Imagine that you spend 45 hours per week at the office — 9 am to 6 pm.
You commute 30 minutes each way, leaving home at 8:30 am and returning home at 6:30 pm. You also spend 30 minutes each weekday morning “getting ready” — showering, dressing, brewing coffee.
You spend another 30 minutes on work-related tasks after you return home, like checking email or ironing shirts.
You sleep 8 hours per night. You spend 10 hours per week on chores and errands. You exercise 5 hours per week.
Sounds like a jam-packed schedule, doesn’t it?
But guess what? In the schedule I described above, you still have 42 hours per week of free time.
That’s the equivalent of a full work week.
Whaaaa?
_________________________
Like many people, I feel busy and overworked. When people whom I haven’t seen in awhile ask, “How’ve you been?”, my stock response is “Good!” followed by “Busy!”
It’s a canned response; a cliché.
But a few weeks ago, I interviewed author Laura Vanderkam on my podcast. She studied more than 1,000 time diaries logged by working professionals over a 168-hour week.
When we start tracking our time, she says, most people discover that they have more time than they think.
This stopped me in my tracks.
Math is compelling. We can make emotional arguments until sunrise, but math is inviolable. (One of my favorite discoveries about adulthood is that I mostly need 6th-grade arithmetic. Forget calculus; just learn compounding interest.)
Okay, so let’s math this out.
Let’s use the example above. We start with 168 hours per week.
Subtract 56 hours for sleep, 45 hours at the office, 5 hours commuting, 2.5 hours getting ready for work, 2.5 hours working-outside-of-work, 10 hours running errands and taking care of household chores, and 5 hours exercising. That totals 70 hours.
We’ve filled a total of 126 hours. This leaves us with 42 additional hours that we can spend in any way that we choose: hanging out with friends and family, attending worship services, reading, volunteering, enjoying hobbies, or building a side business.
That sounds like a full, satisfying life, despite the 8:30 am – 6:30 pm workdays.
We feel busy, but there’s a disconnect between fact and feeling.
We have abundance. We’re time-rich. And we don’t even know it.
Mind = blown.
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The obvious follow-up questions are threefold:
- “How do I spend my time?”
- “What do I value? What are my priorities and goals?”
- “How can I spend my time in a way that reflects these values/priorities/goals?”
These aren’t rhetorical questions. They strike at the core of creating a good life.
In search of these answers, I decided to track my time in 15-minute increments over the span of a week.
Why? My reasoning:
- To save money, track your spending. (Or try the anti-budget.)
- To lose weight, track your food and exercise.
- To find more time, track your hours.
Seems logical, right? I didn’t know if time tracking would be beneficial, but I figured it’s worth a shot.
I Track Every 15 Minutes …
To start this experiment, I printed a three-page, 672-cell spreadsheet. I carried this spreadsheet everywhere for a week. I brought it to the gym. I carried my spreadsheet into the grocery store.
Yes, I’m that weirdo.
I could’ve tracked my time on my phone, but I avoided this for two reasons:
#1: Distraction — If I turn on the screen and notice a Facebook or WhatsApp message, there’s a chance the next 30 minutes might disappear.
#2: Trigger — Developing a new habit requires a trigger, or cue, that precedes the behavior. Looking at my phone won’t remind me to track my time; it’s not a sufficient cue. But carrying around a stupid sheet of paper is an excellent reminder.
I diligently recorded my time over the span of a 168-hour week. Then I spent one hour and 20 minutes manually tallying the total.
The results are embarrassing.
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Let’s start with the good news.
Watching TV: 1 hour
During the span of an entire week, I only spent one hour watching TV. Excellent.
Driving: 1 hour
I also spent only one hour in a car. (It was a trip to a grocery store for a heavy load.) I live within walking distance to most places that I go, and I don’t have a commute.
Reading and Planning: 4.5 hours
I devoted 2.5 hours to reading books and two hours to planning my week, both of which I regard as high-value activities.
Sleep: 53.75 hours; Work: 43.25 hours
I slept for an average of 7.5 hours per night and worked for 43.25 hours, both of which are reasonable.
Now let’s look at the dark side of the week.
