time

Make Better Time

Our time is limited. There's often tension about making the most of our time. The concept of wasting time and the best use of time is highly personal and relevant to each individual's physical lifespan. But, no matter how much time we have, we know much of our happiness is tied to feeling productive, mentally and physically. And so, logically we should strive to do a better job of organizing and prioritizing the use of our time. And, since most of us need to conform to clock time due to work, school, hair appointments, etc., we'll stick to measuring time in minutes and hours. But, I have found these goals to be universally useful to improving happiness as it related to productivity and time.

Make more time- This is my number 1, super secret sauce tip. Get up one hour earlier. But, not at the expense of losing sleep time (get 8 hours). This obviously means something else needs to go. Which leads to the next tip.

Consume less (TV, Movies, Social Media, video gaming, etc.)- One-two hours each day of anything not considered learning or practice. Reading the news is not learning, especially the way most of it is delivered. The packaging is designed to keep you in the loop and to sell you something. If you must read the news for work, consider using an RSS reader like Feedly to keep the noise to a minimum. Most news is not likely to change our day one way or the other. Experiment, try not reading the news and see what sort of disadvantage it creates for you.

Now that you have more time...

Create more- 30 minutes each day of writing, speaking, practicing a craft, developing strategy, etc. Not mowing the lawn, doing chores, etc. Those are tasks. Make something instead.

Read- Read 30 minutes of non-fiction each day. Reading is learning. Curious people learn. Curious people are in forward motion. Forward motion is the fuel to creating change.

Exercise- 30 minutes each day if you're able. Walking is exercise. Don't overdue it, especially if you miss a day. This leads to injury and exhaustion.

Think (Meditate)- 5-15 minutes in stillness, solitude, to think. This can be combined with certain forms of mundane physical action like doing chores. But, the preference is to do physically nothing to allow your mind to wander. Bonus...at the end write about it.

These are all pretty easy to commit do. But, extremely hard to maintain. Doing hard things for extended periods of time is not in our nature. We tend to look for easy and fun. So, the key is to develop habits which turn these hard things into something which comes easier to us, something we look forward to and something we find helps makes things better. Find a subject you're interested in learning more about and incorporate this into your reading and creating habits. Choose an exercise which you can enjoy, perhaps in the company of others. Or, combine solitary exercise with meditation or learning (listen to books or podcasts instead of music). Sometimes, I run just to read.

Developing these habits in itself takes time. Start small. Exercise for five minutes. Go to bed ten minutes earlier to wake up ten minutes earlier. Do the small bits until they become easy. Then ratchet up. But, measure yourself, be honest and disciplined. If we're serious about changing our use of time, we must treat these habits as a profession...we do them whether we feel like it or not. Just like going to work or making school lunches, our own productivity (and happiness) deserves the same commitment. Be ready for failure. It will happen. Learn why you failed. Adjust and keep going. The failure is a sunk cost. It's not a reason to give up.

Most of all, please understand we are all different. This approach works for me. Your mileage may vary.

P.S. My favorite book on the subject of time is The Order of Time. The audio version is particularly enjoyable as it is narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch.

Extra Time

This is what we define as our time, something we control, something we get to have once the work is complete. How much of it we get is often out of our control, subject to the demands of others. One more email, phone call or pop-up meeting. But, it's also in our control. We can be better organized, better planned and better at saying "no". We can limit distraction, work on only what's most important and move the rest to the shelf.

Extra time isn't something we receive, it's something we make. The real question is what do we do with it once we make it. What's the extra time for? If we decided this in advance, it's possible, maybe even likely, we wouldn't save it for extra time. We would merely do it anyway.

There is no extra time for any of us. Our timelines are all limited. Extra is a trap we use to keep us from doing things, sometimes really important things. We just need to decide whether to fall for it, or not. Choose wisely.

HT to Haley for the nudge

Should We Speed Up Time?

There are many works on the subject of time and how it flows for each of us (my personal favorite). One common assertion is time flows more quickly when we're focused, doing challenging work or engaged in entertaining activities...in the zone if you will. Conversely, it moves relatively slowly when we're bored or doing something we don't care for. Of course, actual clock time doesn't change...it's just our relationship with it which changes. Ten minutes will pass no matter what we're doing. But, it can feel like an instant, or an hour depending on our activity of choice.

If the goal is to make the best use of our time, we first need to decide what good use of time feels like. If we want to make time move more slowly, we can do this by doing less and intentionally creating a vacuum of thought. This is really hard to do...give it a shot. On the other hand, we can speed up our sense of time by increasing activity through doing, focusing, playing and working. However, what we feel during this seemingly short period might actually feel longer while we're doing it. And, it's only once we look at the clock that we realize how quickly it seemed to go by. This is the paradox of time flow for each of us. So, while time seems to fly by when we're fully engaged, it slows down while we're so fully immersed.

