Patience is Doing Something Else in the Process

We live in a world of “hurry up and wait.” It happens when we show up for the medical appointment on time, only to realize the doctor is running an hour behind. It happens when we arrive at the airport with plenty of time to navigate security, and find out the flight has been delayed.

“Wait time” is a real force in our lives. Add it all together, and it amounts to a huge time sink which can turn a good day sour. On the other hand, wait time provides pockets of unexpected discretionary time. How we use it is determined by how we prepare for it.

I am actually writing this article at a national conference waiting for the next session to begin. I fully expect to wait for the shuttle that will take me from the hotel to the airport, and then more wait time before boarding the plane. Without a doubt, I will have an hour and a half on the plane. Add it all together, and I am looking at three to four hours of wasted time...or I am looking at three to four hours where I can accomplish something of value. What determines which of the outcomes will be true?

Reading Material at Hand 
When magazines arrive at my house, they go in a wooden letter tray beside my desk. I maintain a list of books I want to read and check them out from the library. They also go in that letter tray.

Before I leave my house, if there is any chance I will have wait time, I grab a book or several magazines. The spare minutes are plugged with reading I wanted to do anyway. People ask me, “How do you stay on top of all of the reading material?” Now you have my answer.

Build the List 
While reading material is great for filling the gaps, it is by no means the only option. As subjects for future blog posts come to mind, they are trapped on a list. When I have wait time, I can choose a topic from the list and compose a new blog post or newspaper article. What you are reading now is a good example. My smartphone’s task list holds URLs for websites I want to examine in further detail. In fact, everything I have to do, no matter how large or small, regardless of how urgent or how far in the future, is trapped on that list.

In my posts earlier this month on Toodledo, I talked about having my list sorted by due date. Whatever is overdue is at the top; whatever is scheduled for far in the future is at the bottom. Simply changing the due date on an item allows it to be moved up or down the list. I never have to rewrite a list. Searching for a word produces every item containing that word. If I search for the word “blog,” I see an idea for future blog posts sorted by due date.

When waiting time presents itself, I can quickly find those things I wanted to do anyway and could be doing right then. I turn potentially wasted time into productive time.

How do you handle waiting time?

Using Spare Minutes

In the last post, we talked about carving out chunks of time, allowing us to focus on something of worth. Drucker talked about being able to accomplish little with "dribs and drabs" of time. Life happens, however, and often leaves our days broken into fragments. Sometimes "dribs and drabs" are the only vehicles through which we can move forward. The ability to use those spare minutes allows us to reclaim time that would otherwise be wasted, sometimes resulting in fairly large amounts of time.

This post is one such example. On the day I composed it, my former school system was in the midst of a professional development day. My role was to circulate from school to school and observe the training that was happening at each site. I knew ahead of time that my day would be spent sitting and watching. For that reason, I started the day by scanning my to-do list for items which could be done while I watched the various trainings. Writing a post on using spare minutes was actually one if the items. I grabbed a piece of paper, and off I went.

Everyone probably thought I was taking notes on the training being observed. I was, in fact, giving a goodly portion of my attention to the training. At the same time, I was writing this post, which I completed in its entirety to later be keyed into this blog.

Other items I noticed as I scanned my list were phone calls which could be made quickly. Between visiting schools, I was able to place these several calls from my BlackBerry while in the halls.

Reading material is always a good source for filling spare minutes. I have a section of my brief case reserved for reading materials. When magazines arrive, I throw them in there along with any book I happen to be reading at the time. When there is any chance that I will have down time, I either grab the briefcase or at least pull some of the reading material from it.

Nothing beats chunks of time. When life breaks those chunks into tiny fragments, choosing the right tasks can turn "dribs and drabs of time" into productive minutes.

Using Spare Minutes

In the last post, we talked about carving out chunks of time, allowing us to focus on something of worth. Drucker talked about being able to accomplish little with "dribs and drabs" of time. Life happens, however, and often leaves our days broken into fragments. Sometimes "dribs and drabs" are the only vehicles through which we can move forward. The ability to use those spare minutes allows us to reclaim time that would otherwise be wasted, sometimes fairly large amounts of time.

This post is one such example. On the day I composed it, our school system was in the midst of a professional development day. My role was to circulate from school to school and observe the training that was happening at each site. I knew ahead of time that my day would be spent sitting and watching. For that reason, I started the day by scanning my to-do list for items which could be done while I watched the various trainings. Writing a post on using spare minutes was actually one if the items. I changed the due date to move it to the top of the list where it would be easily seen. I grabbed a piece of paper, and off I went.

Everyone probably thought I was taking notes on the training being observed. I was, in fact, giving a goodly portion of my attention to the training. At the same time, I was writing this post which I completed in its entirety to later be keyed into this blog.

Other items I noticed as I scanned my list were phone calls which could be made quickly. I changed those due dates as well to move them to the top of the list. Between visiting schools, I was able to place these several calls from my BlackBerry while in the halls.

Reading material is always a good source for filling spare minutes. I have a section of my brief case reserved for reading materials. When magazines arrive, I throw them in there along with any book I happen to be reading at the time. When there is any chance that I will have down time, I either grab the briefcase or at least pull some of the reading material from it.

Nothing beats chunks of time. When life breaks those chunks into tiny fragments, choosing the right tasks can turn "dribs and drabs of time" into productive minutes.