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HOW TO MANAGE TIME: A LESSON FROM POKER
HOW TO MANAGE TIME: A LESSON FROM POKER
BLOGGER: BEN PIERSON
My brother has been a professional poker player since about 2002, when the dot-com tech magazine he worked for began going out of business. Aside from helping him avoid the grind of an 8-6 job (are there really 9-5s anymore?), poker has provided him the means to found a (now) successful literary arts magazine, Canteen (www.canteenmag.com). In addition to publishing unique pieces from well known writers, Canteen also runs an after school literary program up in Harlem in conjunction with StreetSquash.
My brother plays poker mostly on the internet, not over the table.* Unlike playing in Atlantic City, Las Vegas, or a card room in Brooklyn, being an internet player means that 24hrs a day, 7 days a week, you can simply turn on a computer and find tens of thousands of people to play against. This creates an interesting quandary. Aside from its addictive nature, poker starts creating a framework of economic cost for your life. e.g., If I go to bed now, the girlfriend will be happy and I’ll get three extra hours sleep; but those three hours will cost me an average of X dollars, and is that really worth it? The price of a movie is no longer $10, but $1,000 in economic cost. The extra value derived from the movie/happy girlfriend is nebulous compared to the more concrete value of electronic money in your poker account.
In recent years my brother has found a good middle ground for managing his time, controlling his work schedule instead of being controlled by it. I think this comes in part from the success he’s had over the years and in part from the extraordinary levels of stress that comes with the job. But getting to this more balanced point took a lot of work, a lot of missed movies and a lot of failures.
What are we 8-6ers supposed to do to manage our time – to accomplish that work/life balance?
I used to write 10-20 item to-do lists. The list would sit there and, weeks later, barely a dent would have been made. Life is stressful enough without this list serving as a constant reminder of things I had yet to do. This method was a huge mistake. In all facets of your life, don’t create a system which produces too much stress. If you do find you’re dealing with too much stress, change something. Please read the posts in “Healthy” by Robert Bornstein, starting with http://blog.imagineage.com/coping-with-stress-in-troubling-times/ . Dr. Bornstein is one of the leading Doctors in the field of stress and his advice – when followed even to a small extent – can lead to a better quality of life and longer life (not too shabby). The other posts are fantastic as well, so don’t be shy!
Now I write much shorter lists… maybe 2-3 items down. If I’m feeling frisky, I’ll even schedule times to do them. For example on Monday night I’ll put into my schedule:
–Tuesday at 10am, call the bank to order new checks
-12pm, order flowers for my mother’s birthday (and tell my brother it’s all set)
–2pm take a book to the gym and do 40 minutes of cardio (my therapist suggests scheduling an actual time for the gym, so I’m more prone to go; this has helped a lot).
–7pm, check http://blog.imagineage.com/ and read the latest posts
I’ve found that this way of writing shorter, more manageable lists has not only increased the rate at which I achieve these tasks, but significantly decreased the amount of stress associated with the whole process.
What are some of the tricks you use? While this method might work for me – for now – something completely different might work for you. Please share - I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Some suggestions I’ve received already:
- Create a filing system. Buy specific three ring binders (and a hole puncher) to keep your ‘subjects’ ordered. The hole puncher part allows you to rearrange things on your lists, easily moving things forwards or backwards, or adding in tabs for subsections
- Scheduling specific times during the day to do XYZ activity – several people mentioned this has proven successful for them
- “Getting Things Done: the art of stress free productivity” by David Allen (http://tinyurl.com/385oqs)
- “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch, a former UVA professor. Very moving personal story which speaks to doing the most with your time – Randy had only a few months to live after being diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer (http://tinyurl.com/6475uc)
Most importantly the theme to this should be finding a process that alleviates stress, not creates it. Also, you must take actionable steps. No need to overhaul everything right this second, but take some baby steps forward and the results should speak for themselves. What do you think?
*Ironically, my brother views his infrequent trips to Vegas as more of a vacation than anything else. You see, in Vegas he can only sit at one table and play one hand at a time. The dealer takes a while to shuffle and thus you’ll be playing perhaps 30-40 hands per hour. On the internet my brother can play at 3, 4, 5, 8 tables and with computer shuffling each table plays closer to 80 hands per hour. Thus sitting at home (or wherever in the world he may be) he can average 300 – 600 hands per hour instead of a paltry 40.
To find out more about Ben, click here to read his bio.
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Tags: David Allen, manage time, poker, Randy Pausch, stress, time management
