The Art of Manliness - #495： Wish You Had More Time？ What You Really Want is More Memories

00:00:00.000 Brett here. Before we get to the show, quick heads up. I have changed the theme music for

00:00:05.020 the Art of Manliness podcast. Now, I've been wanting to do this for a few months. A couple

00:00:08.060 reasons why. One reason, we did a whole redesign of the Art of Manliness back in January, where

00:00:12.640 we went from that Victorian feel to a more 1970s, 80s vibe. So I wanted some podcast music to fit

00:00:18.360 that branding, quote unquote. Also, over the years, I've gotten complaints about the current

00:00:21.880 music, those blaring horns, the... I guess when you're wearing earbuds, it's not very pleasant.

00:00:27.960 Also, it's just really harsh sounding. So I've been wanting to change it for that reason

00:00:30.780 as well. So after months of listening to hundreds of tracks, hours just mind-numbing surfing, looking

00:00:37.660 through and listening to the stuff, I found it. The new intro music to the Art of Manliness

00:00:40.960 podcast. I was going for something like Kojak, Streets of San Francisco vibe, where it's smooth

00:00:46.520 but has a driving edge. This is it. So without further ado, world debut of the new AOM podcast

00:00:52.780 intro music. It's called Soul Jazz. I like it. I hope you like it too.

00:00:57.960 I'm Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. Now

00:01:07.540 when you ask people about their schedules, they'll typically tell you about how they're

00:01:10.740 very busy and don't have enough time for sleep or for leisure activities. Yet when they're

00:01:14.180 actually asked to track their time, it turns out they work less and sleep more than they

00:01:18.480 realize. My guest today studied and dug into this disparity. Her name is Laura Vanderkam and

00:01:22.620 she's the author of several books on the personal use of time, including the focus of our discussion

00:01:26.220 today. It's called Off the Clock, Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done. Today on the

00:01:30.280 show, Laura and I discuss why there's a gap between how busy people think they are versus

00:01:34.080 how busy they actually are. We then unpack what the people who don't feel oppressed by

00:01:37.820 the phantom of busyness do differently than those who do, why time goes by faster when you're

00:01:42.100 older than it did when you were young, and how you can still slow down time as an adult.

00:01:45.760 We talk about how what you really want are more memories, not more time, and how to find

00:01:49.440 more adventure in your ordinary life. We end our conversation discussing how tracking your

00:01:53.140 time can create a more memorable life, while you need to create open spaces in your schedule,

00:01:56.980 and the one tactic you can begin doing this week to start making more of your time. After

00:02:01.100 the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash off the clock. Laura joins me now

00:02:06.060 via clearcast.io.

00:02:07.440 All right, Laura Vanderkam, welcome to the show.

00:02:22.460 Thank you so much for having me.

00:02:23.640 So you've made a career for yourself researching and writing about how people spend their time. For

00:02:28.240 example, you've written a lot of bestselling books like, you know, what the most successful

00:02:31.260 people do before breakfast, 168 hours. Now you're out this new book, Off the Clock, Feel

00:02:35.880 Less Busy, While Getting More Done. How did you end up doing what you're doing, like researching

00:02:39.960 and writing about how people spend their time?

00:02:42.380 Well, it's been a long time coming in. It was not a straightforward story of like I knew

00:02:48.540 growing up I wanted to write about time. But I did realize something that seems obvious

00:02:55.700 in retrospect, but at the time was profound and it sort of shaped all my writing on it, which

00:02:59.720 is that we all have the same amount of time. Like I find this such an incredible thing, you

00:03:05.600 know, some people have more money or more naturally talented at whatever else than the rest of us

00:03:09.920 may be, but we all have the same amount of time. And so since our lives are lived in hours,

00:03:15.880 we all have access to the exact same building blocks to create the lives we want. And I just

00:03:21.880 find that so fascinating. And also this reality that how we think we spend our time is often not

00:03:29.220 how we actually spend our time. And I'm fascinated by topics where I think that the prevailing wisdom

