One of the great problems that human beings have had in modern times is how to administer the management of time.
The recommendations that I propose throughout this Post assume that we have “solved” the 18 aspects that I mention below and that complicate our relationship with time management:
1. Procrastination
2. Unnecessary chatter
3. Inopportune visitors
4. Talking on the cell phone for long periods of time and continuously
5. Unproductive meetings
6. Unnecessary chats
7. Lack of punctuality and delays
8. Bad decisions and indecision
9. Low productivity in daily activities
10. Mental programming in a negative way
11. Low control in fundamental actions
12. Proceeding with a Negative Attitude
13. Low self-esteem
14. Not knowing what you want to do
15. Behaving with discouragement and dejection.
16. Remaining (Existence) with high degrees of stress.
17. Existence of Unforeseen Events
18. Allowing excuses of any kind.
Note that the resolution of these 18 aspects -which are generally of the daily type- does not imply that we should try to be “perfect beings” in our daily life, but simply that the activities we develop are congruent with what we want to do in any given day. In other words, time management implies being attentive to a number of complex situations, but our existence is thus harassed every day.
Although it is not our objective to present a model to elaborate and manage a program by day of task execution, nor by week, month or any other period, it is not superfluous to mentally elaborate a hierarchical, simple list of the priority and important activities, as well as those that should be carried out without postponing them. The ones classified as urgent should also be included in this list, since they have become priority and important because they have been delayed, postponed or procrastinated for some reason. Likewise, the secondary and non-important ones will be included in this list mentally and/or in writing, since all of them are activities that must be carried out on that day.
Keeping all these categories in mind is important because in each of them we will be able to apply the “use of slack” resource.
Let’s see how to use that total time we have to develop our daily commitments by using slack to improve our efficiency in achieving walking.
Because our fundamental theme is the walking of the human being, in this Post I present the way to manage time, within the sphere of activities that may be related to disposition or indetermination, decision or indecision, mood or discouragement, enthusiasm or indifference, fervor or apathy, conviction or doubt, which are presented in the practice of walking; that is to say, in the scope of those activities that in some way can hinder or delay its practice and that through the use of the time of slack, we can have time to develop walks, favoring the personal control over our management and availability of time.
There are several factors that must be taken into account in order to properly manage time in relation to walking. In the line of the difficulties in general, that are presented to walk (negative branch) we find disorder, indecision, fear, pessimism, discouragement, uneasiness; in the line of the facilities in general (positive branch), we find vocation, encouragement, strong will, tranquility, desire, ability, taste, optimism, self-determination; and in another segment of the inclinations that we will analyze in another Post, we find the economic and social situation and the physical – and mental – faculties, which in certain cases make it impossible to try to manage time, under any method or system, such as physical incapacity, limitations and unacceptable deteriorated psychological states (strongly unbalancing), such as anguish, sadness, depression, etc.
The secret -in part- to have enough time in the trinomial “walking-time-activities” is in managing adequately the concept of slack time.
This concept of “slack” is not very easy to analyze and even less to put it into practice; that is, to make it inherent to ourselves.
The slack time, floating or float time, or simply slack, whatever we call it, is the time we have available to perform any activity without interrupting any other activity that we have scheduled in sequence within the complex of our commitments in the office, and other productive sectors or leisure or recreation. However, there are several functional factors that we will consider and that have an intimate relationship with it, for the administration of time, in the realization of the different activities that the human being carries out, giving priority to the exercise of walking, namely:
Efficiency
Hierarchy (Priority of activities)
Divagation
Freedom (without social conditioning)
Ordering
Organization
Will
These functional factors must be associated with the need to try to avoid anarchy, inefficiency, disorder, digression, bad habits, etc., in short, negative aspects for the achievement of our goals, associated with the trinomial “walking-time-activities”, although the mere satisfaction of those positive elements is, in part, sufficient to overcome the negative ones.