Here’s a look at the first morning that I tracked:
I spent 15 minutes “getting ready” — brushing my teeth, brushing my hair, getting dressed. That’s reasonable.
I spent 15 minutes eating breakfast and brewing coffee, including tidying my dishes afterwards. That’s also reasonable.
Then, mysteriously, I spent 15 minutes “getting to work.”
Um — I work from home.
Huh??
My office is adjacent to the kitchen. It’s literally two steps away from the fridge.
How did I spend 15 minutes — the equivalent of a short commute — walking a distance of 10 feet?
This is my first documented example of a “time vortex” — minutes of my life that disappeared with no explanation. Time evaporated into the ether.
I started documenting — and therefore being mindful of — these time vortices. I noticed that I spent most this time distractedly switching from one task to another.
Here’s a typical example:
My laptop battery is low. I’ll start roaming around my condo, looking for the charger.
During that search, I’ll notice a dirty plate in the living room. I’ll carry it to the kitchen sink, which is full, so I’ll load the dishwasher. Then I’ll notice that the houseplants look thirsty. Since I’m standing near the sink anyway (shaky logic, eh?), I’ll water every plant around the home.
There’s a stack of mail next to one of these houseplants. I’ll absentmindedly flip through this stack. Today’s mail includes a paycheck from a client, which reminds me that I ought to get back to work.
I’ll return to my laptop, notice the low battery, and remember — ‘oh yeah, I need to find the charger!’ — kicking off yet another distraction cycle.
And the time vortex begins again.
This time vortex consumed 9.5 hours of my week. That’s an average of 1.3 hours everyday spent “puttering around,” distractedly roaming my home without purpose. I’d pick up a magazine, read a few pages, remember to order something from Amazon, but get distracted by something else first.
It gets worse.
I lost 4.25 hours to internet distractions, mindlessly surfing the web. And, embarrassingly, I lost another 4 hours to hitting the snooze button.
That’s 17.75 hours of wasted time. Gross.
I waste time like it’s a part-time job.
How to Improve Time Management
Armed with this information, what next? How can I replace ‘wasted time’ with worthwhile time?
Here are a few tips I’ve learned (full credit to Vanderkam’s books):
#1: Take breaks
Paradoxically, taking more breaks can lead to better results.
“If you don’t take a real break, your brain will take a fake one,” Vanderkam told me during our podcast interview.
Pausing throughout the day to stretch, eat and walk is better for productivity, health and happiness than mindlessly surfing the web or getting distracted by minutia.
#2: Stop multitasking.
It’s better to focus on one thing at a time, and execute it well, than attempt many things poorly.
#3: Work to the point of diminishing returns.
Imagine that you want to start freelancing. If you devote only one hour per week to launching this side business, you won’t make much progress. Adding the second, third, fourth and fifth hours allow you to make huge strides.
But at a certain point, your energy and attention wane. The 50th hour doesn’t make as big of a splash as the 5th. That’s the point of diminishing returns. It’s time to walk away.
When you’re sitting at your desk, you can delude yourself into thinking that you’re productive — regardless of whether or not that’s true. No points are awarded for zoning out in front of a laptop.
#4: Focus on tasks you cannot outsource.
You cannot outsource exercising, sleeping and calling your mom. Fill your schedule first with tasks you can’t delegate. If there’s time remaining, you can add “outsource-able” tasks to your plate, like changing your HVAC filter and mopping the floor.
This framework forces you to prioritize. Why sacrifice your relationships on the alter of cleaning the gutters?
If you track your time, you might discover that you can easily do both. But if you need to drop one-or-the-other from your schedule, prioritize the tasks that nobody else can handle, like calling your friends to keep those relationships alive and healthy.
(When I mentioned this to one of my best friends, she burst out with: “You should hire someone from a call center to check in with me monthly! That would be hilarious!”)
(As a joke, I might actually do that for her birthday.)
The Bottom Line
I’m not advocating a jam-packed schedule. There’s no glory in a stressful, frenzied attempt at maximizing every minute.
I’m advocating mindfulness.
Time is scarce. We can make more money; we cannot make more time. Time is also desirable.
