自由職業10年，我發現「時間管理」其實是個騙局

I started freelancing in 2014, and it's been over ten years now.

People often ask me, how do you manage your time?

Well, to be honest, like many others, especially in the beginning, I found time management incredibly challenging.

Because, when you suddenly have a lot of time on your hands, you realize you were previously managed by your company's schedule.

Once that framework is gone, you just don't know what to do.

But after all these years, struggling and learning, my current state is that I've become very used to it.

So today, I'll just make a video to share how I manage my time.

Whether you're a freelancer or not, there are many principles and methodologies here that I believe will be very practical for you.

This sharing, will be divided into two parts.

The first part is about changes in mindset, and the second part is about specific methods and principles.

If you search for time management on Xiaohongshu, you'll see many, uh, extremely beautiful calendars and to-do lists, with every minute filled in tightly.

At first, I also thought that was what time management was, but after 10 years, I found that these perfectly drawn calendars can only mean two things.

First, they are fake, just a demo for you.

Second, if someone really does that, uh, then it's highly likely they're just busy for the sake of being busy.

My biggest shift in understanding is right here.

True time management doesn't really exist at all, you're not managing time, but your attention.

Those jam-packed schedules, are essentially treating time as fuel, believing that an hour invested will yield an hour's worth of results.

But humans aren't machines, if you're a normal person, then the truly efficient time you can spend in a state of focused flow each day is probably only around four hours.

Once you understand this, you won't feel like eating, cooking, or sleeping is a waste of time anymore, because you might not have been able to make use of that time effectively anyway.

So, since your high-energy attention span is only that long, then planning a millisecond-level schedule is misguided.

Time management should change with the variations in your attention.

When we talk about managing attention, we must admit, uh, it has two characteristics.

First, attention isn't uniform.

For me, the time from waking up to before lunch is when my attention is best, but by evening, my brain is already scattered, and it's hard to focus. This is like the Tian Ji's Horse Racing strategy, if I invest time when my attention is at its peak, I might have several times the output, but if I stay up late when I'm tired, not only is the efficiency low, it's a wasteful effort that doesn't pay off.

Second, where your attention is directed determines your results.

As I said before, if you want to surpass 99% of people, you have to put your attention on what's most important to you.

So, what are the most important things?

Uh, if you want to win a Nobel Prize, then you should focus your attention on the problems that can help you win that prize.

So if you expend all your precious attention on trivial matters, even if your time management is, uh, perfectly flawless, it's meaningless.

This brings me to my second cognitive shift, which might sound a bit funny, and that is, I finally understood the difference between a calendar and a to-do list.

(Sound effect) So in the past, uh, I would put all my tasks, into this calendar, and draw out the blocks, because according to time management principles, uh, of course, everything should have a start and end time.

While this looks good on the surface, what you gain more of is a sense of frustration.

Because for the most important tasks, for example, uh, writing a script, or creative work, it's often outcome-oriented, and it's hard to dictate that it must be finished within half an hour.

We often underestimate the time we need to spend, In reality, most of our problems aren't about going overtime on important tasks, but rather underestimating or deliberately avoiding spending time on important tasks.

This then leads to a situation where if you can't complete something within the time you've scheduled on your calendar, your entire day's plan gets completely disrupted.

Therefore, my principle now is very simple: the calendar only records things that must happen at a scheduled time, for example, doctor's appointments, catching a flight, or meetings with others.

As for reminders and to-dos, I put all other tasks there, and for these to-dos, I try to avoid setting specific due times.

Alright, So, having discussed the cognitive shifts in time management, let's now talk about how I specifically allocate my time, and when executing tasks, the specific methods and mindset.

First, let me talk about my time allocation.

Firstly, I will do my utmost to protect my mornings.

Since my energy is at its peak in the mornings, I dedicate this time to creative work.

My protection of my morning time, has reached an almost paranoid level.

I don't schedule meetings, don't go grocery shopping, don't see doctors, I'm even unwilling to talk to anyone, to say an extra word, and certainly won't check messages, or reply to them, because that consumes my attention reserves.

Specifically, I divide my mornings into two main blocks.

Uh, the first block is the 5 AM Project, from waking up, and finishing breakfast until 8:30 AM.

Those familiar with my content know that I wake up very early every day, and have a 5 AM Project.

The concept behind it is, to utilize the least disturbed time of the day, when the world is still asleep, to do things that are most important to me, most interesting, and what I most want to do.

For example, recently, I've been using AI every morning to develop an app I've always wanted to create.

Let me interject here, if you'd also like to try this, you're welcome to join our community's Five Club.

