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How to Juggle Priorities (2023)
- hobs 2y agoHonestly this is stupid, if you want to have integrity the answer is to have less balls in the air.
- ZephyrBlu 2y agoYeah this feel way overblown. Just do less. You probably don't need to try and juggle so many things.
- neolefty 2y agoThat would make sense if you knew how hard things were going to be and if you could predict external responsibilities. For example if I plan to meet a friend tomorrow, but tonight my child unexpectedly gets sick, I can call the friend and say, "Sorry my child got sick. How about next week?" That might happen multiple weeks in a row, but eventually (assuming a patient friend) we'll get together and renew our connection. On the other hand, if I played it safe, and said, "I'm too busy for friendships now that I'm a parent," we would both have less friend-time.
- namaria 2y agoThe metaphor is terrible, juggling balls of very different weights would already be nearly impossible. Trying to keep track of them so you know which ones you can drop is a much harder problem then just sticking to a number you can reliably juggle.
- markstos 2y agoJuggler here. Juggling balls of very different weights works. Our brain and bodies are amazing. I watch a guy juggle a bowling ball, a machete and an apple. For a while I had my own Goodwill bowling ball for juggling.
- namaria 2y agoAmateur juggle here It's very hard, and doesn't cut as a metaphor for making your life easier
- j45 2y agoAnother analogy might be that there can only be so much on the stove at a given time.
- bluGill 2y agoThat is a bad idea. Some of those balls in the air are things you should be doing but can skip. Exercise is a perfect example - we all know that it is important for good health, but it is also something that if you skip a day here and there it is okay (just don't let one day skipped lead to a week). Similarly I practice my musical instruments, but I often skip that when something else comes up, but I have no interest in not having practice as a ball in the air even though I drop it more often than not. Life only rarely goes perfectly to plan. You will have to change plans at the last minute because of emergencies, but planning to do nothing just in case there is an emergency is a bad plan. Your boss will ask you to work late. Your kids will get sick. You will get invited to a last minute event. It is likely that you will be involved in two different activities that schedule an event at the same time. All of these are a sign of a fulfilling life, not of a problem.
- financltravsty 2y agoFulfilling for some. A system without slack is a brittle system. I really have nothing more to say but I manage to find slack, and when life throws me a new ball to juggle I can deal with it, and use the spare time, energy, and focus to deal with them properly -- rather than become winded, stressed, and pressed. I have always tried to find fulfillment with less, rather than more. The people I see zipping around from thing to thing have superficial and shallow experiences. Then they end up being superficial and shallow people. Chicken or egg? However, nothing is more irritating than having to personally deal with the "zippies," high on whatever stimulant (caffeine, nicotine, amphetamine, etc.) so they can have the "energy" to "deal" with life's "responsibilities." There's something to be said about work ethic, being able to push yourself to your limits, and balance on the razor's edge -- there is something special in that. However, lacking any sort of overarching focus is a much more common and base state of being. "More must always be done!" Yet they haven't taken any time to step back and reflect if what they're doing is even worth anything -- even the ancient generals figured that out.
- bluGill 2y agoWhat about how I described music practice isn't slack?
- taneq 2y agoThe first thing to come to peace with is that no matter which ball you choose to let fall, it's gonna piss off someone and that someone is going to be very certain and very much in your face about the fact that from their point of view, you did the wrong thing. Get used to people telling you you're wrong.
- sna1l 2y agoI think one of the major things missing from this post is that if you are going to drop a ball, you should communicate you are dropping it to the relevant stakeholders / family / friends / etc. That generally lessens the blow of dropping it significantly in my experience.
- markstos 2y agoTypically there are three throws per second. Communication latency to stakeholders is too low while juggling to achieve desired goal.
- bosie 2y agoWhat does this even mean? Especially the first bit
- thfuran 2y agoIt means they're for some reason talking about juggling balls.
- hangsi 2y ago3 throws per second is the rate of action required to perform juggling literally. The implication is that communicating between the miss that causes the fall and the event of dropping the ball must happen in less than 1 second. Translating back to the metaphor, communicating that the ball is being dropped before it hits the ground is a task as hard as the juggling itself.
- sdwr 2y agohttps://m.twitch.tv/clip/RefinedGracefulGrouseItsBoshyTime-b7gbzAeGXXKo33PA https://m.twitch.tv/clip/RefinedGracefulGrouseItsBoshyTime-b...
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- riazrizvi 2y agoI see there are two big ways people approach success in life, either supporting others or pioneering some thing. This seems like a good way to look at priorities if you take the support approach. For pioneering, you just don’t know what is glass or plastic, that’s what you’re trying to figure out. I wouldn’t stretch this metaphor to cover that situation.
- mitch7w 2y agoMakes sense. Important to remember when working on like 6 different projects at once.
- m3kw9 2y agoWhen scrolling a social media feed become one of these priorities, what you need is good sleep instead because when your will power is low, it really means you are not getting enough Zz.
- Brajeshwar 2y agoI once read somewhere that, “Life is Tetris, Businesses are Chess.” And so, for some, you also play Chess trying to fit in the non-stop flow of the Tetriminos of life.
- ConsiderCrying 2y agoThis isn't a bad metaphor altogether and I appreciate that the post advocates for one thing that all too many such ideas ignore: talking to people and asking them what matters to them. You can never know if your kid finds something truly important until you ask them and damaging your relationship with your family is never worth the marginal or even huge successes at work.