#495： Wish You Had More Time？ What You Really Want is More Memories
Episode Stats
Summary
When you ask people about their schedules, they typically tell you about how they're very busy and don't have enough time for sleep or leisure activities. Yet, when they're actually asked to track their time, it turns out they work less and sleep more than they realize. My guest today is Laura Vanderkam, who has made a career for herself researching and writing about how people spend their time. Now, she s out with this new book, Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done.
Transcript
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Brett here. Before we get to the show, quick heads up. I have changed the theme music for
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the Art of Manliness podcast. Now, I've been wanting to do this for a few months. A couple
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reasons why. One reason, we did a whole redesign of the Art of Manliness back in January, where
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we went from that Victorian feel to a more 1970s, 80s vibe. So I wanted some podcast music to fit
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that branding, quote unquote. Also, over the years, I've gotten complaints about the current
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music, those blaring horns, the... I guess when you're wearing earbuds, it's not very pleasant.
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Also, it's just really harsh sounding. So I've been wanting to change it for that reason
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as well. So after months of listening to hundreds of tracks, hours just mind-numbing surfing, looking
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through and listening to the stuff, I found it. The new intro music to the Art of Manliness
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podcast. I was going for something like Kojak, Streets of San Francisco vibe, where it's smooth
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but has a driving edge. This is it. So without further ado, world debut of the new AOM podcast
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intro music. It's called Soul Jazz. I like it. I hope you like it too.
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I'm Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. Now
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when you ask people about their schedules, they'll typically tell you about how they're
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very busy and don't have enough time for sleep or for leisure activities. Yet when they're
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actually asked to track their time, it turns out they work less and sleep more than they
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realize. My guest today studied and dug into this disparity. Her name is Laura Vanderkam and
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she's the author of several books on the personal use of time, including the focus of our discussion
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today. It's called Off the Clock, Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done. Today on the
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show, Laura and I discuss why there's a gap between how busy people think they are versus
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how busy they actually are. We then unpack what the people who don't feel oppressed by
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the phantom of busyness do differently than those who do, why time goes by faster when you're
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older than it did when you were young, and how you can still slow down time as an adult.
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We talk about how what you really want are more memories, not more time, and how to find
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more adventure in your ordinary life. We end our conversation discussing how tracking your
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time can create a more memorable life, while you need to create open spaces in your schedule,
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and the one tactic you can begin doing this week to start making more of your time. After
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the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash off the clock. Laura joins me now
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All right, Laura Vanderkam, welcome to the show.
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So you've made a career for yourself researching and writing about how people spend their time. For
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example, you've written a lot of bestselling books like, you know, what the most successful
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people do before breakfast, 168 hours. Now you're out this new book, Off the Clock, Feel
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Less Busy, While Getting More Done. How did you end up doing what you're doing, like researching
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Well, it's been a long time coming in. It was not a straightforward story of like I knew
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growing up I wanted to write about time. But I did realize something that seems obvious
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in retrospect, but at the time was profound and it sort of shaped all my writing on it, which
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is that we all have the same amount of time. Like I find this such an incredible thing, you
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know, some people have more money or more naturally talented at whatever else than the rest of us
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may be, but we all have the same amount of time. And so since our lives are lived in hours,
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we all have access to the exact same building blocks to create the lives we want. And I just
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find that so fascinating. And also this reality that how we think we spend our time is often not
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how we actually spend our time. And I'm fascinated by topics where I think that the prevailing wisdom
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is wrong. I don't think people are increasingly busy, increasingly sleep deprived or anything like
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that. Um, so I find that interesting too. Well, let's get into that. So you've done a lot of these
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time surveys where you'll get a whole bunch of people to start tracking their time meticulously
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because they haven't before and they'll say, Oh, I'm just so busy. I'm, I never have time for
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anything, but then you had them actually track their time. So let's do this. First off, let's
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look at the surveys before people track their time. Like what, what did the survey say about
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people in what you call time stress? Like that feeling you don't have any time. What are the
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general trends there? Well, you know, lots of people say that they have intense time stress.
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I mean, certainly majorities will answer Gallup's poll saying, you know, do you have time for the
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things that you want to do? And those people say, no, I don't. And it's more pronounced,
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of course, among people who have full-time jobs or people who have children at home.
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And people who have both of those are, of course, in the most time crunched category.