Seeing everyone check in daily there, and update all sorts of projects, that atmosphere is truly incredibly motivating.

The detailed link is below the video.

Now, the second main block of time in the morning, is after the 5 AM Project ends, after 8:30 AM.

that's when I start doing, uh, YouTube content creation, editing, or, the core work of new startup projects.

Speaking of which, I must, uh, also add a crucial mindset, which is that you will often, uh, hear various bloggers say, 'This is how I spend every day.'

These are all illusions.

Because I've been a freelancer for ten years, I can tell you responsibly, it's impossible to live every day by the exact same routine.

For example, sometimes I have jet lag issues, and have to attend meetings early in the morning, or have to sacrifice a 5-AM project to do another urgent and important task.

Life happens, you'll always have surprises, uh, unexpected situations, you'll travel, your projects will change, or you might simply be tired and want to rest.

If you pursue that kind of perfectionism where every day is perfectly planned, you will definitely fall into deep frustration.

So don't force yourself to be perfect every day.

Compared to guaranteeing a full day's routine, guaranteeing a routine for key time slots is much easier, and much more realistic.

For me, even when traveling, even if the rest of my day is chaotic, as long as I can stick to the period from 5 AM to 8:30 AM, stick to the habit of doing the most important things before the world wakes up, then I've already won.

As long as you can put your best energy into the most important tasks most of the time, that's enough.

After finishing the intense morning work, I'll go for a walk, Cooking.

Ha, I know many freelancers feel that cooking, and doing chores are a waste of time.

But as I said at the beginning of my video, you can't possibly utilize every minute of your attention.

So don't fret over how much opportunity cost you've lost because of cooking, or doing chores, because those opportunities never existed.

After lunch, I do some chores, to digest my food.

Then I'll have a fifteen to twenty-minute power nap, a midday nap.

For the old me, who used to plan time down to the minute, I always thought (Laughter) napping was a bad habit.

But after a cognitive shift, I realized it's a miracle worker for rebooting the brain.

When you wake up, it's like a new day has begun.

However, this time needs to be strictly controlled to within twenty minutes.

If you sleep longer, you'll actually feel more tired when you wake up.

In the afternoon, I generally finish up any important tasks that are still incomplete.

And then, I will focus on handling those, non-creative tasks, such as, some administrative work, meetings, replying to emails, and other miscellaneous things, including exercise.

Since I mentioned batch processing, I want to say a few more words, because, uh, it's a very important method in my time management.

My batch processing, then, is divided into two situations.

The first is batch processing a project that requires full dedication, on a daily basis.

For example, I dedicate three days each year to complete tax filing.

And for shooting my YouTube videos, I often dedicate an entire day to it.

New projects, and the launch of new websites often involve a few days of focused sprints, because many of these projects require momentum, or the setup preparation is very tedious, so centralized processing is more efficient.

The second type of centralized processing, is concentrating small blocks of time within a day.

For example, when I'm not in good shape in the afternoon, I will gather small time slots, half an hour or an hour, to process in one go, uh, those tedious tasks, that I don't really want to do but have to do.

For instance, uh, paying a bill, filling out a form, replying to an email, making a phone call, and so on.

I have to process these things in a concentrated manner, because once I process them separately, my attention and time will be scattered.

Okay, what I just mentioned were methods for large-scale time planning.

Now, let's talk about the methods and principles I use when executing specific tasks.

The first thing I want to share is, uh, the three maxims for single-task processing.

I am a firm believer in single-tasking, or rather, sequential tasking.

Multitasking is a false premise for me, because that way I don't do anything well.

The person who influenced me most on this point is Elon Musk.

His biographer, uh, talked about Elon's unique time management approach in an interview.

He said, Musk is not a multi-tasker, but a sequential tasker.

He focuses on one thing at a time, and then switches to the next.

But that's not the key point, what impressed me even more is, Uh, when Elon Musk handles a task, it's as if he builds four walls around himself, completely isolating it.

The author also shared a story that vividly illustrates this point.

On the very day Musk successfully acquired Twitter, he immediately delved into SpaceX's rocket research.

Employees knew that buying Twitter was a huge deal, and were wondering if they should congratulate him.

But Musk was focused on the rockets, as if he had forgotten all about acquiring Twitter.

I call this time management method 'faith-based single-tasking'.

This is a method I've been using for several years, and to achieve it, I have three simple and memorable mantras.

First, I've developed a conditioned reflex: when I'm about to start a task or when it's its turn, I immediately think of the word 'attack', making immediate action the first reflex when thinking of a task.