00:03:35.240 is wrong. I don't think people are increasingly busy, increasingly sleep deprived or anything like

00:03:40.840 that. Um, so I find that interesting too. Well, let's get into that. So you've done a lot of these

00:03:45.680 time surveys where you'll get a whole bunch of people to start tracking their time meticulously

00:03:50.360 because they haven't before and they'll say, Oh, I'm just so busy. I'm, I never have time for

00:03:53.900 anything, but then you had them actually track their time. So let's do this. First off, let's

00:03:59.020 look at the surveys before people track their time. Like what, what did the survey say about

00:04:03.820 people in what you call time stress? Like that feeling you don't have any time. What are the

00:04:07.400 general trends there? Well, you know, lots of people say that they have intense time stress.

00:04:13.120 I mean, certainly majorities will answer Gallup's poll saying, you know, do you have time for the

00:04:17.160 things that you want to do? And those people say, no, I don't. And it's more pronounced,

00:04:20.460 of course, among people who have full-time jobs or people who have children at home.

00:04:23.900 And people who have both of those are, of course, in the most time crunched category.

00:04:28.100 You know, people have always thought that they are busier than anyone else at any other time

00:04:32.800 in human history. It's, it's kind of funny because I read, I collect old magazines, like

00:04:37.400 old copies of fortune magazine from the 1950s. And there was one particularly funny article.

00:04:42.860 I remember as a survey of businessmen about the state of everything. And at the time,

00:04:47.960 marginal tax rates were quite high. And so the question, the policy question out there was like,

00:04:53.200 well, if tax rates are lower, will people work more? And the businessmen were like,

00:04:57.700 well, we'd like lower taxes, but how could we possibly be working more? You know, it doesn't

00:05:01.600 even seem, you know, that there are more hours we could be working more, you know? So of course,

00:05:06.580 now people would say the same thing too, that how could I possibly be working anymore?

00:05:09.960 So people kind of always felt that way.

00:05:12.960 So there's a difference between feeling like you don't have the time and actually not having time.

00:05:17.140 So what are these time diary studies that you've done? What do they say about how people are

00:05:21.640 actually spending their time? Yeah. So I first came across this idea of a time diary study when

00:05:25.920 I came across the American time use survey, which is this fantastic study that the Bureau of Labor

00:05:31.040 Statistics does annually, where they call up thousands of Americans rolling over the whole year. So any day

00:05:38.600 of the year, and they basically ask you to talk through yesterday. So there's no question,

00:05:43.460 what's a typical day? What does a normal day in your life look like? Or how much did you,

00:05:47.440 how much do you sleep on a typical night? Or any question like that, that can be very misleading.

00:05:50.860 They just have you talk through yesterday. And then they average all these things and they get a

00:05:55.240 picture of American life. And I was looking at the survey for the first time a couple of years ago,

00:05:59.340 and I'm like, wait, you mean the average American sleeps more than eight hours a day? And in fact,

00:06:05.380 that's true. You know, when you actually have people recount yesterday, as opposed to some day that

00:06:10.980 we've got stuck in our minds as a typical day. And so, you know, I found this utterly fascinating.

00:06:16.460 So I've decided to start doing my own time diary studies. So for several of my books, I've recruited

00:06:21.480 big numbers of people to track their time, either for a day or a week, depending on the methodology I

00:06:26.860 was doing, and then to answer questions about their lives. And, you know, you find some fascinating

00:06:32.040 things. There's quite a gap between perception of where the time goes and reality, certainly on aspects

00:06:38.780 of how much we sleep, how much we work, how much time we devote to things like housework,

00:06:44.980 how much free time we have, all those kinds of things.

00:06:47.680 Well, let's talk about those discrepancies. So like what, like when you people at, when you ask

00:06:51.840 people before you do the survey, like, well, you know, how on average, how often, how many hours a

00:06:55.660 week do you work? What do they say? Or like when they say, oh, how many on average, how many hours

00:06:59.320 of sleep do you get at night? What do they say? And then what are the actual results typically?