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You know, people have always thought that they are busier than anyone else at any other time
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in human history. It's, it's kind of funny because I read, I collect old magazines, like
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old copies of fortune magazine from the 1950s. And there was one particularly funny article.
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I remember as a survey of businessmen about the state of everything. And at the time,
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marginal tax rates were quite high. And so the question, the policy question out there was like,
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well, if tax rates are lower, will people work more? And the businessmen were like,
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well, we'd like lower taxes, but how could we possibly be working more? You know, it doesn't
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even seem, you know, that there are more hours we could be working more, you know? So of course,
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now people would say the same thing too, that how could I possibly be working anymore?
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So there's a difference between feeling like you don't have the time and actually not having time.
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So what are these time diary studies that you've done? What do they say about how people are
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actually spending their time? Yeah. So I first came across this idea of a time diary study when
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I came across the American time use survey, which is this fantastic study that the Bureau of Labor
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Statistics does annually, where they call up thousands of Americans rolling over the whole year. So any day
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of the year, and they basically ask you to talk through yesterday. So there's no question,
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what's a typical day? What does a normal day in your life look like? Or how much did you,
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how much do you sleep on a typical night? Or any question like that, that can be very misleading.
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They just have you talk through yesterday. And then they average all these things and they get a
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picture of American life. And I was looking at the survey for the first time a couple of years ago,
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and I'm like, wait, you mean the average American sleeps more than eight hours a day? And in fact,
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that's true. You know, when you actually have people recount yesterday, as opposed to some day that
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we've got stuck in our minds as a typical day. And so, you know, I found this utterly fascinating.
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So I've decided to start doing my own time diary studies. So for several of my books, I've recruited
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big numbers of people to track their time, either for a day or a week, depending on the methodology I
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was doing, and then to answer questions about their lives. And, you know, you find some fascinating
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things. There's quite a gap between perception of where the time goes and reality, certainly on aspects
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of how much we sleep, how much we work, how much time we devote to things like housework,
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how much free time we have, all those kinds of things.
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Well, let's talk about those discrepancies. So like what, like when you people at, when you ask
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people before you do the survey, like, well, you know, how on average, how often, how many hours a
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week do you work? What do they say? Or like when they say, oh, how many on average, how many hours
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of sleep do you get at night? What do they say? And then what are the actual results typically?
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Yeah. I've definitely had people say, oh, you know, I work about 60 hours a week and then I
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have them track their time and it's like 42. And 42 is a very long week, by the way. I mean,
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because that's besides lunch, you know, breaks you take during the day, or if you, you know,
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come in late because of traffic jam, or you have to jet out early for a dentist appointment or
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something, you know, so 42 hours is quite a long work week. It's also not 60, but what's happening
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is that we tend to remember our longest days or our longest weeks as typical. And I'm sure that
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person has in fact worked 60 hours at some point during their life of a week, but, or that they've
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worked 12 hours on some day. And so they're remembering that day and multiplying by five,
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but it's probably not typical. Same thing with, with sleep. We tend to do in the opposite direction.
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We tend to remember our worst nights as typical, largely because it really stinks not to sleep. I
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mean, you know, we all know that. So negative things tend to stand out in the mind, but when
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you have people track the whole of their time, you get different results. So I had, for one of my
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books a couple of years ago, and I was looking particularly at women who had big jobs and also
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had kids. So, you know, working mothers, there's definitely the story out here of like, oh, you know,
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you never sleep, right? There's a quote of like, these people talk about sleep the way a
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starving man talks about food. And yet I found that 90% of the people I studied averaged at least
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seven hours a day over the course of the week, you know? So that's pretty good.
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It is really good. And there's been also some other interesting things that come out of this. Like,
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you know, a lot of people, there's like all these alarmist things going on that people aren't
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spending enough time with their kids a day because they're so busy with work and other activities.
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But surveys show that people actually spend more time with their kids now than parents did in the
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1950s or 60s when it was supposed to be sort of like when that was the age when parents did lots
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Yeah, it turns out they really didn't. I mean, I don't know. We have faulty memories of this.
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You know, some of it's just differences in parenting. People were more likely to just sort
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of send their kids out on their bikes all day and, you know, collect them when it got dark. And
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that was acceptable. And a lot of people just don't do that anymore. So the kids are around their
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parents more just because of that. But yeah, interactive time has risen both for men and women.
