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Below, Laura Vanderkam shares five key insights from her new book, Big Time: A Simple Path to Time Abundance<\/em>.<\/p>\n Laura is the author of several time management books and the host of the\u00a0Before Breakfast<\/em>\u00a0podcast. She is also the host of the\u00a0Best of Both Worlds<\/em>\u00a0podcast, and her work has appeared in The<\/em>\u00a0New York Times<\/em>,\u00a0The Wall Street Journal<\/em>,\u00a0Fast Company<\/em>, and\u00a0Fortune<\/em>.<\/p>\n What if you\u2019re not actually \u201ctoo busy,\u201d but just missing the secret to making your time work for you? By tracking your hours, embracing small steps, and saying yes to what excites you, you can turn everyday life into something far more intentional and a lot more fun.<\/p>\n Listen to the audio version of this Book Bite\u2014read by Laura herself\u2014in the Next Big Idea App<\/a>, or buy the book<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019ve tracked my time on weekly spreadsheets for the last 11 years. Yes, I know that makes me sound like a lot of fun! But I find that knowing where my time goes keeps me accountable and helps me cement memories. I\u2019m a big fan of time tracking, and whenever someone wants to spend their time better, I suggest they try tracking their time for a week.<\/p>\n For\u00a0Big Time<\/em>, I decided to look more systematically at time tracking. I had 279 people track their time for a week. I asked them various questions designed to measure time satisfaction before and after the week. I found that people\u2019s satisfaction rose significantly. Indeed, agreement with the statement \u201cGenerally I have enough time for the things I want to do\u201d rose 25% in a week.<\/p>\n Partly, this is because time tracking inspires better choices. People didn\u2019t want to document a three-hour YouTube binge in their logs, so they chose more fulfilling leisure-time activities and thus felt better about their time.<\/p>\n But the deeper reason is that seeing where the time really goes helps us rewrite our stories. Even if you work long hours, you don\u2019t work around the clock. If you have a bad night, that doesn\u2019t mean all seven nights of the week were terrible. You probably saw your family. You had some free time. It might not have been as much as you wanted, but it wasn\u2019t zero either. When you see that, you start to see that life is pretty reasonable. Maybe you want to change things, but we\u2019re talking tweaks, not a total lifestyle overhaul. Seeing where the time goes makes us happier with our time.<\/p>\n When people say, \u201cMy life is a circus,\u201d they mean it is chaotic. But I think this is a slander against circuses. A circus is incredibly well organized. No one gets shot out of a cannon at the wrong time. All the acts happen when they are supposed to happen. Tricks are executed with split-second precision. And many of those tricks happen over a net, so mistakes don\u2019t turn into disasters. I think we should aspire for life to be a circus!<\/p>\n True time management masters think of themselves as the ringmaster of their lives. Life is a three-ring circus, with the rings representing your career, your relationships, and yourself. A good ringmaster knows what is going on in all three. She has thought through what needs to happen and when, and she has a plan for when things go wrong.<\/p>\n \u201cAs we plan our lives, we should ask what we are truly looking forward to.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And, of course, a circus is managed for delight. No one wants to watch a show where people are just trudging through their acts. Likewise, as we plan our lives, we should ask what we are truly looking forward to. Maybe everyone gets where they need to go, but what sounds genuinely fun? If there\u2019s nothing in the plan, go back and work on it again until this circus is one you\u2019re proud to present to the world.<\/p>\n Many of us walk around with a story that we are starved for time. There\u2019s no way we have time to do something like read\u00a0War and Peace<\/em> . . . or do we?<\/p>\n It turns out that even big things are doable when you break them down into small enough steps and spread them over a big enough chunk of time. For instance, a few years ago, I decided to tackle\u00a0War and Peace<\/em>. It turns out that Tolstoy\u2019s epic is comprised of 361 extremely short chapters. I read one chapter a day for a year. Each day, I was reading for just a few minutes, so this project never felt overwhelming. But time kept passing, and my bookmark kept moving forward until, on December 27, I finished it.<\/p>\n So it goes for many things. If you want to listen to all the works of Bach, just listen for about 30 minutes a day, and you will get there in a year. If you want to read all the works of Shakespeare, pick up a 1,024-page anthology and read three pages a day for a year. Anywhere is walking distance if you\u2019ve got the time, and by breaking things down into small enough steps, you reduce resistance and make big things feel doable.<\/p>\n The upside of that is that when you do big things, it\u2019s hard to tell yourself a story that you have no time. After all, you have time to read War and Peace<\/em>! It doesn\u2019t matter if it only took a few minutes a day\u2014that sense of time abundance can carry over into everything else.<\/p>\n People often talk of the golden years, that time after working when retirees can enjoy family and leisure. We get a miniature version of this every weekday evening during what I call our \u201cgolden hours\u201d\u2014the time after work and before bed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe key is to set one small intention each day for something you want to do during your golden hours.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This is often the bulk of the leisure time people have during the week, but these hours are incredibly hard to use well. People are tired. We are out of energy and out of sorts. Still, I think it\u2019s possible to make choices that allow us to feel like these hours actually happened.<\/p>\n The key is to set one small intention each day for something you want to do during your golden hours. It should be something that isn\u2019t work, housework, or the physical care of family members. It should also be something you would genuinely look forward to doing.<\/p>\n I like to spend 30 minutes doing a puzzle or reading a book. Some people like to sit outside, go for a walk, make a special treat for dessert, call a friend, or do a hobby. It doesn\u2019t have to be much, but when I had people try this for a week, their sense of time satisfaction rose significantly.<\/p>\n Interestingly enough, when people started setting golden hour intentions, they also started getting more sleep! It turns out a lot of people stay up late to get “me” time. But if you build in 30 minutes of me time somewhere else during the evening, you won\u2019t need to stay up late, and this can make all of time feel better.<\/p>\n A key tenet in a lot of productivity literature is that we should all say no more often. I get it. We feel overscheduled. I don\u2019t want anyone spending time on things that are neither meaningful nor enjoyable for ourselves or the people we care about.<\/p>\n \u201cOne way to think about this is to use a rubric to decide whether to say yes or no to things.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n But almost all new opportunities, adventures, and relationships come out of saying yes. After all, if you knew about something great, you\u2019d already be doing it. New things come from talking to someone new, following up, putting in some effort, and seeing where things go.<\/p>\n One way to think about this is to use a rubric to decide whether to say yes or no to things. In general, we want to spend less time doing things that we need to talk ourselves\u00a0into<\/em>. If you\u2019re not initially excited, but it won\u2019t be too hard, and it might look good on your r\u00e9sum\u00e9 . . . that qualifies as a 5 or 6 on a 10-point scale of excitement, and that is how many of us fill our lives.<\/p>\n You want to sit up and pay attention when you start talking yourself\u00a0out<\/em>\u00a0of something. If you\u2019re initially excited but then start telling yourself that the logistics will be complicated, maybe it\u2019s outside your comfort zone, you\u2019d have to call in a favor . . . listen to that initial excitement. You can probably figure everything else out.<\/p>\n This article originally appeared<\/a> in <\/em>Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n Enjoy our full library of Book Bites\u2014read by the authors!\u2014in the Next Big Idea app<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\nWhat\u2019s the big idea?<\/h2>\n
1. Tracking your time makes you happier with your time.<\/h2>\n
2. Life should be a circus.<\/h2>\n
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3. Big things are doable in small steps.<\/h2>\n
4. Time satisfaction comes from embracing your golden hours.<\/h2>\n
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5. Opportunities come from saying yes.<\/h2>\n
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