There’s a phrase I use that started out as a joke but has become an actually useful tool for time management. When I’m doing something and see that I’m not going to be able to complete it today, or it’s a project I’ve come up with but know I can’t start it now, I’ll say, “That’s Future Joe’s problem.” I know I’ll have to deal with it, but I don’t have to deal with it today, nor should I stress about it. Essentially what I’m doing is setting priorities. I have a list of major projects on a whiteboard that reminds me that Future Joe has a lot to do, but not right now.
Just this past week my partner Andrea used the phrase to help calm our newest manager when she was stressing about getting behind on some task. Andrea said, “Don’t worry about that now, that’s Future Dee’s problem.” It worked.
This is really useful when you combine the phrase with a project management app. I’m looking into trying one that has simple drag and drop capabilities for managing workloads. You can set up a task, set up a This Week, Next Week, Week After, Long Term and drop tasks to assign work to Future Anyone. This allows everyone on your team to see what’s a priority for this week and what is their Future Person’s tasks are. With the Drag and Drop, you can keep pushing low priority tasks out into the future.
One caveat, don’t use this for things that require long-term planning like, for instance, retirement. I don’t want to leave Future Joe with major problems because I failed to plan and pushed retirement back. Exercise and diet are another that should always be Present Joe’s problems so Future Joe actually exists. In the context of business, one example is a problem employee. A problem employee must be dealt with by Present You otherwise Future You will have bigger headaches. So, when you’re stressing about something ask yourself, “Is this a problem I need to solve now, or is this Future Me’s problem?”
Joe Robles 