Value arises when something is both scarce and desirable. Time is, therefore, our most valuable asset.
Spend it wisely.
__________________
Want to try this experiment? Below, you can download a free PDF spreadsheet you can use to track your time.
Happy tracking! 🙂
Here’s the book that inspired this experiment, 168 Hours.
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Hi Paula,
I like that idea of tracking your time this way. I struggle with finding time for my side project (software as a service), afraid it will all be in a “time vortex” too.
Fantastic advice, I think far too much of my time also disappears into the ‘time vortex’!
Love this Paula and I especially appreciate that you didn’t use an app to track it (I have a friend who does that). I think putting in the hard work of being mindful in those 15 minute intervals and crunching the numbers yourself makes it much more real. It’s kind of like actually measuring out food yourself rather than just using a label – until you do the work, you may not really connect with the numbers.
I do work with teachers on this same concept and finding more time to teach during the day. It’s amazing what goes into the vortex! I wrote about outsourcing things like pool maintenance in the last week too. I think people underestimate the time projects like that take when many can make up that money in other ways (and keep time for their relationships!)
I’m getting the spreadsheet now – want to give this a go. Thanks for the push!
I hate to talk on the phone so that call center idea is really appealing! Hilarious, do you think my Mom would mind?
Thanks for pointing out that we have so much more time than we think we do. Oh, the magical things we can accomplish!
I loved listening to this podcast! But I do have to say, you don’t have to consider “puttering around” wasted time. Studies have shown that people come up with the best ideas in the shower and when they’re about to fall asleep simply because (especially in this day and age) it’s the only time they aren’t distracted by TV, music, the internet, or even a newspaper.
Maybe consider that puttering time a mental break. I do the same thing, but I actually value that time. If I just parked myself in front of my computer working for every second I wasn’t at my day job I would go nuts. Plus I come up with article ideas when I’m just sitting on my patio pondering my garden (and then watering my garden because I looked at it and it seems thirsty)
I agree that puttering is nothing to be ashamed of – but, there are times in your life where you have space to putter, and there are times in your life where you really need to re-harness that time for more important things (me, it’s my dissertation right now). I often try to live my life putterless, but I love summer weekends when I have the luxury to do nothing but sit at the kitchen table flipping through catalogs, delaying getting to real work. It’s just hard to break that habit and get back to work during the busy season.
I know how the time vortex goes – i used to be a freelancer that worked 2 hours during the weekday, but with me traveling more often, my brain just turns into mush after my full time job that I end up zoning out instead of trying to do my side hustle (which is blogging)
I eventually left my freelance writing to focus more on building my blog, but guess what? Still not much progress. I find that I procrastinate a lot and make so many excuses on why I can’t do things instead of just doing it.
I guess it’s just needing to control the brain more — and make this little business of mine work.
Thanks for this post, it was very enlightening
I loved that book! With both going to school and working full time, I had to get really good at time management. I kinda fell away from that this summer so this was a good reminder to get back to it. Those books ain’t gonna read themselves!
Thanks for this, Paula! I enjoyed the podcast episode and I like that this write-up digs into a few different issues. The time vortices are a real problem, and one that won’t get fixed until we start being mindful of them.
“If you don’t take a real break, your brain will take a fake one.” This was a huge takeaway from the podcast for me. It’s easy to underestimate the productivity power of breaks.
Great article Paula! 1 hour of TV all week? I’m assuming this was not during the Summer Olympics this past month. I bet I watched the more TV than I normally do all year in this 2 week span. With NBC’s coverage pushing into the wee hours of the night, my schedule was way out of whack. Multitasking on a blog post while watching the 100-m dash was pointless. So with the games over, now I’m happy to get back to the normal flow of things and become more mindful of how I spend my evenings…until another 4 years. Awesome post!
Okay, this theory goes completely out of the water for parents. Especially, working parents. My sleep is 5 to 7 hrs (if I am lucky) work at a job is 40 hrs, but then there is my at home job as an Uber Driver (for my kids), a cook (for the fam), a maid (for the fam), oh, and did I mention I also homeschool my teenagers? Well add that in. What do you get – no time to watch TV really, or even exercise (but some days I do find the time to do it while at my kid’s sports practices). So, yeah, I don’t want to track too much off my daily activities because that would take even more of my time, lol!
