Time management depends on what we mean by time and, for that matter, what we mean by management, lol, which is probably related to our priorities. I started talking about this here: Beyond the clock: Dharma and the space-time continuum.
To help with time management, for starters, instead of feeling overwhelmed by a packed schedule or back to back meetings stretching ahead into the days, weeks, or even months ahead, it’s a lot less stressful to get used to staying present. Remembering that (a) the past has completely gone and (b) we may die today puts boundaries around each day that allow us to stay fully in the day and, gradually, in the moment. You can read about that here: No time like the present.
Being present allows us to stay focused on one task at a time. A fellow writer was pointing out that the quality of his output is far better when he manages to single-task it. I know this to be true from writing this blog – and that I also get far more pleasure from it when I manage not to multi-task. For example, let’s say we have to write a report – if we can focus entirely on that for, say, 30 minutes to an hour, without checking emails or social media, this will not only improve efficiency and quality, but also leave us feeling less worn out. Basic common sense, really, but common sense that seems to have gotten away from a lot of us. A very creative friend of mine can literally spend eight hours straight in her chair absorbed in her projects – she even forgets to eat. She loves it. I can only aspire to such focus and flow (and start by staying put for an hour at a time …) 
What is a day for?
In that conversation I was talking about back then, they go on to say:
I think that burnout is best understood as having the component of a lack of meaning — that you’re not only working incredibly hard, but it doesn’t seem to get you any closer to the imagined moment when you’re actually going to feel on top of everything and in control — like you can relax at last.
It’s that proverbial hamster on the wheel feeling, as explained here: Buddhism and the hedonic treadmill. We need to sit still on that wheel for a moment and think this through. Be human beings, as they say, as opposed to human doings. For, as Gandhi put it:
There is more to life than its speed.
Samsaric activities are likened to a man’s stubble – although he may shave it off in the morning, it’s already grown back by the evening. This means that we have to make the main thing the main thing because we’re literally never going to get through our to-do list otherwise.
If our most important job is to train our mind, which I would argue it is, we can prioritize this even on the busiest of days by keeping things simple. A wise Buddhist monk wrote a really practical guest article about that here: Keeping it simple, in which, amongst other things, he explains
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
The ability to follow this advice depends on what we think life is about, or for. What is the main thing?! If we are waiting to find lasting control or relaxation in samsara, we have a long wait coming. An endless wait, actually, however hard we work or fast we run.
The threefold path to freedom
Like I said in this recent article, Can we talk about the phones, I may have the remaining lifespan of, give or take, a cat. So I really have to prioritize my time, which means focusing on my motivation even when I’m at my busiest.
Someone in New York was asking me whether I thought quantum scientists would stumble upon and realize emptiness. My reply was that this would seem to depend on their motivation. We need a minimum motivation of renunciation to realize emptiness for, without that, we’ll never muster up the wish and energy to realize that the things we normally see do not exist. Our attachment to samsaric pleasures, or even just to things being real and “there”, is too strong. Years ago I saw a Star Trek episode where Captain Kirk entered a dream-like world. He knew he was dreaming and he had control over his dream, but he didn’t like it so he spent the whole episode trying to get back to “real” life. He could not enjoy the creative freedom of being able to make up his own world; and the movie supported his view that it is better if things are solidly real. More on that here: What’s stopping us from dissolving everything into emptiness.
Also, if I recall correctly, Captain Kirk found the relative paradise of his unreal world a distraction from being able to help people in the “real world”, showing that he didn’t understand how we can be in a Pure Land and living amongst living beings at the same time. As Venerable Geshe Kelsang said not long before he passed away:
This is not my environment.
Yet how many thousands upon thousands of people has he helped!?
Maybe this is one reason why, once Buddha Shakyamuni had gained a complete realization of emptiness and enlightenment itself, his first teaching was on the truth of suffering, not emptiness. The whole of Buddhism is predicated on the fact that we are suffering and so is everyone else, so what can we do about it? We first need to understand that our suffering is coming from our delusions, especially our self-grasping ignorance, and our karma; and learn to abandon delusions and practice moral discipline to change our appearances.
We also need concentration, on which basis we can develop the wisdom realizing that everything is illusory, in order to wake up from all suffering forever.
These are the “three higher trainings”: higher moral discipline, higher concentration, and higher wisdom.
Buddha’s point is that if we take this motivation of renunciation and compassion, and add the three higher trainings, we can travel the internal, spiritual path from A to Z. This compares to a mere intellectual curiosity about emptiness that has no practical application nor power to liberate our mind. We won’t even have the urge to free our own and others’ minds from delusions, hallucinations, and suffering if we don’t really know what these are, where they’re coming from, or how to generate renunciation and compassion.
I suppose that quantum physics is attempting to describe the material or physical world and how it is an illusion, “albeit a persistent one”; and Buddhism is more interested in “Why is this happening at all, where do these illusions come from, and how does conventional reality hang together in the first place? And, most importantly, what if anything can we do about it?”
Buddha saw that reality is dependent relationship, non-truly existent, unfindable; and therefore that any appearance of solidity is illusory. But what do most people think would happen if we did realize that everything was illusory and that we were hallucinating all this!? I personally haven’t found satisfactory descriptions of this except in Buddha’s teachings. In the first Matrix movie, for example, the alternative to the illusory Matrix is the supposedly truly existent physical underground reality of Zion. This is where that movie fell flat for me – its notion of what is reality is
entirely different to that of Buddha’s, which is bliss and emptiness pervading all phenomena; and I for one would not be remotely interested in shooting for a sweaty, exhausting, crowded place like Zion. If we are to put all that effort into studying and meditating on the true nature of reality, which could take a lifetime or even longer, both on our meditation cushion and in our daily lives, we need to intuit the extraordinary bliss, total freedom, and deep ability to help others that we’ll experience as a result.
(Looking for an image, I came across a headline and article that made me chuckle: “Is freeing everyone from the Matrix really a good idea? ~ Waking up billions of humans is the easy part. Figuring out how to pack them all into Zion will be much harder.)
Another difference I find between Buddha’s teachings and quantum physics is that the pivotal role of consciousness is not discussed as much in quantum physics. It is just “the observer this or the observer that”, not so much what the observer actually is or how it functions, let alone how it is also not real and therefore can be totally transformed. Buddha gave many vast and profound teachings on this subject – this knowledge of consciousness underpins everything we learn in Buddhism, and whole books are written about it, for example How to Understand the Mind.
Continued in this article: Stretchy time. Your comments are most welcome!
