Time Management for Busy People
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do less. live more.
I love a good book about time management. Somehow just reading about time hacks makes me (temporarily, at least) feel like I’m using my time more wisely. Recently, I’ve listened to two different books on time management, and here, I share my take-aways from the first: Make Time by Jake Knapp and Jake Zeratsky.
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Make Time
Make Time is authored by two former Google employees, one of whom is now sailing down the California coast and the other of whom is now a full-time writer. That in it itself is a strong selling point for the book—I love anything that’s going to help me live the dream just a little bit more. But I must admit that, at first, this book lost me a little bit. There’s heavy emphasis in this book on not navigating down online rabbit holes like Twitter, not spending hours watching television, and not giving away hours to following your favorite sports team. Since my family doesn’t even own a TV, and I’m the last person who would ever lose time surfing Twitter or following a professional sports team, this section didn’t feel that noteworthy to me.
Luckily, I kept reading (or listening really…in a meta-streamline activity, I listened to this book while commuting) because I did get some really good suggestions from this book, described below.
Image from Make Time book.com
Pick a Highlight
The authors advocate selecting one (and only one) “highlight” for your day and prioritizing it above all else. This means eliminating or reducing obligations or distractions that pull you away from your highlight. Highlights can be personal, professional, family-focused…whatever. The important thing is to select the single most important thing for the day. They recommend writing your highlight down, which I confess I haven’t done, but the act of choosing the highlight has helped me make decisions like: should I go to that meeting, now that another obligation was wiped off my calendar (No, because I can use that time to work on my highlight instead); should I do some extra stuff before I pick my kids up from daycare (No, because then I’ll be too tired to really enjoy them). I think this action of choosing a single focus for the day is important in lives that are filled with competing demands. On the days that I’ve selected and stuck to a highlight, it has given me a sense of accomplishment at the end of a day. Where previously I would have focused on the many things I hadn’t done, now I mark myself only on the progress of my highlight.
Photo by Chase Clark on Unsplash
Go Into Laser Mode
Even being relatively low-tech, there were some technology-related suggestions I realized I could use. For example, I initially discarded the suggestion to turn off notifications on my cell phone, feeling it didn’t really apply to me. But listening to the book I realized that I do get a twinge of stress from announcements from different apps. Oftentimes these are things that I don't really care about, and hearing the phone buzz or beep pulls my attention away from something else. It is annoying at best and pretty stressful at worst. So, taking the authors’ advice, I turned off notifications on all but a few apps: text messages, calendar updates, and a messaging app that I used to communicate with family overseas. I also changed some of the settings on my home screen for my phone. I added a photo of my kids rather than the blank template to remind me of the “highlight” of my life, and I put the adjustable light settings back on, because I realized that, first thing in the morning, the bright light of my phone screen is really harsh. The Make Time authors actually suggest removing your phone from the bedroom entirely, which I think is great advice except that I'm on a pretty good track of meditating using the Headspace app first thing in the morning. I am the world's laziest meditator, and use this app while I am lying in bed trying to wake up. It starts my day off right but also helps me wake up, and I’m not ready to abandon this slow fade into the day.
Another laser mode strategy that I'm excited to try (today is test day!) is to wait to check email until the afternoon. I am better than most about not checking — or worse, leaving email open—throughout my work day. Not everyone has this luxury, but I mostly do. However, I do still tend to check my email first thing in the morning. Because I am beholden to both colleagues and students, as well as the occasional patient and adjunct instructor, I feel pressured to know if anybody “needs me” at the beginning of the day. However, driving home recently after a day spent tending to other people's needs, I realized that many of the things that I perceived as needs are probably not needs. There are many days where I could very easily avoid checking email until the late afternoon and therefore not be distracted away from my top priority project or projects for the day. A day of total focus on passion projects until after lunch sounds phenomenal, and I am very game to try this one.
I've also been implementing the authors’ strategies about using caffeine more wisely. Like many working parents, I spend most of my morning—which is also my time of greatest mental clarity—getting little ones ready and commuting into work. In the evening, after a long work day and another long commute, I'm typically tired; unfortunately, this seems to be the time that my children have the most energy. It's time that I'd like to be able to enjoy with them. So, based on the strategies offered in Make Time, I have changed my daily routine of coffee and tea drinking. The authors share studies that reveal that most people start the day with a bump in energy due to cortisol that is released in the body. We don't really need caffeine first thing in the morning, even if many of us have conditioned ourselves to expect it. Switching to decaf tea in the morning, I have found that it gives me the sense of warmth and comfort that I want, but I now save my first cup of coffee until about 9:30 when that early morning spike of energy begins to dip. This means that I don't have my first cup of coffee until I get to work, which makes me have something to look forward to on my commute while reducing my expensive mid-commute stops at Starbucks. I've also started adding a cup of coffee or some green tea at about 2:30 or 3 in the afternoon. So far, this has not interfered with my sleep, but it has given me a boost between 5 and 8 p.m. when my kids are full of energy and, formerly, I usually felt like I was about to fall down. This helps me get more quality out of the small amount of time that I have with them after work. As an added bonus, I have noticed that my sensitive stomach has a much better day when I drink tea first and then fill it with food before adding acidic coffee.
Photo by Mario Álvarez on Unsplash
Live Like Irk
One of the best tips I've picked up from Make Time comes from the section in which the authors talked about the benefits of living a little bit more like our cave-dwelling ancestors. Some of the advice is pretty common in popular parlance these days: eat less sugar, eat more whole foods, and spend a whole lot more time exercising than most of us do. On this latter note I got a huge boost out of trying the recommended 7 Minute Workout. The 7 Minute Workout is an evidence-based workout that takes, you guessed it, 7 minutes. You perform 12 different exercises, doing each exercise at your maximum intensity for 30 seconds each, and taking a 10-second break in between each exercise. This type of exercise, known as high intensity interval training, is good for you on multiple levels. Many of the exercises are strengthening exercises, but they also boost cardiovascular fitness and endurance. Because you start at your own intensity, it's equally useful for people at all levels of fitness. It doesn't sound like much, but I promise you, I was sweating at the end of it. Many days it's hard to fit in exercise, despite knowing all the benefits that it will bring and despite a true desire to do so, but anyone, anyone can fit 7 minutes into their day…well 15. It took me almost as much time to change into gym clothes and find a chair (needed for step-ups and triceps dips), as it did to do the actual workout!
make time for make time
All in all, Make Time is worth making time for. There are nearly a hundred suggestions to try and while some of them may be more applicable to a different type of reader, I consider that a strength rather than a flaw.
Do you have favorite books on time management? Share your favorite titles and tips in the Comments section.