Everyone is busy, just not with the same things. There will always be someone out there who is busier than you. Yes, you listed out a bunch of the items that keep you busy, and I could do the same, along with everyone else here. That is exactly Paula’s point. When you feel so busy, track your time and then prioritize appropriately. We will all find wiggle room through this exercise and even if it’s not much, it will at least give us a better understanding of and handle on our priorities. For starters, you’re here reading a blog and typing in the comments section — free time found! 😉
I agree with Nita, and was waiting for someone to say moms are totally exempt from having much free time to even relax for a moment. Katie, Nita said she works 40 hours a week, so I’m guessing the free time you pointed out that she has to type a comment on this post is not what it seems. She wrote it on a Monday at 3pm (prime work hours and not actual free time).
Regardless of what we are busy with, the point is to actually try the exercise out. You might find that your assumptions are totally correct. If so, cool. At least you know where you really are.
If you discover that there are really gaps where you are not doing something useful, or perhaps something that you want to be doing, you have learned something that you had been not previously been aware of.
Finally, you might discover that you are doing some things repetitively or inefficiently. Those would be natural targets for systemization or streamlining.
Good luck! If you do try it out, even for a day, let us know in the comments how it went.
I did this once with RescueTime and realized how many times I opened my email. Eek.
It also taught me that I usually went to my email when I had nothing else I wanted to do. So instead of getting mired in my inbox, which was action without intention, I used that as a trigger to get up and DO something else. I had nothing else to do at my desk. 🙂
I like that idea, Jim. I do the exact same thing with my e-mail. It used to be Facebook, but then I (thankfully) got rid of that a couple years ago. Now I find myself consistently checking my e-mail on every “down” second I have. I need to find a way to stop doing it!
Hey Katie and Jim, I made something for this very problem. Basically, you can switch your inbox on and off, so when you compulsively check your inbox, you will be confronted with nothing. It’s easy enough to switch on and off, but it puts just a little passive barrier in the way to prevent the mindless inbox scroll.
You can still search messages, compose, etc. Just blanks your inbox.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC4psx8EiQQ
Try that out. (It works with gmail on chrome only right now, but if you are handy, you could make it work for anything).
Please let me know if you like it.
Ha-ha. Doing nothing takes too much time for me, and, probably for other people. We are not robots. And we cannot be busy 100% of the time available. Can you?
The time vortex is SO. REAL. I’ve been side hustling for so long, that recently, when I sat down to watch TV for several hours, I thought to myself, “There’s a reason why people do this! It’s so nice to just veg out.”
I think in the future, I’ll follow Laura’s advice and schedule more real breaks!
Time vortex…. I knew there had to be a name for it. I’m so frustrated with not getting things done.
Thanks for the article.
I completely agree it’s more productive to focus than multitask. Multitasking sounds efficient and I think was popular at about the same time as the super mom fad.
I enjoyed the podcast episode and this post, and have taken some of Laura Vanderkam’s books out of the library. This is the type of exercise I usually resist, but the start of a new school years always energizes me. I’m really terrified of what I’m going to discover though…
Loved your post! I’m going to try it myself. So many things I want to do but can’t find the time to actually do it. Maybe with this i’ll find a way to shut down that time vortex.
Such a cool activity. I’d done something similar a few years ago, and similarly found that I wasn’t using my time as well as I’d thought, or was nearly as busy.
http://www.donebyforty.com/2013/07/the-frequency-continuum.html
Also, loved reading one of Laura’s books a while back. She’s a great get for your podcast — congrats!
I’ve been looking for a good new show to put in the rotation, so welcome to the Podkicker lineup. 🙂
Thanks for sharing your results! The math makes a compelling case that we do have more time than we think. I definitely strive to be more efficient and mindful of my time. At the same time, I’m realizing I need to waste time sometimes, even in unplanned, low-value ways like surfing the Internet or inefficiently picking up my home. Even when I feel busy and overwhelmed, I’ve chosen not too feel like a failure when I waste some time. It can be a good recharge when I’m too brain-dead to even read!