We should not think about PROLONGATIONS, POSTPONEMENTS, or DELAYS. The cases we face on a daily basis in which we can use the “slack” are not very different; that is, in general there are activities that we can postpone and nothing happens, but there are others that we can’t. However, we will have to learn to use “slack”. However, we will have to learn to use the slack in the various behavioral strata of the human being. These are varied for each individual and in all of them we can apply them; so each individual must analyze his or her personal case. In the future post WALKING AND ENJOYING PROPORTIONS AND OTHER NUMBERS I allow myself to approach these categories: “The three elements mentioned, time, space and number, fall in the field of rationalism, however, the number is the element that gives support to time and space, for its interpretation of dimensionality and proportionality. We must take ‘Slack Time’ very much into account for these numerical relations, since it is an inherent characteristic of time and space, considering its own dimensional essences, so we will have to use: slack or conjuncture in the temporal opportunity; slack or profitability (physical opportunity in the right choice) of the material resources; slack or the three-dimensional perspective; slack or term in the application of the financial and economic resources; slack or right timing of artistic realization; slack or leeway in terms of spatial displacement; slack in the timeliness or precision (accuracy) of right thinking; slack or advantage embodied in decision making; slack or speculation on actions of the inner self; slack in the blunder or impertinence of healing of disease; slack in spiritual anachronisms, etc. ” Categories that we will explain in part II, of this Post, in relation to the concept of Slack Time.
Now then: What is slack and how is it managed (handled)? This is what this Post will deal with and specifically its utilization and management while walking. In general, we can say that walking allows us to perform other types of activities, which we do not perform on a daily basis when we walk; but now we can perform them, which will provide us with extra time during the hours of our daily workday.
The secret to have greater availability of -although not necessarily enough- is to manage adequately, and in an acceptable way, the different moments of Slack.
First of all, let’s see what is Slack? What does the concept of Slack mean?
We can resort to the Project Scheduling technique, in which the concept of Float Time or Slack Time is used, which is defined as the time where an activity can be delayed without affecting the total duration of a project. In our case, we will define it as the time we can use to carry out activities without affecting the course of our commitments, since we can use it for whatever we wish, because we are obliged to wait for a time T (Floating Time) for an activity to be carried out (or finished) while we wait. This waiting time can always be used to develop any activity without affecting our commitments and itinerary of realization, and specifically we can use it to walk.
In posts THE WALK AND THE LACK OF TIME-PART I and WALKING AND FREE TIME. PART II was not an essential purpose to comment on making more efficient or increasing the time available for certain activities and tasks, which by our social, family and work obligations, we are committed to performing, willingly or not; however, now we will comment and propose some guidelines within the WALK-RWD System, to increase its availability, of the total time we strictly have.
I believe that it is crucial to consider the meaning of the word WAIT, which is related to what we daily qualify as: “to make time, to wait in line, to wait sitting or standing, to give time to time, to make an anteroom, to take a certain time, to wait for a better moment, to postpone, to delay, to linger, to despair”. In a few words, WAITING for an activity to be developed or to be finished, means -many times- that it causes us despair, anguish, anxiety, discouragement, hopelessness, demoralization, impotence, uneasiness, irritation, displeasure, either because we are forced to do so, or because we are persevering in the achievement of some goal, and therefore we must remain waiting for something or wait for certain actions or results to be carried out. However, we can transform this WAITING, almost in the generality of the cases, in a “usable” time since we can take advantage of it meditating, reading, examining, reflecting, writing, contemplating, etc., and other dozens of appropriate actions to use this time of slack, according to the place where we are doing this WAITING. In our case it will be to take advantage of that waiting time to start walking.
All this sounds a bit illusory and chimerical, because in reality we do not have time for anything, let alone trying to use what I am calling “slack”, “waiting”. Someone would say: “…and now, besides, I have to take care of managing slack, less time will I have!
I would like to transmit from this moment on that this concept of slack is real, legitimate, tangible, certain and effective. Let’s move on.