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It's probably for men if we sort of have the image of a 1950s dad who didn't even know how
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to change diapers. Well, clearly, you know, most fathers would be appalled at that idea now. And
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so we understand that that number would probably have gone up. But it turns out it's gone up for
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women too, even as the vast majority of women are now in the workforce.
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Were there any results from your time diary studies that surprised you? Like you weren't expecting at all?
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Well, I was very excited about the sleep one because it just, you know, you hear this all
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the time that if you're going to build a career and raise a family, you will never sleep again.
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And I think that it's really important to tell people that's not true. Like, yes,
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there's going to be bad nights. And, you know, if you have a kid who's under like a year old,
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yes, there's going to be more interrupted nights. But children only spend a few years being in the
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baby stage. Even if you have multiple children, you only spend a few years in the baby stage.
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So it does get better for the most part. You know, one thing that was interesting is that
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parents do have leisure time. It probably doesn't tend to show up as a day at the spa,
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but there's often some time after kids go to bed or on weekends, you know, where the kids are
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occupied with other things or you're trading off with your spouse. So there is some time that can
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be used. And I think that was an exciting thing to find as well.
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Well, another thing you uncovered in your surveys is that a lot of people felt like they didn't have
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any time. They had that time stress, but they actually did have time when they tracked it.
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But there was a group of people that you uncovered that they didn't feel pressed for time. They
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actually felt pretty calm and relaxed. So like what separated those people who like had an accurate
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perception of what the time available they had compared to the other people who felt really
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stressed out about a time, but they shouldn't have been stressed out in the first place?
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Well, there's a couple of things that were different. So, you know, for this book off
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the clock, I had 900 people track their time for a day. And then I asked them questions about how
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they felt about their time. And there were a couple of, you know, I could assign people a score.
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People had high time perception scores, felt like time was generally abundant. People had low time
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perception scores, felt like they were stressed or starved for time. And there were a couple of
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differences. You know, one, the people who felt more like time was abundant actually had a better
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sense of where their time went. Like they could, they could fill out the survey easier. I mean,
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that was, that was one thing right there. So, so being mindful of your time is probably the first
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step. And they were also somewhat counterintuitively more likely to do quite interesting things on the
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March Monday that I had them track. So people in my top group were doing such interesting things on
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a Monday night as like going to salsa dancing lessons or going to a big band concert or taking their
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family to a movie on a Monday night, which, you know, I think a lot of people are like, wait,
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that's, that's like not a Monday night activity, you know, but by doing memorable things, they became
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in their minds, the kind of person who has the time to do these sorts of things. They were more likely
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to spend their leisure time interacting with friends and family. They were less likely to spend their
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leisure time watching TV or on social media. And in general, they checked their phones less
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frequently than the people who felt starved for time. And it's certainly not like they were,
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they were monks about it. Like, I mean, everyone was checking at least hourly. So like, you know,
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not to claim that people were those sort of magical sorts who managed to check their phones once a day,
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but there's a big difference between checking once an hour and checking like 20 times an hour
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Well, we'll unpack some of these things that these folks did a little bit more, but what I also like
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about your book off the clock, you kind of get in the psychology of time. Cause it's really weird.
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There's a, there's a really weird psychological thing going on and how we perceive time. So
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sometimes in our life we perceive like time going really slow and other times, like it seems like
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it's going by really fast. You're like, Oh my gosh, it was just, you know, February, it was just
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January a week ago, but it was actually two months ago. So like what goes on there where it feels like
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time slows down. It feels like we have all the time in the world, but other times it feels like
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time's just going by as like a blur. Yeah. Well, it's interesting because there's slow good and
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there's slow bad. And many of us have been in the unfortunate situation where time appears to be
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going very slowly, but not in a good way. Like your kid is screaming on a cross country flight.
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It feels like five hours. You are paying for it in second long increments, or if you're stuck in
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incredibly boring meeting or you're in a traffic jam or something like that, these are very painful,
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slow moments. But the question about, you know, is it possible to make good moments seem to pass as
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slowly as these bad moments? And on one level, no, but there are certain interesting things,
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as you said, with, with time perception. And one is that the more memories we have of any given unit
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of time, the longer it seems. So for most people, for instance, the, the four years of high school or
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the four years of college seem actually quite a bit longer than the previous four years of your life,
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because you had more memories of those times, you know, what makes a memory while doing something
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for the first time or something being very emotionally intense. And, and we go through a
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lot more of those sort of emotionally intense experiences as, as young people, when we're kind
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of figuring out the world, uh, or even just, if you think about, you know, going on a vacation
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somewhere exotic, like the first day, it feels incredibly long. And what's going on is it's all new
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and your brain has absolutely no idea what it's going to need to remember in the future.
