Time starts with the Big Bang and goes on forever. Theoretically, you can travel backwards along the time axis if you can run at a speed faster than the light. I simply don’t believe that. It is a mathematical trick for self-entertainment, not for my daily life.

Although in particle physics time is measured in milliseconds or smaller, the second, arbitrarily set by ancient scholars, is the smallest unit we human beings can physically sense it. Unfortunately, every day has only 86400 seconds, no less, no more.

Thus, it is a secret art to manage this limited time that God mercifully allocates for us. I have tried numerous ways and used all sorts of gadgets to master this art. But I am still the old me. Time is not a concrete concept in my mind.

Maybe, something is wrong within my skull. No, I am not scratching my head.

Yesterday, I got a book called “First Thing First” by the famous Steven Covey. Yes, this is not my first, and will not be the last self-improvement book I will read. It is an old book (first published in 1994). But I found there were many helpful tips. For example, when you manage your time, don’t think about it as daily activities, tasks, or appointments. You want to think about yourself first: who you are; what the major goals are in your mind; what the roles you play daily; what things you should do for each role; and what things are urgent, important, or both. Furthermore, you should schedule activities in a weekly basis instead of daily; everyday you need to review what you’ve accomplished, and every week you must write a report on yourself. You should constantly monitor yourself, balance family and work, and arrange your life accordingly.

This sounds great. But one critical step to implement this life changing behavior is how well you can stick on this. Academically speaking, adhering to the protocol is the single most important aspect in the whole plan.

Adherence, what a big frightening word!

In the behaviorism scheme, the solution to the adherence problem is to use a rewarding system, to create a positive feedback to reinforce the good behavior. Then what kinds of rewards are the best stimulants to sustain the behavior modification?

I spend some time pondering about this last night. Since I am working in a competitive academic setting, the best reward is probably to publish papers. I should work hard on this.

Unfortunately, although publishing papers are gratifying, it is not a quick stimulant and can’t be served as an immediate feedback. To keep on the new lifestyle track, I need something good that I can feel daily.

To find a daily stimulant is very hard. One way is to measure the project progress. Moving forward will give me a positive outlook. Or to be more specific, if I finish an analysis or write up some paragraphs quickly, I feel good. But after a while I may not have the same good feeling anymore. I need something new. Besides, those are daily activities.

Another idea is to do something different. For example, if I complete a project, I can reward myself with reading some books, surfing online for some fixed minutes, or just hanging around doing nothing.

These are all psychologically sound and practical.

But I eventually figured, even doing these things, I need to become self-disciplined. As is often said, a successful person is a self-disciplined person. But if I could, why should I worry about all the time management stuff in the first place?

Egg first? Chick first?