master Sbarge, go tohttp://www.thepeacefuldragon.com/books.shtml.

Note: All Peaceful Dragon students are urged to complete monthlyassignments because they are important for you to fully benefit fromyour training. Master Sbarge reads every single student's lesson respons-es every month, and will periodically respond or comment on them.