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So it's remembering all of it. Uh, and, and that makes time seem more vast. Whereas like getting
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up and getting ready and going to work two days ago, you probably have absolutely no memory of
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that whatsoever, because it was the exact same thing you've done every day for the past, however
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many years. And so your brain being very utilitarian decides that it has no reason to hold onto the memory
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of doing this. And so it's just gone. This time is completely disappeared into a memory sinkhole.
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And, and what makes sort of those weeks and years race by then is when we have kind of too many of
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those memory sinkholes, when, you know, weeks and months of, of sameness stack up where there's
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nothing new, there's nothing emotionally intense, then, then you don't remember it. And you wind up
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being that person who's saying to some kid you haven't seen in three years, oh my goodness,
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look how much you've grown because it didn't seem like three years to you.
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Yeah. The analogy that I've heard used to describe when we experienced something new and why looking
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back on it seems like it, it lasted a long time. It's like slow motion footage on a camera, right?
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In order to get that slow motion footage, the camera has to take lots and lots of frames per
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second. So it has a lot of footage there. So your brain does something similar with something new
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happens, like you said, because it doesn't know what the stuff it needs to remember or not remember.
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So it just takes a whole bunch of quote unquote footage, and then you play it back and it kind
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of, it's slow motion in your mind. Yeah. I think that's, that's a great analogy that, that it is
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taking in a lot of this new stuff, this different stuff, this uncertain stuff. And then that becomes
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a stronger memory than sort of everyday sameness. We're going to take a quick break for your word
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from our sponsors. And now back to the show. So let's get to this idea, some of the tactics that
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you got from the people who didn't feel time stress. And we've been talking about these memories
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and I thought you quoted this person. It was Lila, Lila Devachi, is that how you say her name?
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Professor, she's a college, she says that a lot of people, when they say we want more time,
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what we really want is more memories. Yeah. And I would add to that, that we want more time that
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we feel good about. Like nobody wants more time in the middle of a kid temper tantrum. Like nobody
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wants more time in a traffic jam or in an extremely boring meeting or when you're like physically
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uncomfortable in some way. These are not, you know, times that we want more time. We want more
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time that we are happy about. And, and because, and her point with the memories is just, you want more
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time that you've done things that you look back on fondly. You, you want a richer life is what you want.
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And so these things are all interrelated. And I love this idea you put out there to unpack this
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idea even more is that a useful way to get more memories is think of ourselves as three people.
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So there's like the past self, present self and future self. So how can thinking about us as three
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people help us provide like a mindset to, you know, take more memories in? Yeah. Well, if you think
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about where your kind of mental script is going, we're all carrying on some sort of conversation in
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our brains constantly. If you ever pause and think about what you are thinking about in any given
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moment, you're either where you are now in the present, or you are looking forward to the future,
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or you are thinking about something that happened in the past. And these three selves are all part of
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our identity. And, and the issue though, for, for our needing to create memories and do novel and
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intense things is we, I've found this great quote from a philosopher that we pamper the present
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like a spoiled child. And so in your mind, you may be the kind of person who would love to go
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to a cool art exhibit after work someday and, and, you know, go to this museum with evening hours and
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see this stuff. And maybe there's a band that's playing it there. It sounds awesome. But then,
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you know, after work, well, you're tired and it's raining and your couch looks really inviting.
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And so you're like, oh, well, you know, I don't have to do that. And it's like, well,
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okay, that's true. But when we give in too much to the present, to the experiencing self,
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and don't think about what the anticipating self wanted to do, or what the remembering self will
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have been happy to have done, then we wind up doing nothing. And then, and then, as we said,
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you know, these years disappear into memory sinkholes. So, you know, try, I try to remember,
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I encourage other people to try to think, you know, whatever you are listening to the, you know,
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the current present experiencing self, remind yourself that this is just one actor trying to
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carry out a monologue and what should be a three actor play. And if you thought something sounded
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really cool, and you think you will have been happy to have done it afterwards, like, just go do it.
