The same logic, Abel points out, applies to time

The same logic, Abel points out, applies to time. If you try to find time for your most valued activities by first dealing with all the other important demands on your time, in the hope that there’ll be some left over at the end, you’ll be disappointed. So if a certain activity really matters to you - a creative project, say, though it could just as easily be nurturing a relationship, or activism in the service of some cause - the only way to be sure it will happen is to do some of it today, no matter how little, and no matter how many other genuinely big rocks may be begging for your attention. After years of trying and failing to make time for her illustration work, by taming her to-do list and shuffling her schedule, Abel saw that her only viable option was to claim time instead - to just start drawing, for an hour or two, every day, and to accept the consequences, even if those included neglecting other activities she sincerely valued. If you don’t save a bit of your time for you, now, out of every week,’ as she puts it, ‘there is no moment in the future when you’ll magically be done with everything and have loads of free time.’ This is the same insight embodied in two venerable pieces of time management advice: to work on your most important project for the first hour of each day, and to protect your time by scheduling ‘meetings’ with yourself, marking them in your calendar so that other commitments can’t intrude. Thinking in terms of ‘paying yourself first’ transforms these one-off tips into a philosophy of life, at the core of which lies this simple insight: if you plan to spend some of your four thousand weeks doing what matters most to you, then at some point you’re just going to have to start doing it.

Everything else has been handled. The important work can begin. Except everything else produces another request before the previous one is complete. Waiting for a calm period lets other people’s urgency set the calendar indefinitely. “Pay yourself first” sounds like lifestyle advice, but it is really allocation under scarcity. Put time into the valued activity before the minor demands are satisfied, because satisfaction will never occur. This can mean forty minutes of writing before messages, one evening reserved for a relationship or a recurring hour spent learning a skill. The amount may be modest. Its position is decisive. The uncomfortable part is accepting what will remain undone. An unanswered message, untidy room or postponed errand is the visible consequence of choosing. Some people have far less control over their time, and neat scheduling advice can insult anyone handling care, insecure work or illness. The principle still asks a useful question at a smaller scale: is there any portion that can be claimed before availability is given to every demand? A calendar entry creates neither power nor energy. It can prevent other people from booking that hour by default. The first attempt may be interrupted after twelve minutes; protect twelve again tomorrow instead of declaring the method failed. At 8pm, the washing remains in the basket. The page contains three new paragraphs.