Rooted Online

Regardless of our planning or absence of it, days come and go by. If only we could realize that there are forty-eight “30 minutes” in each given day, we would make the most of the time at hand. While most of us are aware that time is a precious commodity, loosing time leave us with element of guilt and playing catch-up. I had a lifetime lesson about using time from Dr Stan Shearer. During that time, Dr Shearer was an Information Systems lecturer at the University of Cape Town. I needed an advice on how to approach certain programming problems in preparation for the final examination. I thought my problem was the subject matter but the lecturer did not see it that way. After the discussion he said to me you do not have a problem with the subject, instead, he pointed to time management in the exam setting. He said it seems that I approach the exam paper thinking that I don’t have much time, which in turn could lead to panic. He then advised me that I should rather think that I have enough time to answer all questions in three hours. The shift of mindset resulted to improved focus and successful completion of the exam.

I have noted that in many disciplines, time spent engaged in an activity is correlated to effort level. In fitness field, it is often recommended that one should spend at least thirty minutes in a day doing physical exercise as a minimum to maintain healthier bodies and minds. In arts, to reach expert level, they talk about ten thousand hours. The arts example makes a point about time and its correlation to effort. Regardless of the length of time to reach the set goals, there are more than enough “30 minutes” at hand to build on.

The easiest way to spend any day is obviously to go with the flow. Garth Brooks said, “Choose to chance the rapids and dare to dance the skies”. Life by its design offers us multitude of choices to take on challenges. There are always rewards for those who dare to give their higher-self a chance. Sometimes we start activities that are triggered by the need, routines, and mandatory activities, sometimes are activities related to other people’s needs. Some people will always have more in their plate than others and in either case everyone has an edge. Those that are having more in their plate should celebrate that the more effort they spend in various activities the more the result and therefore rewards. Those with less in their plate may not have many achievements and rewards to cheer themselves, however, they have opportunity to search for other prospects and work longer in areas that gives them more fulfilling results.

In my mid-thirties I was very active in road running. That is one area where time and effort go hand in hand. There are times when I went for a Saturday morning race without spending sufficient time training a week leading to the race. As a result of inadequate training, I incurred injuries and did not get much fulfilment from the race. Although I had a challenge of competing activities, I didn’t try to look for a “30 minutes” in a day to do some sort of training, the easiest being skipping, stretching, walking and other simple drills. In my mind, I was looking for 2-3 hours every day, which was not always possible at the time. After a time of deep introspection and honesty, I decided to stop participating in weekly-organised road races. I had to stick to light training, skipping and running 10 km every weekend on my own. The greatest benefit was in the time that I have gained, which I subsequently spent on other activities of greater importance, the peace of mind and absence of fear of missing out.

I had a duty to explain my absence from Saturday races to my running companions. When my running companions (some who were regular comrade marathon participants) asked about my whereabouts, I had to be very honest. My answer was that, when I wake up every day I do not think about being one of the best roadrunners, I aspired to be the best piano player and a musician I can be. While music is not my primary and professional trade, I still wanted to be among experts across various genres. Round about that time I was busy with music compositions. I spent several nights and weekends creating music including sequencing my compositions.

The limited time in a day which is equally allocated to us require certain level of focus. One should have predetermined activities at the top of priorities. I have noticed one never-ending “project” that my mother was involved in until her last days. I am highlighting “project” using quotation marks because by definition a project has start and end date but my mother’s was not to end until it was disrupted by the government regulations of shopping plastic bags. She made mats from shopping plastic bags.

The “project” was very serious to a point where I would store all my shopping plastic bags while I was studying in Cape Town and contribute to her “project” during holidays. What I did was effortless; however, the appreciation was more than fulfilling.

When the banning of free plastic bags was implemented by government policy change, I thought of my mother. She would not collect as many bags as she used to. Secondly, the new plastic bags did not have the right texture easy enough to weave together into a mat. I supported the move of government protecting the environment; however, I thought my mother was already doing her part in protecting environment in the form of recycling. Littering of plastic bags was a serious hazard in the village. It was a common occurrence that we would be summoned to save a goat after swallowing plastic bag. We lost many domestic animals because of plastic bag choking incidents. Although my mother had to adapt to the new limitations, the purpose of the “project” remained, it was to spend time engaged in a meaningful activity. She remained undeterred and resorted to make it work even with obstacles.

My perception towards my mother’s “project” was that daily activities were never planned. It usually happened in a hot summer day, sitting under a “Mupani” tree behind her rondavel. In a typical afternoon, few villagers would pass by, greeting and complaining about the heat, lack of rain and “thotha” referring to scarcity or lack of meat and vegetables to eat with our staple-food “pap”. Talking about the heat was just another way of greeting or personal expression. It was surprising that others would complain even when they were on their way to the nearby forests to collect firewood. They were actually going to deforest, an activity which was highly prohibited more especially if wood were collected from trees that had just been taken down by fire or axe, and offenders received hefty fines. As young people we enjoyed how others went about their heat complain especially the elders. As they pass by, some would ask for water while some would even place orders seeing my mother’s “project” but I am not aware of any sales transactions that took place thereafter. We all knew it was a productive hobby.