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Yes, you may be tired, but I don't know about you, but you know, between the career and the kids,
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I could always be tired, right? Like, I mean, the fact that you're tired does not in and of itself
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mean you shouldn't do something. And we tend to draw energy from meaningful things.
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And I like the imagery you had of like, you know, think of like putting like a treasure in a chest
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for your future self to look back on. He can go through and rummage through all the memories,
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like you're doing that now. And so like, think about like, what kind of stuff do you want to find
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in that box when you're like 70 or 80 years old?
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Yeah, because if you don't put it in there, it will never be in there. I mean,
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I guess you could try to create fake memories after the fact, but I think it's more fun if
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they were there in the first place. And so this is easy. You don't have to
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go on an exotic trip. It could just be you go to the museum after work, or you take the kids to a
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movie on a Monday night. Yeah, it really doesn't have to be profound. And so the things I saw in
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my time diary study were highly likely to be those kinds of adventures. I mean, you know, probably
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somebody wasn't taking my survey if they were in Tahiti. Not that you shouldn't go to Tahiti,
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but you know, again, those are more once in a lifetime type experiences.
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You can create adventure out of your normal life, but you have to think about doing it.
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And sometimes you have to nudge yourself a little bit over that initial resistance.
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Yeah, we had a guest on the podcast a while back ago, Alistair Humphreys. He's an adventurer,
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like a professional adventurer, but he wrote this book called Micro Adventures,
00:20:56.700
talking about just taking little small adventures in your backyard. And it could be something as simple
00:21:00.420
as like spending the night in your backyard with your kids in a sleeping bag out in the stars.
00:21:04.860
That's it. That could be a great memory. Yeah, no, that's a, I mean, that's so true that,
00:21:10.140
and it might help to make a list and maybe it's about consulting a book like that in micro
00:21:14.660
adventures or looking at things that are cool to do within two hours of your house, right? I mean,
00:21:20.820
even if you're not in a particularly great touristy area, probably if you give yourself a two hour
00:21:25.440
radius, which you could drive to on a weekend, there's a reasonable amount of fun stuff and
00:21:30.040
adventurous stuff you could do. And, you know, ask your kids, ask your partner what you'd
00:21:34.820
like, what they'd like to do. And you can start pulling things off this list and attempt to
00:21:39.580
create, you know, little adventures in your life. Maybe daily doesn't work, but, you know,
00:21:44.100
twice a week probably could. Yeah, definitely. So let's talk about this idea of being mindful
00:21:48.020
of your time. So I imagine that just involves tracking your time. Is that, is that all it is
00:21:53.140
to become mindful of your time? Is just tracking it sort of like tracking your food or tracking your
00:21:56.620
money? Well, I certainly recommend tracking your time. I mean, there's other ways you can sort of
00:22:01.620
reflect on your day and look forward to your next day without really filling out a spreadsheet,
00:22:06.460
which is what I do. But I'm a huge fan of time tracking. I've actually been tracking my time
00:22:11.500
continuously for about four years now, which I know makes me sound like just a ton of fun,
00:22:16.940
but it's so, it's partly about having these cemented memories for me because I have spreadsheets
00:22:26.900
outlining how I spent the 168 hours of every week since April, 2015. And if I pull up one of
00:22:34.020
those spreadsheets and look at a day, I'd say, oh yeah, that. And then the memory is there. Whereas,
00:22:41.460
you know, I think most of us just think about it, like, what did you do on July 16, 2017? Well,
00:22:48.260
I'm guessing you have no clue. I mean, if you got married or one of your kids was born on that day,
00:22:52.780
you do, but for most of us, we don't. And so my time tracking has really helped with that. So I'm
00:22:58.160
mindful of my time as it's going because I'm recording it. So I'm accountable for it. And
00:23:02.220
then I'm mindful of it in the past because I can look back on these spreadsheets and see where it
00:23:06.020
has gone. So, I mean, I can see tracking being easy when you're like tracking like work time or
00:23:10.760
like here's the kid time. But what about those like moments where you're just like, you know,
00:23:14.680
you're passing through the kitchen and you pick up the dumb magazine you get and you flip
00:23:19.740
through a few pages? Like, how do you track that small stuff like that?
00:23:23.560
Well, the honest truth is it's hard to capture all of that. And so my system is certainly not
00:23:28.620
perfect. I know some people attempt to get everything, but it can be very, very difficult.