A relevant part of this Post is to convey that all important activities, routine, daily or day-to-day, and also the eventual ones in life, should be planned and executed with slack. It is very easy the theoretical solution, but somewhat difficult to put it into practice. The result of obtaining the satisfactory achievement in it, is that our effectiveness will be greater in the attainment of our goals, but in addition we will realize it avoiding the anguish, the uncertainty and the anxiety that we are always carrying precisely because we do not have enough time. And this series of worries are usually every day and quite stressful.
The behavior of human beings in certain social strata has been studied with respect to the use of time during the performance of their most important activities and where it is most concentrated. One of the results was that 78% of our activities fall into the basket of NOT HAVING an exact date and time to perform them, i.e., those “commitments” can be advanced or postponed without causing us a major problem. The study does not provide information on how much time we can postpone or advance these activities. Nor does it mention whether any indication was made -within the study-survey- between the different degrees or levels of importance of the activities, and it was only investigated by indicating the activities in general. However, the most outstanding aspect of the results is that the activities that cannot be deferred represent only 1/5 of all the activities that we carry out on a daily basis. This means that we should be aware that we have a great margin to organize ourselves and schedule our time more efficiently with respect to those activities that do not have an exact date and time.
Schematically, out of 10 activities that we carry out in a period of time, for example in a day of 14 hours of effectiveness, 2 of them we will have to develop them in a fixed time and moment, but the remaining 8, we will be able to advance or defer them, so that our time can be used more efficiently.
With this image, I want to convey that we are always stressed about the time limit to perform an activity. What is proposed is to schedule activities in time so that we are not always on the edge of a precipice in the realization of our commitments (work, family, etc.). That is to say, to be able to carry out the actions with ease and thus avoid being anguished, for not having enough time to carry them out. This distance (in minutes or hours or days) of SLACK should always be taken into account so that we never find ourselves on the edge of the abyss.
According to the data of the aforementioned study, only 2 activities are those that should keep us in a state of alertness, and the rest we can organize with slack and greater ease to schedule and carry them out. Only 2 we will have to watch out -according to the analysis- in order not to fall into the precipice.
After this remark about scheduling activities in general but specifically the punctual ones (fixed date and time), I would like to point out 2 additional concepts that we must take into account for this: 1) the routine, which is recommended and essential and 2) systematization, which is mandatory and must be a commitment; of course, in this scenario we must be aware of how to use the available “work” slack, which we may not always be aware of its existence.
The Routine itself is the effective solution for any activity that we have programmed to perform during the day, since it only requires us to get going to face its execution. The rest of its execution will be carried out “as we have always done”.
I will dedicate a few more words to these two concepts, and then focus on the management of slack.
Routine is a normal mechanism that human beings use throughout their productive life. (Post THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM AND HABITS, Post ADDITIONAL BENEFITS IN THE CONDITIONING OF THE BODY AND THE MIND, Post WALKING, AN EXISTENTIAL METAPHOR. PART 2 OF 4.) Routine is frequently mentioned in a pejorative sense, however, it should not necessarily always be considered as such, unless it is placed in monotony; Bachelard expresses that routine is a repetition of oneself, because we appreciate ourselves and we show it that way. Of course, the routines that we incorporate in our behavior, in the different periods of our existence, have several benefits, but the most important -apart from the one expressed by Bachelard-, considering the subject we are analyzing, is the saving of time.
I point out and use the concept of routine as a voluntary and conscious activity or behavior that self-affirms us in our behavior in the development of tasks, since it allows us to be authentic creators of ourselves and in the achievement of satisfactions for ourselves, leaving aside the physical and social limitations and influences of our surrounding environment, if the latter could be achieved to any significant degree. I would like to differentiate it from the concept of Monotony which is also a repetition of activities, actions or movements that reach boredom and weariness of the individual who practices it, so this would be the word that wears the golden crown of all that is pejoratively assigned to Routine. Of course, this is a personal designation, and the only purpose of being able to express myself in these contexts of communication, with greater clarity and not to confuse with meanings that have been imputed (attributed) to the routine (habit), sometimes with reason and sometimes without reason.
