Time Management - 2

Burr’s Blog 2: Time Management

During the month of January, much is written on keeping resolutions. The New York Times reported on 6 January 2012 in an article titled “Be it Resolved” that by “the end of January, a third will have been broken their resolutions, and by July more than half will have lapsed.” The Times also reported that individuals can improve their chances of success by setting clear goals, binding themselves by letting friends and family know through email or Facebook posts, and setting a penalty for resolution violations. One recommendation is to make a formal contract at a website like www.stickk.com where you pre-commit to paying a penalty to an “anti-charity” like the George W. Bush library if you’re a Democrat or the Clinton Library if you are a Republican.

I resolved to manage my time more effectively by tracking the consequences of being early, on time, or late to events in this blog. Rather than use a website to manage penalty violations, I set up a simple “Bank of Lateness” at home. I pay a dollar into a special wallet any time I am late to a given event during the day, even if it is only once during the day and for one minute. My initial thought was that I would use the money to take a friend or one of my student assistants out to lunch at the end of the year. With a positive use of the money, I did not break a sweat if I was going to be one to two minutes late to my office. I just said to myself, “I will add a dollar to the Bank of Lateness.” Within the first 17 days of the month, I had contributed six dollars to the Bank of Lateness. For most instances, I was only 1-2 minutes late, but I still paid up.

After telling one of my student assistants about my resolution and the New York Times article, she chimed in that she herself frequently employed just-in-time thinking, and as a consequence she was often just a little bit late. Once, she was on her way to class and she chose to speed to make up for a late start. Not only did she get a $90 speeding ticket, but her car insurance rate increased. The delay caused her to be even later than she would have been had she followed the speed limit.

I shared with the student my plan to potentially use the penalty funds to take her to lunch at the end of the academic year. She proclaimed that was too positive a use for the funds. She suggested I needed a negative incentive to encourage time management. I mentioned the article’s suggestion of contributing money to the George W. Bush Library. I thought of other possibilities such as the John Birch Society or the Ku Klux Klan, but dismissed them as too extreme. I didn’t want to set up a scenario where I would do anything possible to avoid being late. While I opposed most of the policies of the George W. Bush presidency, especially the war in Iraq, my Republican mother had voted for him – twice. Thus, if I felt embarrassed to use my name on the donation, I could use hers. 

During the 14 days after I changed the final recipient of the Bank of Lateness funds on 17 January, I added two dollars to the fund (a 14% lateness rate to at least one event on any given day compared to 35% previously). In my opinion the folks at www.stickk.com, like my Yale Law School classmate Ian Ayres, are on to something. Setting up a monetary penalty, and giving it to a charity that you would not normally support, can help you keep your resolutions.