00:23:34.340
And you want to make sure that you're achieving a right balance between capturing stuff and being
00:23:40.960
able to actually complete a log. So I track in half hour blocks. My spreadsheet has the days of the
00:23:47.720
week across the top running from Monday to Sunday and then half hour blocks going down the left-hand
00:23:51.700
side from 5 a.m. to 4.30 a.m. And I just, I check in like three to four times a day and write what I've
00:23:58.340
done since the last time. So no, it's not going to be perfect. I think it's about 90% there. It's not
00:24:03.860
going to capture if I'm paging through a magazine, but it will, you know, I try to put slashes through to
00:24:11.060
say what stuff is like, it might be, you know, laundry slash read slash kids. Like that will be
00:24:17.760
an entry for, for what I was spending half an hour doing because the point again is not to create a
00:24:23.820
perfect pie chart with mutually exclusive and comprehensively exhaustive categories. It's more,
00:24:29.700
can you get a good picture of your life? And the thing with my time logs, it's close enough.
00:24:35.520
I can see, you know, I'm probably working more like 35 to 40 hours a week, not 50 to 60 in general.
00:24:43.620
I can see that in general, I sleep somewhere between seven and seven and a half hours a day.
00:24:49.060
I can see I spend about an hour a day in the car. I can see I spend about an hour a day reading.
00:24:54.600
I see I spend on average about half an hour a day exercising. So, you know, these are,
00:24:58.660
these are the things that I get the parameters of my life over time.
00:25:01.300
Well, this leads to another point you make in the book about another way to free up more time or
00:25:05.320
make, make it feel like you have more time is like, don't try to over optimize your life and
00:25:09.100
act. And sometimes you just got to accept, you know, good enough and that's okay.
00:25:13.020
I'm a big fan of good enough. Like, you know, perfect, perfect is definitely overrated.
00:25:18.660
So another thing you found with these folks who didn't feel pressed for time is they had a lot
00:25:22.280
of open space and you found on their calendar, they had a lot of space on their calendar. And some
00:25:25.940
of these people like were incredibly busy. There's, you know, high power CEOs, but you, when you emailed
00:25:31.300
them or called them and asked for a meeting, they're just like, Oh yeah, just come anytime.
00:25:35.320
Whatever works for you. And that's kind of, you're like, wait a minute, these people should
00:25:39.180
later their calendar should be just be booked nonstop. But that wasn't the case.
00:25:42.820
Yeah. I think we have, most of us are walking around with this story kind of unquestioned that
00:25:48.420
the more important you are, the busier you are, you know, like being busy is a sign that you are
00:25:54.380
important. And while it, while it makes sense because people who are important have a big demand
00:25:59.820
for their time. That's why they're important, right? These things follow. It doesn't follow that
00:26:04.160
they naturally pack every minute of their day. And I found that many of these people use the power
00:26:09.360
they have over their time to consciously leave open space, you know, for a couple of reasons. I
00:26:14.640
mean, one, one, it's practical. Like, you know, if you picture yourself having meetings stacked up
00:26:19.160
every half hour through the day and one runs over, which it inevitably will, because something will
00:26:23.700
happen. The person will be late. You'll get into an argument about something and have to keep going
00:26:27.960
with it. Like the rest of the day is just messed up. It falls over like dominoes. And whereas if you
00:26:33.820
have an open space, you can get caught up, but it's also about being, you know, able to seize
00:26:38.540
opportunity. Like if you're having a really good conversation with someone and coming up with
00:26:44.160
great ideas, it's really awesome to be able to stick with it and not have to be like, yeah,
00:26:49.380
I got to go, you know, racing off to this other meeting. That's, I don't know, about something like
00:26:52.940
office fridge policies or something pointless, but this is what people do when things are scheduled
00:26:57.320
on their calendar for certain time, they naturally wind up rising up the hierarchy of importance,
00:27:02.620
even if they're not important at all. So I think, you know, people who are smart about their time are
00:27:07.980
very, very careful about that. And it's hard to keep open space. Like if people are asking for your
00:27:13.960
time, A, it's flattering. Like B, you might want to talk to them, you know, and C, like you say,
00:27:19.960
well, I'm free, like I should, but it's, you know, open space is not nothing. Open space is often
00:27:27.220
where people get their best ideas. It's where they deal with whatever is most pressing in the
00:27:31.500
moment. It is where they get ready for future crises that might happen. It's where they invest
00:27:37.700
in the relationships, particularly at work in those open spaces. So open space is productive
00:27:47.700
So I imagine the way you avoid, you say, so here's what I imagine is happening. You track your time,
00:27:53.220
you can see opportunities where you can create open space in your calendar because you realize,
00:27:56.960
well, I'm not really doing much from this hour to this hour, so I can leave that open.
