Spazierblitze

Some time ago, someone introduced me to David Allen and his kind of famous Getting Things Done method.
Since then I cannot help but stumble across some of this whole productivity, time and self management stuff quite regularly. Because there is so much of it out there. Being me, I have not even made it through a fraction of it - but already got the impression that a very important aspect is missing. We'll get there soon.

First let me answer the question which is probably in your head since you started reading: why is she not writing in German as usual? On the one hand, everything I've read on this subject up to now has been in English, so it feels quite familiar this way. On the other hand, why not give it a try for a change? That is, apart from my strange vocab usage, of course.

So...what is this whole thing about? I would put it this way: Mr. Allen and his fellows are showing ways to make the most and best of your time. And to actually gain some more by applying a few simple principles.

Personally, I used to think that some well-used common sense and my mother's saying 'Lazy people must be clever' got me through quite well. And guess what? Reading all these articles, I actually recognized some of my intuitively established ways to manage my chaotic self. If furthermore the respective article is titled, let's say Time Management for Smart People - well, I admit that the author has a significant amount of my sympathy on his side.

But further going in for the matter, I had also to admit that I have a problem: I am a woman. Inherent you say? Not quite.
For a woman, my dearest productivity gurus, it is not as simple as Getting Things Done. We have to get things done looking beautiful. Which means, for example, that if we actually manage to get up half an hour earlier than usual, we loose 10 of these painfully gained, precious minutes almost instantly in the bathroom trying to conceal our two personal copies of the Mariana Trench. The average man I dare say simply does not care about that sort of thing.
Which is probably already the explanation why I could not find a single sentence about a trade off between productivity and beauty: all authors I know of are men. But I'm not giving up hope that some day, I will stumble across such a thing as Getting Things Done for Women. Meanwhile, I will settle for my personal solution of gaining 10 minutes in the morning: having my hair cut shorter.