“#4: Focus on tasks you cannot outsource.
You cannot outsource exercising, sleeping and calling your mom. Fill your schedule first with tasks you can’t delegate. If there’s time remaining, you can add “outsource-able” tasks to your plate, like changing your HVAC filter and mopping the floor.”
Great quote, thanks Paula!
I run 2 Airbnbs and that time use is so efficient because of the very real time triggers. My trouble comes with our home renovation as my hubby and I do most of the work ourselves. We would rather hire it out but cannot find the right fit. No worries, we are both otherwise retired. Without a specific time trigger, I am easily lost and overwhelmed by all the work to be done and details to be attended to.
I know I have more time than I realize. Thank you for this article. Of course time tracking! I started this year tracking my efforts at the Airbnb and it is very enlightening. I love your direct and humorous style and am always pleased to see your emails in my inbox. Thanks Paula!
Paula – you forgot the NETFLIX VORTEX! 😉
One thing I did notice was that you never once mentioned social media. Though, perhaps that was included in your “internet distractions, mindlessly surfing the web” category? I would expect that, for a good number of people, the combination of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and the like would add up to a fair amount of their hours each week. I think your internet time is pretty good at an average of 36 minutes per day; taking up just 2.5% of your week! I have friends and family members who spend HOURS each day surfing the web, mostly on social media. I mindfully do not have any social media accounts and, for time management purposes alone, I will strive to keep it that way for as long as possible!
I’m gonna try this for a week. My wife and I were talking about how it seems we don’t have much time anymore with my son starting preschool and her starting grad school. This is a “timely” (nailed it) article and hopefully we can find some missing hours!
Love this! Going to definitely do this and see what my time vortex is. Thanks for the insight!
I have also tried a version of this after seeing it on social triggers but it was a 2 hr bracket. And then you list out every thing you did.
I think I will try the 15 min. One.
I’m glad in the end you did say you aren’t talking about a jammed packed schedule. Specially since relaxing helps us stay productive.
Great insights! I love your discovery “I waste time like a part time job”. So true. My relationship with time changed dramatically this year when I retired early (@ Age 49). It has been amazing to see how the equation of time & urgency flips. Absolutely wonderful!
I like this! I have been doing almost the same thing, tracking my time and finding exactly what you described as a time vortex occurring.
As a side note, your 7.5 hours of sleep may be “better” for you than your 8! Full sleep cycles take, on average, 90 minutes. So, when you sleep for 8 hours, you’re actually waking up in the middle of a cycle, thus giving you a groggy feeling. So, some research suggests aiming for 6, 7.5, or 9 hours of sleep.
Keep the good stuff coming!
The time vortices I experience are exactly as you described. Have you been spying on me??
So true about the distraction factor. Packing up our camper to leave or come home from a trip sees me use a checklist, but then somewhere along the way I realize that I’m between 25-75% done with about five or six items, and when this happens I find that I’m stressed because even that small list of ‘to do’ items has overwhelmed my senses. So, I’ll basically start over finishing one at a time until they’re done and then concentrate on doing one at a time…which works for a short while, anyway.
I am going to do this. I’m sure I’ll be extremely embarrassed, especially considering I’ve been working on the same blog post all week – too much social media over here!
No judgement, just facts!
How is the experiment going?
Really interesting stuff Paula. I’ve thought about tracking my time throughout the day too because I’m sure there’ are plenty of opportunities to be more productive. As I was reading your intro, I couldn’t help but think “that’s pretty much how my days go!”
One problem I have is not sleeping enough. I definitely spend more time at my full time job than I do sleeping, and that’s definitely not good. But now I have something to work towards at least!
This is a very interesting concept Paula. There are time sinks all over the place. But these are also breaks, that help the mind recharge its batteries. I personally refuse to track my time, due to history with a company that is always on the “best places to work” lists.