00:07:03.880 Yeah. I've definitely had people say, oh, you know, I work about 60 hours a week and then I

00:07:08.640 have them track their time and it's like 42. And 42 is a very long week, by the way. I mean,

00:07:14.280 because that's besides lunch, you know, breaks you take during the day, or if you, you know,

00:07:19.240 come in late because of traffic jam, or you have to jet out early for a dentist appointment or

00:07:23.540 something, you know, so 42 hours is quite a long work week. It's also not 60, but what's happening

00:07:29.180 is that we tend to remember our longest days or our longest weeks as typical. And I'm sure that

00:07:36.700 person has in fact worked 60 hours at some point during their life of a week, but, or that they've

00:07:41.520 worked 12 hours on some day. And so they're remembering that day and multiplying by five,

00:07:46.080 but it's probably not typical. Same thing with, with sleep. We tend to do in the opposite direction.

00:07:53.580 We tend to remember our worst nights as typical, largely because it really stinks not to sleep. I

00:08:00.540 mean, you know, we all know that. So negative things tend to stand out in the mind, but when

00:08:05.860 you have people track the whole of their time, you get different results. So I had, for one of my

00:08:10.380 books a couple of years ago, and I was looking particularly at women who had big jobs and also

00:08:14.860 had kids. So, you know, working mothers, there's definitely the story out here of like, oh, you know,

00:08:19.040 you never sleep, right? There's a quote of like, these people talk about sleep the way a

00:08:23.440 starving man talks about food. And yet I found that 90% of the people I studied averaged at least

00:08:30.200 seven hours a day over the course of the week, you know? So that's pretty good.

00:08:35.800 It is really good. And there's been also some other interesting things that come out of this. Like,

00:08:40.200 you know, a lot of people, there's like all these alarmist things going on that people aren't

00:08:43.980 spending enough time with their kids a day because they're so busy with work and other activities.

00:08:47.520 But surveys show that people actually spend more time with their kids now than parents did in the

00:08:53.060 1950s or 60s when it was supposed to be sort of like when that was the age when parents did lots

00:08:58.640 of stuff with kids.

00:08:59.820 Yeah, it turns out they really didn't. I mean, I don't know. We have faulty memories of this.

00:09:05.240 You know, some of it's just differences in parenting. People were more likely to just sort

00:09:08.280 of send their kids out on their bikes all day and, you know, collect them when it got dark. And

00:09:12.360 that was acceptable. And a lot of people just don't do that anymore. So the kids are around their

00:09:16.600 parents more just because of that. But yeah, interactive time has risen both for men and women.

00:09:23.060 It's probably for men if we sort of have the image of a 1950s dad who didn't even know how

00:09:27.720 to change diapers. Well, clearly, you know, most fathers would be appalled at that idea now. And

00:09:32.380 so we understand that that number would probably have gone up. But it turns out it's gone up for

00:09:36.700 women too, even as the vast majority of women are now in the workforce. 1.00

00:09:41.340 Were there any results from your time diary studies that surprised you? Like you weren't expecting at all?

00:09:46.020 Well, I was very excited about the sleep one because it just, you know, you hear this all

00:09:52.100 the time that if you're going to build a career and raise a family, you will never sleep again.

00:09:56.580 And I think that it's really important to tell people that's not true. Like, yes,

00:09:59.880 there's going to be bad nights. And, you know, if you have a kid who's under like a year old,

00:10:03.820 yes, there's going to be more interrupted nights. But children only spend a few years being in the

00:10:08.540 baby stage. Even if you have multiple children, you only spend a few years in the baby stage.

00:10:12.400 So it does get better for the most part. You know, one thing that was interesting is that

00:10:19.420 parents do have leisure time. It probably doesn't tend to show up as a day at the spa,

00:10:24.440 but there's often some time after kids go to bed or on weekends, you know, where the kids are

00:10:30.900 occupied with other things or you're trading off with your spouse. So there is some time that can

00:10:35.660 be used. And I think that was an exciting thing to find as well.