There's no intermediate preparation process, and this is very effective for treating procrastination, because once you start doing something, a large part of your previous worries and fears about it disappear, and this also helps you quickly enter a state of flow, maintaining focus for extended periods.

Second, when starting a task, I silently repeat to myself, isolate, isolate, and isolate again.

I imagine building four walls around the task, fully committing my time and attention to it. Forcing myself to forget about other things.

Third, when I feel distracted or someone tries to interrupt me, I immediately say, "Hey, we'll talk about it later.

No thinking, no discussing now, no worrying." And this phrase,

no worrying." And this phrase, helps me bring my focus back to the current task, avoiding distractions.

I know this might sound a bit annoying, uh, but if you find yourself saying this often, it means you are consciously protecting your attention.

As long as you're doing the most important thing, other things can actually be delayed, or even treated as non-existent.

Okay, so these are my methods for working on tasks.

Now I'll share my methods for switching tasks.

For a long time, I didn't understand why some people liked working in cafes, with people coming and going, and it being particularly noisy.

How could one be efficient there?

I always maintained that, uh, work should be done properly, sitting at a desk, for the entire day.

Sitting on the sofa, in the living room, at the dining table, or on the beach, etc., wasn't serious work.

It wasn't until I read some neuroscience materials that I realized I was completely wrong.

Uh, psychology has a concept called 'attention residue', which means when you switch from task A to task B, your brain often remains stuck on task A, making it difficult for you to truly immerse yourself in the new task.

This made me realize that, to solve this problem, we should make switching tasks equivalent to switching environments.

This is because, changes in environment have a huge impact on the brain, and a change of environment can bring a sense of novelty, effectively helping the brain switch attention, and rejuvenate itself.

And staying in the same place for a long time, like I used to, makes it especially easy to fall into this 'attention residue', uh, making myself very inefficient.

After understanding this principle, my working method completely changed.

I no longer rigidly, sitting at a desk like a student.

Every time I switch tasks, I'll change my environment.

For example, I'll go to the sofa, from the study on the second floor to the living room on the first floor, then to the backyard, then to the library, or even go for a walk.

Yes, outdoor walks can also be your workplace.

Many of my video scripts were written while walking.

So you see, uh, if the word 'attention' makes you think of 'immutability', then the key to switching attention is 'change'.

So changing the environment is a very good method.

Okay, those were the methods I've been using for the past few years.

But, in the past year, my time management has added a new rule, which is setting a forced shutdown time.

This concept of a forced shutdown, I first heard about it from a YouTuber I really like, named Johnny Harris.

He said, because every day around 4 PM, he and his wife have to take care of their child, so he has to race against time before then, to get all the work he can done.

His 'forced shutdown', is not something he actively chose, but was forced to implement it.

However, he found that it was actually very efficient this way.

When I first heard this concept, I thought, hmm, I also wanted to implement it, but I didn't have his insurmountable factors.

Uh, I was never able to successfully implement it, leading to me often staying up late.

This is the biggest problem for many freelancers, which is the lack of a so-called work-life balance.

But since last year, I suddenly became able to successfully implement this forced shutdown schedule.

That's because of my heart condition.

I have to take medication twice a day.

8:30 AM and 8:30 PM.

So I gave the act of taking medicine a sense of ritual.

Taking medicine at 8:30 AM reminds me that the 5 AM project must end, and it's time to get down to serious business.

Then taking medicine at 8:30 PM tells me I should stop working, and force a shutdown.

No matter how big the matter is, I won't work on it, otherwise, I'll kick the bucket.

So, this unexpected force majeure has brought me great benefits.

For over a year now, I haven't stayed up late.

Uh, most of the time I go to bed at 9:30 PM, and wake up naturally at 5 AM, starting my 5 AM project.

And my physical condition?

It's very good.

Although it objectively reduced the number of things I can do, and sometimes I feel a little anxious, it ensures my long-term sustainability, and forces me to consciously spend my time wisely.

and adopt better methods and tools to make yourself more efficient.

So, that pretty much sums up my experience with time management over my many years as a freelancer.

Of course, there are many specific operational details that I can't share one by one.

However, I believe that by mastering the core concepts in this video, you should also be able to find specific methods and tools that suit you.

I know, time management, or rather attention management, is a challenge for many of us, especially with smartphones, social media, and short videos, uh, it's become even harder to concentrate.

So here I recommend everyone read a book, uh, called Stolen Focus.

This book brilliantly explores why we lose focus so easily, and specifically how to regain our attention.

This book is also the book club selection for the December Yikou Xinfan community.

If you're interested, feel free to join us.

Alright, thank you for watching.

We'll see you next time.

Bye-bye!

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