Scottish science fiction writer and mathematician Eric Bell wrote that ‘time makes fools of us all’. I love his morbid nihilism in this quote and that he doesn’t at all resolve it in the second half: ‘Our only comfort is that greater shall come after us’. You’re on fire and you will perish from its flames, but the next in line will probably burn brighter. I like the first half because it encourages humility in the face of our existence. And as existence plays out, it inevitably draws the mind (mine at least) to death, which is always sobering and, when framed by the right thoughts, can be a tremendous motivator. Which takes us from Scotland to Italy and that painter Leonardo da Vinci, who wrote: ‘time abides long enough for those who use it.‘

Early last year, I moved from the big smoke of Melbourne to the fine sea mist of Byron Bay. It was a move that gave me a lot more time to think about what’s important to me – the answer is happiness. It always has been really, but having more time to think about how I spend my days, where I invest my energy, the things I do and the things I want to do has been an unbelievably revealing experience. To ring Bell’s idea to open another thought, stress makes fools of us all. Especially when the stressor is out of our control. And since the world’s been through a lock down or three, a lot of people have been plunged into out-of-their-control stress and forced downtime. For so many, that time was haunted by the grief of losing loved ones, the fear of dying, mental health struggles, the stress of losing work, housing instability and so many more stressors.

One of the core lessons from the global state of 2020 is to expect the unthinkable. It’s not the most useful take away and its paradoxical advice could easily invite us down a muddy track of increasingly desperate speculation, cyclical second-guessing, paranoia and anxiety. But there is an alternate path. I wonder if there are three areas of thought like there are knowledge (what we know, what we don’t know, and what we don’t know we don’t know): what we think, the unthinkable, and what we think is unthinkable.

Whatever the case may be, taking 2020’s core revelation and turning it into a positive, affirming mantra is much more helpful, I think. Even if we can expect the unthinkable or think about the unexpected, as soon as we do, it becomes the thinkable and expected. So how can we take the lessons from this chaotic year and use them to ensure time abides for us instead of making us fools and make best use of it?

There are different scenarios that make us wish time would compress into a blink or expand into a long, slow exhale. Lockdown made for long days for me even though I was in a super fortunate position. It felt like a reminder that time is malleable because a day can feel like a week, a month can fly by, and a year can feel like the longest decade on record. This century’s roaring ‘20s sound a lot like screaming so far.

I’ve written about using nihilism as motivation, and when I was faced with lock down, I was determined to make the most of it. My ambition outran reality and within weeks, I had a long list of goals I wanted to accomplish and very little progress – redesign my website, write more stories, re-engage with Instagram, waste less time on social media, do my tax, exercise more, eat more vegetables, read more, phone less, call more, drink less.

One morning, I woke up tired under the burden of my long list of tasks and longer list of excuses. I couldn’t use nihilism as a motivator because these things did matter and not seeing any progress through my list was really grinding me down. After coffee and walking the dog, I was already tired and defeated. ‘I have so much to do and I’ve wasted half a day and now I’m too tired to do anything,’ I whined at my partner. Jessie looked bemused, ‘It’s not even ten – the morning is literally just beginning. You’re taking on too much, let’s try something. What are the three most urgent things you need to to do today?’ But my list, I thought. I couldn’t just neglect the rest of the things I had to do.

I had exhausted myself trying to work out how to do everything and it got in the way of me doing anything. Doing three things on a list of 20 felt insignificant – a waste of time. I’d fallen into the trap of looking too far ahead and letting the long road stretching to the horizon overwhelm me instead of dropping my gaze to my feet and taking one step at a time.

Over the past two months, I’ve had a lot of persistent existential questions answered directly by books. This time around, it was a quote from Bill Gates, 'Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.’ Between Bill's insight and Jessie’s top three list, I was able to shift my heads pace and be more productive. By being more realistic about today, we can achieve more this month.

Over the past couple of months, the key to making time abide for me has been choosing the top three most important goals that I can influence that day, and pushing the rest out of my mind. Now, every weekend and most days, we set three goals for the day. During the week, when we’re driving home, if we have something pressing (or just taking up too much headroom and making a mental racket) we’ll set our three for the evening.

Sometimes, it’s little things and other times it’s something that we’ve been putting off forever – tax can’t see you if you close your eyes. If we have a lot that needs to be done one weekend, or if we’re not really feeling motivated, we pick something we’ve both been looking forward to doing that weekend and make a three-goal list to do before we can do the fun thing. Today, that was a bunch of long-put-off chores before I could, relatively guiltlessly, watch Carlton play footy. And it worked.

And as often happens with this trick, I did way more than the three things. Because ultimately, humans love achieving goals – even if they’re small and super achievable. And that little dopamine release we get when we do something we set out to achieve stokes the energy levels and we look for the next hit, the next goal to cross off the list. You can stop at three goals, but some days you keep rolling and end up turning a day you’d written off before the morning had begun into something more satisfying, and sometimes even wildly productive.

Next time you’re feeling overwhelmed, unmotivated, unjustly tired, or just blergh, try writing down everything that’s making noise in your head. Pick the top three things you can do that day, ignore the rest of your list and focus on completing those three things. Doing three things a day is better than overestimating what you can do so badly that you overwhelm yourself and do nothing. Time is linear, or a flat disc, of a social construct – whatever the case, you can control it and make it abide for you.