On my walk home from the gym I stopped to get a bottle of wine.
Two blocks south of the store was a traffic light I waited at for about 10 seconds.
While standing at the light I noticed a petite woman in a blue and white striped sundress. She was doing something on her phone and when the traffic cleared, she remained stationary as I scuffled across the intersection.
Around a minute later I was inside the wine shop where I grabbed a bottle, made small talk with the clerk, flashed my ID, scratched off the $17.99 price tag, signed a receipt, and was given a bag.
As I stepped out of the wine shop, there she was: the blue and white striped sundress girl. We then walked in stride until my next street turn.
In the same amount of time we accomplished very different things. Both of us moved from A –> B, but I also completed an errand that had been bugging me for a week.
And this is how the world works.
Encouraging phrases like “Einstein had the same amount of hours that you do!” fall on deaf ears, and rightfully so. Einstein was a brilliant genius, we’re just average people, and distractions like House of Cards and Twitter were still in beta at that time.
So we need another way to approach time management.
Instead of using productivity ‘tools’ that keep us from connecting to the Internet for 4 hours, what if we found ways to increase our output without changing the input? What if we just walk faster as we cross the street?
If we just do this, all those 2 block errands will add up to something huge. Maybe even the next Einstein.