What happens in routines? In each of our routines we do not “waste” time thinking or planning an activity (simple or complex action) about how we will start it, nor how we will finish it – apart from the other questions (WH’s), nor about the time we will spend on it or if we will be satisfied. When we develop our activities in a routine way, we already know in advance their performance and efficiency parameters, which represents a considerable saving of time.
Besides, in this process of formation of routines, perhaps we find ourselves before the creation of a positive habit (Post THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM AND THE HABITS), and that is very important for personal development.
However, we must be aware that the routine is not (very) convenient in some situations that are presented to us, nor in certain human activities, as for example in the development of games (Future Post THE GAME AND THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM. PART II. NO TO COMPETITION, YES TO FUN); however, on the process of doing, by means of the use of slack, it could be combined with games; a binomial that optimizes and excites those who are inclined to play always and in everything.
Regarding systematization, I would simply like to mention that its very definition demonstrates the saving of time, but only when it is an inherent part of our actions: systematize a process of action, in the realization of activities to achieve a goal or an objective, is the action according to an efficient model, be it a program, a plan or a method, which allows saving time, money and effort; it is a sequence of activities, which is carried out through a methodical itinerary; it is the chaining of actions and movements that are planned to be performed in an optimal way and that its performance allows reaching the defined objective, in a more efficient and effective way.
One aspect, among others, that should be considered and that shows what this optimization of time and effort (time and effort) represents, is the orderly and safe use of the elements that participate and are used in each activity; this aspect is – for example – not changing the place or position (location and orientation) of the “things” that we are using in our daily or periodic activities.
The way of putting systematization into practice, as well as the routine, and the coordination of the activities that compose them, depends on the temperament and personality of each person.
There is also another factor that is implicit in the optimal administration of time, which must be consciously taken into account: the opportunity to get things done (Future Post WALKING WITH TIME AND OPPORTUNITY, HAND IN HAND). It should be emphasized because all our actions should tend to be carried out punctually (on time), that is, without delay or procrastination. We must always be timely in the beginnings of each of the activities to be carried out, otherwise, we will provoke a concomitant delay in the following ones that are concatenated. This should not be considered as a position of neurosis before the operation and development of activities against time, it is a normal organization of the actions for the achievement of a goal. Let us not be anxious.
Let us analyze the concept of Opportunity. If we are very strict, we could say that any action (activity, thought, idea, reflection, inspiration, movement, sensation, emotion, etc.) that is performed at a moment T1, for example, deep breathing, and the same action of deep breathing that is performed at moment T2, with a difference of seconds, are not identical. If an activity, such as, for example, walking on day 1 and walking on day 2, it will clearly be said that they are different actions.
If walking on day 1 we postpone it to day 2, clearly we know that it was a loss in exercise performance, that we cannot recover it since we did not do it. We cannot make up for certain types of actions that we canceled. We cannot recover that walk and what it represented for our organism on day 1, even if we think we did it on day 2. We will definitely have lost it. The same thing happens with sleeping. However, there are other categories of actions that we can “theoretically recover” if we do not perform them in To time, such as the activities of painting a wall, sweeping the porch, etc. A special case that we must mention are the artistic creations that contain certain core angles that I must point out. Although every artistic work, of any type, is developed over a long and indefinite period of time, there is always a moment of inspiration, specific instants in which those inspirational instants appear, and which are characteristic moments that appear in our mind the images that sting us with ardor our creative mind, and throw us those artistic inspirations. Essay “Acronism” (*).
Efficacy is to time and opportunity, as efficiency is to quality and perfection.
I said earlier that it is very easy to solve it theoretically: the only thing we have to do is to plan all the activities with their appropriate beginnings, with a “previous T time”, which allows us not to start with the right time, pressing. For example, if the arrival time at the office or school is at 8 am and the transportation time is 30 minutes, then add the T time of 15 minutes, which would make leaving home at 7:15. The commute will be done calmly and quietly, knowing that you have enough time to get to the location. You will have defeated anxiety and uncertainty because you know that even if there is a traffic problem, you will be able to arrive on time. In this way you will also be defeating and inactivating the adrenaline, a hormone secreted by the adrenal glands (Future Post THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM AND THE SUPRARENAL GLANDS). The more slack time we actually have, the less stressed we will be in carrying out our activities.