Life moves pretty fast. But, we can slow it if we choose to. How to slow it though is an important choice. Do more. Or, do less. Choose wisely.

Killing Time

We have choices when given the gift of slack...spare time. We can find solitude, make use of silence…reflect and rest. We can level up…improve our strength and skills. We can find entertainment for a brief moment of joy. Or, we can waste it…do something menial…merely to get to the next thing. 

No matter the noise from outside (or within), the fact is the world is generally better today than it was yesterday, last year or a thousand years ago. It’s safer, people live longer and there’s more opportunity for of all us. It’s better because people chose to make it better. They decided to go somewhere. This forward motion comes from intent. And intent isn’t reserved just for periods of work. It also shows up in everything else we do. When we go to bed at night, we intend to rest. When we go for a bike ride or a walk we intend to get healthy and to have fun. 

What if we applied the same intent, the same zest for better, to our spare time? What if some of the slack was harnessed into periods of learning, doing, creating? What additional change could we make? It’s worth pondering. It’s worth choosing. Choose wisely.

Three Things

…we can do with our time.

Learn- Either learn something new. Or, learn more about something we’re already invested in. Either way, the forward motion alone will amplify the next two things on the list. 

Gain Experience- Do stuff. Create, build, practice, fail, be embarrassed…rinse and repeat. Experience is the separator in choosing ourselves for the gig, the job, the play, the presentation or parenting. The key is to start, no matter how long we’ve put it off.

Earn Trust- Connect with others. Find them, see them, understand them, especially when they have a different point of view. This is easier to do than ever before…almost everyone is stopped, connected by the internet and looking for ways to fill in the time gaps. Seize the opportunity of a more direct and deeper connection to develop the real skills...the human skills. Serve someone with emotional labor. Become an artist…offer help, kindness and respect. And do it without condition. Be an innkeeper.

The cost of any and all three is nearly zero in terms of dollars. The only real expense is time…which some of us have more of than we ever had. 

Filling In the Gap

We have undergone a shift in the way we work. Many of us spent a lot of our time engaging directly with people, both customers and colleagues. Obviously, now and at least in the near-term, this has changed....we are now isolated. And while there is a new set of distractions related to working from home, i.e., barking dogs, kids, household noises, parcel deliveries, etc., the real issue is the tension created by loneliness and having more time. Gone for now are the commutes, impromptu corridor meetings, drop-in chats and of course the seemingly endless fire hose spray of customer and employee issues. So, we need to adjust, both for personal sanity and to ensure some level of productivity. Here some things I do when I work from home...your mileage may vary.

Routines and Boundaries

We had them before...time to get up, get ready and go to work. And when we arrived at work, we were at work until we left. I do the same thing at home. I’m fortunate to have a home office. So, I get up at the same time I always have, often go for a run, make coffee, read or write (because my mind is sparked from the exercise and caffeine), then shower, put-on my work clothes and go to my office...now I’m at work. My brain has been trained over the years in that routine. And while the location and time have changed, the routine has not. It’s this routine that helps me feel more like I’m at work. And as long as I’m in that office and it’s a work day (currently M-F, 9-5) I’m at work. If I leave that space for any reason, I’m not at work. If I go eat lunch with my kids in the other room, I’m not at work. Even if I join a Zoom Break-Room and virtually leave that space, I’m not at work. This works for me. It might not for you.

Define Your Work

Our work has changed. Like it or not, our job is different. Now, more than ever, it’s important to define what your work is for...and who it’s for. Much of our previous work was reactive...catering more to the immediate needs of our customers and colleagues. This has likely slowed tremendously or ceased. The unplanned, interruptive nature of our workflow has morphed into gaps of free time. Now, how to create work to fill that gap...this is the challenge we all face now. 

My work is still to serve the people around me...to support them through challenges and to inspire them to seek change. But now, I’m challenged to work differently, through a different lens and with different constraints. Now, I’ve shifted from direct analysis, support and helping on the front lines to the development of an environment which allows everyone to remain connected and engaged. My job now is to foster a spirit and level of comfort which leads to collaborative projects. Hopefully, these projects will result in a better experience for everyone once we return to our business. Simultaneously, I’m encouraging everyone to use the same community platform to personally level-up, learn new skills and challenge themselves in ways they might not have previously imagined. My dream is we all become more comfortable creating something from nothing, painting on a blank canvas, as a positive by-product of being forced into this “new normal” way of working. 

The questions on the table at the moment are...how will we redefine our work? And, how will we fill in the gaps? 

Choose wisely.