00:28:01.660
But the trick to keeping it white, that space white is like just telling people,
00:28:07.060
sorry, got something going on at that time. Can't do it then if they want to do something at that time.
00:28:12.000
Yeah, that's, I mean, that's certainly one thing you can say. You know, I think it's,
00:28:16.880
people need to get more comfortable with not doing stuff and saying,
00:28:21.620
this isn't the best use of my time. And that may not be the phrase you use to someone.
00:28:25.500
You may suggest they do something else or say, well, you know, we could probably,
00:28:28.460
you know, take this in a five minute phone call as opposed to a 60 minute meeting.
00:28:31.660
But in general in life, I encourage people when, when somebody asks you to do something
00:28:36.480
and you're asked to do it in the future, your question should not be like, am I free at that
00:28:41.760
day in the future? Because that's the wrong question. Like the best question to ask yourself
00:28:46.200
before you say yes is would I do this thing tomorrow? Because we understand the opportunity
00:28:51.460
costs for tomorrow in a way that we just can't see for the future. Like we understand how much
00:28:55.860
we have going on. We understand how we'll feel for tomorrow. So, you know, if you say yes for
00:29:00.980
tomorrow, like you'd cancel things in your schedule, you'd move stuff around to take on whatever
00:29:04.700
somebody's asking you to do in the future, then you'll be excited in the future too. So you should
00:29:08.600
definitely say yes. But, you know, if you would have no qualms about saying no to this thing for
00:29:12.820
tomorrow, then, then probably you should say no to it in the future as well.
00:29:17.180
Yeah. That tip that took me, like, I learned that on my own. It took a while. Cause like,
00:29:21.320
I would make these commitments that were months out and like, Oh yeah, not a problem. And then
00:29:24.640
the thing finally came like a speaking engagement or something. But then like my life was just crazy
00:29:29.240
then. I'm like, Oh my gosh, why did I say yes to this thing? I can't believe I did this. So
00:29:32.580
yeah, that advice, if, if, if being thinking about if I were to do this tomorrow, would I say yes?
00:29:39.520
Yeah. This fallacy, we're like, Oh, it'll never be July. I mean, yes, it will be, it will be July
00:29:45.440
and you'll be the same person you are now. So you also talk about people who don't feel
00:29:51.620
pressed for time is that they invest their time in people. This is sort of like similar to the idea
00:29:57.860
of the, with your money, the way you get the most out of your money is if you spend it in experiences.
00:30:01.980
So I imagine is the same thing holds true for time.
00:30:05.000
Uh, pretty much investing in our relationships is one of the best ways we can spend time both in,
00:30:12.540
in terms of feeling like we have more time and feeling more relaxed about time and being happier
00:30:18.520
about our time. And what happens if like those relationships starts draining you? Like then,
00:30:22.880
like it starts feeling slow and like, these are not good memories. Well then, then that's probably not
00:30:27.460
the right relationship to be investing that time in. And, you know, here's the hard truth is we do
00:30:33.220
have to be choosy about these things. Time is, you know, in time is finite. The expectations are
00:30:41.140
probably infinite. I mean, there are a lot of people in this world. You can't be close friends with all
00:30:47.040
of them, but if some relationship is energizing to you, then it is definitely worth investing more
00:30:54.380
in that. Even if it's not terribly convenient, it doesn't have to be a huge amount of people. You
00:30:59.540
know, I think for most people between their, their spouse or, you know, partner, maybe one or two other
00:31:07.340
close relatives, two or three friends, like that's, that may be as much as you can actually handle
00:31:12.960
with, with really investing in those relationships. But on the other hand, you know, if you have
00:31:17.800
a handful of people, even as you know, under 10, but who are really, really close with you, that,
00:31:22.560
that, that can take you a long way. So we've been talking a lot of different tactics and things you
00:31:27.640
can use, mindsets you can use to feel like you have more time, but like, is there like one thing you
00:31:31.880
think someone could start doing today that will provide a lot of, you know, ROI that in feeling like
00:31:37.400
they have more off the clock time? Well, I think one of the best things you can do is a Friday
00:31:42.720
afternoon planning session. And I, I do this and it's really helped me with my time. Every Friday
00:31:49.120
afternoon, I sit down and I list my priorities for the next week. I list them in three categories,
00:31:55.860
career, relationships, and self. So what are the top two or three things I want to do in each of
00:32:00.980
these categories over the course of the next week? And then I look at my calendar and I sort of figure
00:32:06.340
out roughly where they're going to happen. Hopefully they're already on my calendar. Like sometimes I've,
00:32:10.980
I've already put stuff on in the past that I've thought would be a good idea. And that's great.