What is required is to plan our activities in advance with a little slack, that is to say, with a sufficient amplitude of time so that we do not suffer unnecessary anxieties.
For the correct achievement of this practice, we must take into account – apart from the fact that we do not have enough time – that our commitments often overtake us. It is clear that even if we plan our activities in the aforementioned way, if we commit to a program where activities overlap, and worse, if they are obstructed, it will be impossible to achieve it. For this type of problem, simple planning and scheduling tools are adequate: we only have to accommodate our unavoidable commitments as a priority, and the activities that are not completely indispensable, only as a complement to the priority ones. But, whenever we commit to them, we must use the slack, defining it as a programmatic reality, i.e. put in our executive calendars – mentally or in writing – the “previous T-times”.
An additional achievement in the use of slack is that we can use it in cases where our activities do not require our direct participation, so that those activities that are not concomitant, we can use them at those times. Acting with slack is synonymous to performing activities in parallel, 2, 3 or more at the same time. The typical case is that when we ride the bus or the subway, we do not drive, and we can use that time to read the documents of work, friends, children, that book we are passionate about, write a letter or a poem, or continue writing our novel. This type of cases where we can use these slacks, are repeated dozens of times in our weekly development; let’s take advantage of it. The WALK-RWD System, in itself, achieves the utilization of floating times, when practiced including its 3 structured activities.
My own “professional deformation” as an engineer led me to point out the above described by means of the project scheduling technique; an aspect that I will put at the end of the Post because it is not necessary to read it.
To illustrate these theoretical graphs of project scheduling, we can consider the following simple example. The father takes his daughter to the theater course or workshop, whose duration is 2 hours, in that time he can do any other activity within that time, instead of being totally passive waiting for her to finish the class. That time of 2 hours is the time he can have to do another activity of another task or a set of activities.
The other way of conceiving and realizing the slack is to plan and schedule the development of the sets of activities, so that we can better identify the slack that may arise throughout the process of carrying out each of them.
A global and routine sequence of an individual, man or woman, several days a week, could be:
1. Awakening
2. Getting up
3. Getting dressed
4. Walking
5. Bathing
6. Dressing again
7. Eat breakfast
8. Transportation
9. Working in the office
These 9 Activities are daily activities, so if we could find some slack, we could use them to develop other activities, so it would be great because they would multiply enormously. Where could you locate some slack in these 9 aggregated activities?
It would seem that they are all sequential activities and must be completely finished to start the next one.
However, we could each internally analyze activities 3 through 8, and this would shed some light on the development of other tasks or obligations.
For example,
When dressing any person could listen to music or the news.
When walking we can read, write or draw, as we have already explained in many ways and conditions.
When taking a bath we can always listen to the radio or talk to the wife or husband.
When having breakfast we can do any of the other activities mentioned in the previous points.
When transporting to the office or any other work or professional center, we can listen to the radio and some other means of communication. If we use public transportation, we will also be able to carry out some of the indicated activities, except walking; although we will be able to walk all -or in part- the route from the house to the office or the factory, and to carry out some of the 3 activities structured within the WALK-RWD System.
I could almost assure that we can always find the use of some slack between the activities that make up a set of responsibilities or obligations of a social, family, personal or work type.
In the labor aspects, it is a proposal to optimize productivity, while having some mandatory work and production schedules. Either with the WALK-RWD System or independently (Posts EFFICIENCY AND PRODUCTIVITY IN OTHER FIELDS; THE SYSTEM CAN BE INCORPORATED TO COMPANIES). But I have no doubt that it could be highly profitable to apply the WALK-RWD System in an integral way, since time could be better used.
