The river of time is pushing us forward, every day. We should be riding the waves as we gaze downstream, not fighting the current and trying to stay afloat.
You can think of the time machine exercise as an investment exercise or a gardening exercise. What are you investing in that will pay dividends in the future? What seeds are you planting now that you will harvest down the road?
Welcome to the time machine. Yes, we all charged into the year with high hopes and ambitions. Yes, somehow January is 240 days long. So now's a good time to fast forward to summer time and think about how we'll feel about what we did with these chilly early days of 2024.
Finding a structure for problem-solving that works for you can be a big asset in how you approach challenges. The first step is, without fail, identifying the problem and what - if anything - you can do about it.
There's nothing that will give you instant and complete clarity like a big, high-level problem. When very serious things happen, trivial things melt away and we are challenged to reckon with what does and doesn't matter.