00:10:38.020 Well, another thing you uncovered in your surveys is that a lot of people felt like they didn't have

00:10:44.260 any time. They had that time stress, but they actually did have time when they tracked it.

00:10:47.600 But there was a group of people that you uncovered that they didn't feel pressed for time. They

00:10:51.960 actually felt pretty calm and relaxed. So like what separated those people who like had an accurate

00:10:57.700 perception of what the time available they had compared to the other people who felt really

00:11:02.100 stressed out about a time, but they shouldn't have been stressed out in the first place?

00:11:05.080 Well, there's a couple of things that were different. So, you know, for this book off

00:11:08.920 the clock, I had 900 people track their time for a day. And then I asked them questions about how

00:11:13.580 they felt about their time. And there were a couple of, you know, I could assign people a score.

00:11:17.860 People had high time perception scores, felt like time was generally abundant. People had low time

00:11:23.220 perception scores, felt like they were stressed or starved for time. And there were a couple of

00:11:27.920 differences. You know, one, the people who felt more like time was abundant actually had a better

00:11:32.940 sense of where their time went. Like they could, they could fill out the survey easier. I mean,

00:11:36.780 that was, that was one thing right there. So, so being mindful of your time is probably the first

00:11:41.160 step. And they were also somewhat counterintuitively more likely to do quite interesting things on the

00:11:48.360 March Monday that I had them track. So people in my top group were doing such interesting things on

00:11:53.700 a Monday night as like going to salsa dancing lessons or going to a big band concert or taking their

00:11:59.220 family to a movie on a Monday night, which, you know, I think a lot of people are like, wait,

00:12:02.580 that's, that's like not a Monday night activity, you know, but by doing memorable things, they became

00:12:08.320 in their minds, the kind of person who has the time to do these sorts of things. They were more likely

00:12:13.520 to spend their leisure time interacting with friends and family. They were less likely to spend their

00:12:20.700 leisure time watching TV or on social media. And in general, they checked their phones less

00:12:27.800 frequently than the people who felt starved for time. And it's certainly not like they were,

00:12:32.300 they were monks about it. Like, I mean, everyone was checking at least hourly. So like, you know,

00:12:36.980 not to claim that people were those sort of magical sorts who managed to check their phones once a day,

00:12:41.600 but there's a big difference between checking once an hour and checking like 20 times an hour

00:12:45.920 in terms of how we perceive our time.

00:12:48.160 Well, we'll unpack some of these things that these folks did a little bit more, but what I also like

00:12:52.920 about your book off the clock, you kind of get in the psychology of time. Cause it's really weird.

00:12:56.480 There's a, there's a really weird psychological thing going on and how we perceive time. So

00:13:01.500 sometimes in our life we perceive like time going really slow and other times, like it seems like

00:13:07.520 it's going by really fast. You're like, Oh my gosh, it was just, you know, February, it was just

00:13:11.440 January a week ago, but it was actually two months ago. So like what goes on there where it feels like

00:13:17.960 time slows down. It feels like we have all the time in the world, but other times it feels like

00:13:22.320 time's just going by as like a blur. Yeah. Well, it's interesting because there's slow good and

00:13:27.180 there's slow bad. And many of us have been in the unfortunate situation where time appears to be

00:13:32.720 going very slowly, but not in a good way. Like your kid is screaming on a cross country flight.