Finally, let us keep in mind that these 4 specific concepts (Routine, Systematization, Opportunity and Slack), briefly explained, are affordable to achieve greater efficiency and increase the time we have for certain activities and tasks, but above all to incorporate daily, half an hour of walking.
Project Programming Theory.
Now, let’s see and analyze the above by means of some technicalities -part of the post that we can skip reading-, but I think it is necessary to leave it in writing, because what happens to us daily can be solved by numbers, which is not very pleasant, but it is demonstrated reliably in the technique of Project Scheduling (Engineering in general and Economic Engineering). In the Project Scheduling technique, the Slack Time or Float Time is the time where an activity can be delayed without affecting the total duration of a project. In our case, we will define it as the time we can use to carry out activities without affecting the course of our commitments, since we can use it for whatever we wish, because we are obliged to wait for a time T (Floating Time) for an activity to be carried out while we wait. This waiting time can always be used to develop any activity without affecting our commitments and itinerary of realization.
The core aspect of slack is centered on its use, which manifests itself in two ways. One, that it normally occurs while we are performing various tasks or sets of activities; and two, that we can configure it in our own way:
C1, C2, C3, …, Cn
Note: Activities consume time, work and resources. For now we will only be interested in time.
As for their conceptualizations:
Slack is the period of time available to carry out one or more activities without affecting the development of the Task in time, quality and quantity, and without increasing the use of resources in general for its achievement.
The concept of Slack is made up of the following elements:
– COMMITMENT: GROUP OF ACTIVITIES OR TASKS
– ACTIVITY: GROUP OF ACTIONS AND MOVEMENTS
– ACTION: MINIMUM CONVENIENT DIVISION OF ACTION
– NODE: STARTING POINT OR TERMINATION POINT OF AN ACTIVITY
– ARROW: DIRECTION OF THE SEQUENCE OF AN ACTIVITY
– DURATION: TIME LIMIT OF AN ACTIVITY FOR ITS REALIZATION.
COMMITMENT
COMMITMENT is the objective or goal to be achieved in a defined commitment or purpose.
It is made up of a determined number of activities or tasks.
The set of COMMITMENTS make up the structure of a commitment or purpose.
SYMBOL OF REPRESENTATION:
ACTIVITY
ACTIVITY is the concrete work required for the satisfaction of any need.
It is made up of a determined number of actions and movements.
Several activities make up a COMMITMENT.
REPRESENTATION SYMBOL:
ACTION
ACTION is the minimum division into which human efforts can be divided, in order to be able to organize their personal and collective development.
Being the minimum required unit of concrete work to be able to evaluate its importance in the conformation of the achievement of an activity.
Several actions make up an Activity.
SYMBOL OF REPRESENTATION:
NODE
NODE is the point of intersection of two or more activities that make up a Task.
It is also the starting and ending point of a Task.
REPRESENTATION SYMBOL:
ARROW
ARROW is the direction that an activity has for its development within the network that makes up a Task.
REPRESENTATION SYMBOL:
DURATION
DURATION is the period of time in which an activity is carried out within the task.
REPRESENTATION SYMBOL:
t
Its linear and concatenated sequence of them, avoids us any use of slack that can be glimpsed or conjectured.
A classifiable and usable Slack is: While the Set Ci is being carried out, the activity “INCRUSTED”, of the Set Ci+1, can be carried out, and thus all our Daily Sets of activities could be analyzed.
Now the other scheme is that for new sets of activities we plan their sequences of priorities and look for those slacks that we can use in a timely manner and with a certain degree of security.
However, within each task or set Ci we can perform some extra activities in slack times that we can always be detecting.
Let the task or set Ci consist of several activities: A0, A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, AF, from the start activity A0 to the end activity AF.
For the achievement of the final objective, it is required to complete our work until the completion of the AF activity (Final Activity), it is always possible to perform some external activity of any other set, which does not interfere with the development and sequence of these activities of the Ci Task.
This is the end of all the technical aspects, which help the concept of slack from the point of view of Project Scheduling. As already mentioned, we can avoid all this theory.