00:32:14.060
But if not, I say like, Oh, well, I'd like to get together with a friend at some point this week for
00:32:18.060
a run. How can I make that happen? Or I'd like to do something with my husband this week. How can
00:32:21.600
we make that happen? Or, you know, one of my kids seems especially like he or she would need
00:32:25.940
something. Let me try and make some special time with that person. Okay. So those I'll go on the
00:32:30.340
calendar, top priority stuff, and then look at the calendar, see what's already on there for the next week
00:32:35.960
and start triaging, you know, what do you know, ask yourself what you don't want to do. And if it
00:32:42.080
has to happen, because if you are going to cancel something, it's really much nicer to do it ahead
00:32:46.140
of time. So everyone can make other plans. Or you might see that you're meeting with someone and you
00:32:50.820
don't really think it's the best use of anyone's time. Like maybe it could just become a phone call
00:32:54.620
if it was supposed to be a meeting, or maybe it's scheduled for 60 minutes, but you see no possible
00:32:58.620
reason that this needs to take 60 minutes. So that's when you send around the question. I really want to be
00:33:02.640
clear on this agenda, right? If the agenda doesn't fill 60 minutes, you knock it down. Or, you know,
00:33:08.120
maybe it's that you're delegating something, somebody else can take something on for you.
00:33:11.880
But you do this at work, you can do this at home, you know, with your activities as well. And then,
00:33:17.360
you know, you hopefully can open up hours with doing these things. But even if you can't,
00:33:22.080
you've also put in the good stuff with your priorities. So if the good stuff is there, the bad stuff
00:33:27.280
tends to either feel like it takes less time or actually takes less time.
00:33:31.500
Yeah. So what I like about this stuff, it doesn't take much time or energy to do this either.
00:33:35.500
No, no. And I don't know about you, but I'm really not doing much on Friday afternoon in
00:33:38.920
the first place. Like, you know, it's so hard to start anything new at that point.
00:33:42.280
So I'm really just more in future planning mode by that point.
00:33:45.180
Well, Laura, where can people go to learn more about your work?
00:33:47.460
So I'd love if people would come visit my website, lauravandercam.com. You can read about the
00:33:54.100
book Off the Clock that we were talking about. I also have a new book coming out in March called
00:33:58.480
Juliette School of Possibilities, which is a time management fable. So hopefully some of your
00:34:05.160
And also at your website, you have the time log sheets that people can download and use for
00:34:09.700
Yeah, I definitely do. You can fill out the form on my website to be emailed a time log and a time
00:34:15.060
management guide. But, you know, you can also just make your own spreadsheet. It's really nothing
00:34:18.500
fancy, I promise. But you can track time other ways, too. I mean, there's dozens of commercial
00:34:23.180
time tracking apps on the market. I mean, you can walk around with a little notebook if you want to
00:34:26.600
look all artsy. The tool itself doesn't matter. I just suggest people actually try doing it.
00:34:30.880
Well, great. Well, Laura Vanderkam, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure.
00:34:34.780
My guest today was Laura Vanderkam. We discussed her book Off the Clock. It's available on Amazon.com
00:34:39.120
and bookstores everywhere. You can find out more information about our work at our website,
00:34:42.220
lauravandercam.com. Also check out our podcast. She's got one called Before Breakfast and another one
00:34:47.500
called Best of Both Worlds. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash off the clock,
00:34:52.460
where you can find links to resources, where you can delve deeper into this topic.
00:34:56.600
Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Check out our website at
00:35:06.060
artofmanliness.com, where you can find all of our podcast archives. We've got 490 there plus there.
00:35:11.260
Also thousands of articles on just about anything, personal finances, fitness, how to be a better
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00:35:30.260
next time, this is Brett McKay reminding you not only to listen to the AOM podcast, but put what
00:35:34.060
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