I Have Time for Things I Want To Do

Early in my career as a lawyer, probably during the first couple of months, I remember a senior associate telling me that "work expands to fill available time."  I tend to forget most of what I hear, but I remember this well--because it's very, very true.  I have learned since that this is known as Parkinson's law, first stated in an article published in The Economist in the 1950s.

I mentioned in my first blog post that I'm in a career transition.  There are some good things happening there, but I remain unemployed for now.  However, I still can't find the time to do everything that I think I ought to do.  Before my last day on the job, I expected to have so much free time that I would be making up things to do.  Of course, I did have a list of things in my head that I thought I ought to get to right away:  reorganize the garage and the attic, arrange a home office, build an outdoor fire pit, and handle basic set up at the new mountain cabin.  I've done some, but not all of that list.  I expected to have it done long ago.

There are so many other things I have been doing at the same time:  triathlon training is not as rushed and has expanded some; I'm glad that I can give more help around the house (the 2 year old is a handful; and I can run errands during the day); I've committed to writing everyday, which I've almost kept to; I've said yes to requests for help at church that I would have said no to before; and on and on.

I think there may be a Hicks corollary to Parkinson's law.  Or if not a corollary, at least a related rule:  

I have time for things I want to do.

If I compare the list of things that I've actually done with the list of things that I thought I'd get to but haven't yet, it's clear that the first list is the list of things that I really want to do.  The second list is of things I ought to do at some point, but am not so excited about actually doing.

This is not groundbreaking, I know, but it's something I've been thinking about for the past couple of years.  Now that my time is even more flexible, it's even more clear--when I start to say "I don't have time" for this or that, what I really mean is that I don't want to do it.  Period.

Of course, it's also now true that when someone else says "I don't have time," what I hear is "I don't want to."  There's some social value in the little white lie of blaming time for a refusal, rather than just saying "I don't want to."  Who can argue with time?  

But in my own internal conversations, removing "time" as a reason I give myself for not doing something and focussing on what my priorities actually are has helped me clarify (or even modify) my priorities on occasion.  

I've spent as much time as I want to on this.  Time to go do something else.