I have also observed that my mother made plastic mats during and in between her afternoon rest and naps. Although she had not necessarily communicated, I knew how my mother spent her time especially during my primary school days. We listened to 6:00am and 7:00am radio news together. During the gulf war in 1991 I was a reporter at school and other fifth grade children thought I was talking about prohibited news. I actually looked forward to the teacher asking about current affairs so that I could share what I heard from the radio. The news about my current affairs reporting reached my mother that I was talking about war at school and she never entertained that subject or interrogate me about it. When I leave for school she would usually be cleaning the house and packing our blankets. The bakery later arrives then she would go to the nearby Café to pick loaves of bread that she sold in quarters “kota” at school together with fruits and other snacks. She would prepare food for me and my siblings to eat during school long-break. Breakfast was not an issue then, we ate whatever remained last night and “muladza”, that is leftover “pap” and fruits.

My mother and I would reunite in the afternoon to listen to 2:00pm news while counting money to separate profit from the money I would later go and payback the shopkeeper for bread. Basically my mother’s business model was that, based on the guaranteed market of bread at school she was eligible to take bread on credit and pay it late in the day. From time to time she would ask me to update her book of creditors because she was also selling to others on credit. During updates I would read names and she would tell me what to write on a column of outstanding. There were some circumstances where she asked me to write-off the unpaid or bad debts, those were for people who passed away and those who took too long to pay off. I suppose she had her own rules of prescription of debt, surprisingly she never involved me in debt collection “uvhila”. After all the daily routine, my mother would let me go and play. I suppose that is where the plastic mat “project” found a place. Even when I went to play soccer she would always warn me that I was wasting my time and I would be hurt. I did suffer a broken toe during a soccer match at some point and because of my influence, soccer matches were abandoned for over three months when I was recovering.

While our medium and long-term goals drive our daily choices. There are those activities that we could simply fall back on. As a musician, musical activities are both mandatory and a fall back.

While routine practice are done religiously, I often sit behind the piano and start spontaneous playing and improvisation. Most of the time I spend over thirty minutes unplanned and come out with some real tangible results. Sometimes the same happens with writing, programming or even statistics work. By now my mind knows that a thirty-minutes spent with the mind fully engaged in an activity is a long enough time to achieve tangible results leading to fulfilling life.

The fall back activities help me when my mind is battling to focus. I sometimes sit behind the computer having few projects in mind. The moment I start going to internet for no reason, opening more than one project, it is a sign to think about my state of mind and focus. I always have a thirty minutes walking route to take in an attempt to foster focus. Usually upon return, my mind wants to focus on the next activity. Similar situation also occur with music, if it is a time for music composition, notation or recording and I start switching among activities without focus, I fall back on any other thirty minute activity. One such activity may be cleaning the house, equipment’s, dishwashing, car washing or watering and tendering plants.

While daily activities are vastly different from person to person it is about being conscious of how we spend our time without worrying about what we do and not do every minute and how much time we’ve lost. Under normal circumstances, it takes me thirty minutes from my home to my work place. One can easily count the drive as time lost on the road. I chose to view the time spent on the road as the time to prepare my mind for the day while at the same time transporting the most important person to work. Had I not spent that thirty minutes fully engaged and cooperating with other road users I would be in serious trouble.

Our talk encompassed both being mindful and resting. During the era of working from home, use of time received a spotlight. It became more important than ever to have to think about how we spend our time. Competing activities will always exist and luckily, there is no such thing as competing priorities in my view. By virtue, priorities are ordered. In reality priorities may be challenged, however, the picture we should keep is the results. We must accept that some activities may be important and not urgent, however, they have opportunity to grow during the thought process.

Practicing a deliberate change of priorities is a habit I would encourage. In my experience working with studio musicians, they may appear as if they are easily irritable while they are not. The nature of multi stakeholders’ work is that it forces a person to change priorities quickly and frequently. Each project may require a certain mindset and inspiration. If one is not experienced would easily take offence. Over the years I have worked in multi stakeholders projects and it took years of training to be comfortable in changing priorities in a day. I have found myself being uncomfortable every time priorities were changed by those who were ahead of me in terms of experience. Abilities to manage such behaviour is a difference between those who have high emotional quotient and those with less. I have managed to overcome my intolerance and improved my agility through self-awareness. I frequently apply change in priorities out of choice. The specific situations where I can link emotional intelligence with agility is when I put the stakeholders needs first. I have adopted a motto that “Any person who approach me with a legitimate need and it is in my power to assist, their need should be met” that of course may come with an opportunity cost; however, the results benefit both the giver and a receiver of the service.