I once used to work for a company, where I had to allocate my time to one of over 200 project codes. I tracked my time in 6 minute increments. This then allowed my employer to bill clients/track me how I spend my time. Plus, they used this exercise to compare how much time it took me to complete certain tasks relative to budgeted time ( time was money for my employer). This was tough, since a lot of people that did this task before “ate their time” ( meaning that they took 1 hour to complete a task but charged only 30 minutes). This created all sorts of pressures. But also forces you to be more efficient.
While I hated the job, this exercise taught me that allocating time is as important factor in success as allocating capital. It is important to focus my time on things that foster my development.
Hey Paula,
I actually did a concept similar to this a month ago, where I tracked all the time I put into blogging. I did it over 2 blogs posts from June 22-to-Aug 22. It was interesting to see how the time was used. But I never thought of doing it like this. You’ve sort of reverse engineered it and looked at the time being wasted. While I did find value in the experience, I wouldn’t want to track my time again. I look at it more in terms of tasks. Thanks for sharing!
love this post! But I am way too afraid to try this experiment. Between being generally ADD and having a toddler while working from home.. Saying that time gets wasted is an understatement. But some good reminders about how I can better manage so thanks!
I know a lot of professional researchers that would love this idea. I’m terrified of what my results would be. Umm maybe half my workday would be talking. That’s highly likely. At least embarrassing to how much time I’m at my day job vs writing for Wallet Squirrel.
I might have to try this. Thanks for sharing your results. I especially liked that you did this via a printed excel document. I would easily get sucked into my phone.
This is so powerful! Time is so valuable and I know I am easily distracted. Thanks for these tips on managing time!
Thanks for writing this! These are all great suggestions for time management, and I look forward to hearing the podcast.
I’m currently experimenting with minimalism. If there’s fewer clothes in the closet, I spend less time searching for an outfit. Less stuff can mean fewer distractions.
Wow. What an eye opener. I know I spend too much time wasting away on social media and hitting snooze but these numbers are a kick in the pants. Thank you for sharing this!
Lucky you who only drives an hour. I probably easily drive that before noon! every day! I’m a freelancer and I’m working toward getting more and more organized but your schedule looks NOTHING like mine and I feel like driving in LA is something that no one understands unless you live here.
interesting concept of tracking your hours. i”ll have to try and report back
Nice tracking of your time. Efficiency is the key to life. There are a lot of ways to be more efficient. Most people won’t do it but meal prep every Sunday night to get ready for the week is a real time saver.
Wow, that is some incredible tracking skills! I thought I was good about logging my activities with my 2 girls in Google Calendar, but I don’t get down to 15 minute increments (I’m a SAHD trying to figure out how to run a blog LOL). Maybe I should do that. I’m downloading the sheet and trying it out. I can totally relate to the time vortex thing too.
So, since writing this, have you planned out your time better now?
I don’t think I could have the patience to do this myself so thank you for letting me read about it! The amount of time we spend on a task is ridiculous, and the way it is broken up makes you realize it even more.
Are you usually conscious of your time spent on various activities? I have heard that typically successful people are, and they make an effort to spend a majority of their free time in an activity that is bettering their future. Great post!
I’m surely spend too much time on thinking and planning… In my case it’s just way too more enjoyable then actually acting. I know it’s bad, tho. 😉
Nice post Paula, Great Analogy i must say.
I really liked the way you save your time and track it to make a better time management. I’m really poor in time management as i have been working from 9 to 5 schedule since from a long time. I think I should consider making some changes as it is getting stressful day by day and your tactics are remarkable. Keep writing more articles,
Have a good day!
This blew my mind. I had written something similar when talking about why Do What You Love was incomplete advice (you have so much time to do what you love outside of your career), but I hadn’t actually tracked my own time. I’m a little afraid to do it for fear of discovering how much of my time is sucked into the time vortex. Curious if anyone here has done the Pomodoro method and how it’s worked for them. I may have to start.
Hey Paula,
I’m a nerd, so I love analyzing things like this! I’ve analyzed my time before and realized I spent wayyy more time on social media than I thought. And I was one of those “stop wasting your life watching TV” kind of guys. I was a hypocrite; I scolded people for watching too much TV, and I was over here watching Bad Lip Reading and random-internet-person political rants.