00:13:38.220 It feels like five hours. You are paying for it in second long increments, or if you're stuck in

00:13:43.440 incredibly boring meeting or you're in a traffic jam or something like that, these are very painful,

00:13:49.400 slow moments. But the question about, you know, is it possible to make good moments seem to pass as

00:13:55.580 slowly as these bad moments? And on one level, no, but there are certain interesting things,

00:14:02.300 as you said, with, with time perception. And one is that the more memories we have of any given unit

00:14:07.440 of time, the longer it seems. So for most people, for instance, the, the four years of high school or

00:14:13.820 the four years of college seem actually quite a bit longer than the previous four years of your life,

00:14:18.820 because you had more memories of those times, you know, what makes a memory while doing something

00:14:23.840 for the first time or something being very emotionally intense. And, and we go through a

00:14:28.880 lot more of those sort of emotionally intense experiences as, as young people, when we're kind

00:14:33.120 of figuring out the world, uh, or even just, if you think about, you know, going on a vacation

00:14:38.020 somewhere exotic, like the first day, it feels incredibly long. And what's going on is it's all new

00:14:45.660 and your brain has absolutely no idea what it's going to need to remember in the future.

00:14:50.480 So it's remembering all of it. Uh, and, and that makes time seem more vast. Whereas like getting

00:14:58.420 up and getting ready and going to work two days ago, you probably have absolutely no memory of

00:15:02.200 that whatsoever, because it was the exact same thing you've done every day for the past, however

00:15:07.180 many years. And so your brain being very utilitarian decides that it has no reason to hold onto the memory

00:15:13.180 of doing this. And so it's just gone. This time is completely disappeared into a memory sinkhole.

00:15:19.640 And, and what makes sort of those weeks and years race by then is when we have kind of too many of

00:15:26.440 those memory sinkholes, when, you know, weeks and months of, of sameness stack up where there's

00:15:32.680 nothing new, there's nothing emotionally intense, then, then you don't remember it. And you wind up

00:15:37.680 being that person who's saying to some kid you haven't seen in three years, oh my goodness,

00:15:40.920 look how much you've grown because it didn't seem like three years to you.

00:15:44.940 Yeah. The analogy that I've heard used to describe when we experienced something new and why looking

00:15:50.880 back on it seems like it, it lasted a long time. It's like slow motion footage on a camera, right?

00:15:55.980 In order to get that slow motion footage, the camera has to take lots and lots of frames per

00:16:00.100 second. So it has a lot of footage there. So your brain does something similar with something new

00:16:03.820 happens, like you said, because it doesn't know what the stuff it needs to remember or not remember.

00:16:08.000 So it just takes a whole bunch of quote unquote footage, and then you play it back and it kind

00:16:13.100 of, it's slow motion in your mind. Yeah. I think that's, that's a great analogy that, that it is

00:16:17.980 taking in a lot of this new stuff, this different stuff, this uncertain stuff. And then that becomes

00:16:23.880 a stronger memory than sort of everyday sameness. We're going to take a quick break for your word

00:16:28.700 from our sponsors. And now back to the show. So let's get to this idea, some of the tactics that

00:16:34.600 you got from the people who didn't feel time stress. And we've been talking about these memories

00:16:39.960 and I thought you quoted this person. It was Lila, Lila Devachi, is that how you say her name?

00:16:45.020 Professor, she's a college, she says that a lot of people, when they say we want more time,

00:16:51.180 what we really want is more memories. Yeah. And I would add to that, that we want more time that

00:16:56.580 we feel good about. Like nobody wants more time in the middle of a kid temper tantrum. Like nobody

00:17:01.100 wants more time in a traffic jam or in an extremely boring meeting or when you're like physically

00:17:06.640 uncomfortable in some way. These are not, you know, times that we want more time. We want more

00:17:12.360 time that we are happy about. And, and because, and her point with the memories is just, you want more

00:17:18.800 time that you've done things that you look back on fondly. You, you want a richer life is what you want.

00:17:25.500 And so these things are all interrelated. And I love this idea you put out there to unpack this

00:17:31.020 idea even more is that a useful way to get more memories is think of ourselves as three people.

00:17:36.420 So there's like the past self, present self and future self. So how can thinking about us as three

00:17:41.240 people help us provide like a mindset to, you know, take more memories in? Yeah. Well, if you think

00:17:47.820 about where your kind of mental script is going, we're all carrying on some sort of conversation in

00:17:53.380 our brains constantly. If you ever pause and think about what you are thinking about in any given

00:17:58.500 moment, you're either where you are now in the present, or you are looking forward to the future,

00:18:03.300 or you are thinking about something that happened in the past. And these three selves are all part of

00:18:09.400 our identity. And, and the issue though, for, for our needing to create memories and do novel and

00:18:16.500 intense things is we, I've found this great quote from a philosopher that we pamper the present

00:18:22.460 like a spoiled child. And so in your mind, you may be the kind of person who would love to go

00:18:28.940 to a cool art exhibit after work someday and, and, you know, go to this museum with evening hours and

00:18:35.740 see this stuff. And maybe there's a band that's playing it there. It sounds awesome. But then,

00:18:40.660 you know, after work, well, you're tired and it's raining and your couch looks really inviting.

00:18:47.020 And so you're like, oh, well, you know, I don't have to do that. And it's like, well,

00:18:51.680 okay, that's true. But when we give in too much to the present, to the experiencing self,

00:18:57.500 and don't think about what the anticipating self wanted to do, or what the remembering self will

00:19:03.460 have been happy to have done, then we wind up doing nothing. And then, and then, as we said,

00:19:08.540 you know, these years disappear into memory sinkholes. So, you know, try, I try to remember,

00:19:13.720 I encourage other people to try to think, you know, whatever you are listening to the, you know,

00:19:18.500 the current present experiencing self, remind yourself that this is just one actor trying to

00:19:23.880 carry out a monologue and what should be a three actor play. And if you thought something sounded

00:19:29.380 really cool, and you think you will have been happy to have done it afterwards, like, just go do it.

00:19:37.460 Yes, you may be tired, but I don't know about you, but you know, between the career and the kids,

00:19:41.740 I could always be tired, right? Like, I mean, the fact that you're tired does not in and of itself

00:19:46.380 mean you shouldn't do something. And we tend to draw energy from meaningful things.

00:19:51.040 And I like the imagery you had of like, you know, think of like putting like a treasure in a chest

00:19:56.260 for your future self to look back on. He can go through and rummage through all the memories,

00:19:59.940 like you're doing that now. And so like, think about like, what kind of stuff do you want to find

00:20:03.900 in that box when you're like 70 or 80 years old?

00:20:07.600 Yeah, because if you don't put it in there, it will never be in there. I mean,

00:20:11.040 I guess you could try to create fake memories after the fact, but I think it's more fun if

00:20:14.940 they were there in the first place. And so this is easy. You don't have to

00:20:17.440 go on an exotic trip. It could just be you go to the museum after work, or you take the kids to a

00:20:22.760 movie on a Monday night. Yeah, it really doesn't have to be profound. And so the things I saw in

00:20:27.180 my time diary study were highly likely to be those kinds of adventures. I mean, you know, probably

00:20:31.940 somebody wasn't taking my survey if they were in Tahiti. Not that you shouldn't go to Tahiti,

00:20:35.720 but you know, again, those are more once in a lifetime type experiences.

00:20:39.620 You can create adventure out of your normal life, but you have to think about doing it.

00:20:44.740 And sometimes you have to nudge yourself a little bit over that initial resistance.

00:20:48.920 Yeah, we had a guest on the podcast a while back ago, Alistair Humphreys. He's an adventurer,

00:20:53.520 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 0.56

00:23:19.740 through a few pages? Like, how do you track that small stuff like that? 0.97

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

00:27:44.020 and any given meeting isn't necessarily.

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?

00:29:38.020 And typically the answer is no.

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

00:34:02.900 listeners will check that out as well.

00:34:05.160 And also at your website, you have the time log sheets that people can download and use for

00:34:08.800 themselves, right?

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.

00:34:33.220 Thanks so much for having me.

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

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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

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00:36:02.160 enrolling this year. So it's whichever one comes first. So if you want to sign up early, because

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The Art of Manliness - April 01, 2019

#495： Wish You Had More Time？ What You Really Want is More Memories

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