I think the most important time management technique is to know where your time is going (sounds similar to personal finance, doesn’t it?). Like you said, you value planning your week as a high value activity, and rightly so. Planning and reviewing are the two things that can keep your time from being completely wasted. We all waste some time, but those are things that will keep it minimal.
And like you said, take breaks!
Taking planned breaks will prevent having so many accidental, mindless breaks.
Cheers,
Kalen
I’m pretty sure I wasted more that 17 hours of time last week. My time management has gotten much better over the years, but I’m still working to make it better. I may need to take a page out of your book and track my time for a week or two.
The nerd in me was really hoping for a pie chart or some sort of bar chart 🙂
A bar chart would be a great addition!
“I waste time like it’s a part-time job.” This literally made me laugh out loud.
Paula I’ve been listening to your podcasts for a couple of weeks and today is my first day on your blog. You are an amazing writer! Giving me something to aspire to. Thank you for doing what you do and please keep it up!
I found this to be extremely eye opening. I certainly plan to give this a try starting next week to see where I can spend more time and what new hobbies I can attempt with those extra hours.
Hi from UK 🙂
I’m not sure we really have as much time as the article suggests. Time vortexes are necessary. You can call checking your mail and emptying the bin and clearing up the laundry “puttering around” but the mail needs checked and the bin needs emptied and the laundry needs done.
Paula, in a packed schedule (I think 1-2 hours per day after work, housework, kids and before bed) is fairly common), how do you decide whether to invest your already rare and valuable time into setting up / growing your side hustles (to accelerate your overall goals) or whether to say enough work; let’s rest / exercise / relax / have some fun? I.e. how do you decide whether to continue trading your time now, at the expense of now, for fun and frolicking in the future?
Keep up the good work; your podcasts keep me entertained and educated while stuck in traffic on my way to the cubicle (for now… planning to “retire” at 40)
Another great post! I feel like I’m in the same boat when it comes to loosing time in these time vortexs. Do you have any recommendations on tools for tracking time? Pencil and paper is always an option, but I’m curious if you have any apps or tech that could be helpful.
By FAR – this is the most useful article I’ve read in several years. I loved the “time to get to work” piece. .. I relate ….but I like to blame the aliens on my weird time lapses (…after all the simplest explanation is often the best one. 😜).
I’m sharing this all over the place now. Thank you for “taking the time” to write this -as it was definitely a great use of my time to read it.
Great idea tracking your time! I can completely relate to giving yourself breaks. When I was studying and working I was so intent on filling every minute with one of the two activities and never gave myself breaks. So what would I do to compensate? Unintentionally space out for 5 or so minutes when I would sit down to put on my socks or brush my teeth. I wouldn’t even think, I was totally zoned. Obviously my brain needed a break, but talk about time vortex!
I was thinking along the same lines this year. As a new business owner, I realized that I currently had more time than money and as such, it was my most valuable asset. Just like money, I wanted to learn to spend it wisely and with as little waste as possible. After the idea came to me in the shower, I decided to try a somewhat unique way of scheduling my time. I used coins (in Canada we have $1 and $2 coins) to represent hours in a day. I gave myself $24 made up of $0.25, $1, and $2 coins, with each dollar representing an hour of time. Then I took a blank sheet of paper and made columns for each activity category (sleep, work, exercise, husband, Axel (my dog), reading, eating, cleaning, journaling, misc.) were mine but yours could be anything. And I played around with ‘spending’ my $24 between these different columns. It was interesting to see how much time I really did have for all of these activities. Disclaimer is that we also work from home and don’t commute, so that frees up extra time but it was a conscious choice as I wanted to be able to spend that time hiking with my dog in the mountain trails near our house 🙂
I also heard a recent blog from Mr. Money Mustache about how to get more done in a day by setting a timer (putting yourself on the clock). I have tried a few times and seems quite effective. If I have a specific task I want to accomplish (which could be doing something for our website, catching up on bookkeeping, or even just organizing my work area) I will set a timer for a reasonable amount of time and that pressure seems to help me stay focused on just that one thing and then it’s done and I can get back to checking Instagram without the guilt 😉