These 8 Things Are Wasting Your Valuable Time Everyday How to Read a Book a Week Executive Summary Reading gives us access to great ideas, allows us peek into the minds of the smartest people, and gives us fuel to be valuable contributors in conversations. But who really has time to read every book that would help us as business leaders? Everyone, according to the author, because the key to reading is not taking in every word, but understanding the concepts that the author presents. It was the late 1980s and I was sitting in a university lecture hall listening to Abbie Hoffman, an author and an activist, ranting about my generation’s indifference. “It’s such a unique opportunity to be here,” I said to her, “to be part of these conversations with smart, thoughtful people.” “Oh, don’t be silly,” she responded. Ironically, as a history major, I was reading three to four books a week. Flash forward too many years, and I am now back in that conversation. I am richer for all this reading. But reading is time-consuming. So how can we read a book or more a week?
A Formula to Stop You from Overcommitting Your Time When I dive into time coaching clients’ schedules, I consistently discover that people misdiagnose themselves as having a “productivity” problem when, in fact, their bigger issue is an overcommitment problem. When they have committed to more external projects and personal goals and obligations than they have hours for in the day, they feel the massive weight of time debt. One of my coaching clients suffered from a huge amount of false guilt until he realized he had the unrealistic expectation that he could fit 160 hours of tasks into a 40-hour workweek. Effective time investment begins with accepting the reality that time is a finite resource. The single most important factor in feeling like a time investment success or failure is whether or not your expectations of what you will accomplish align with how much time you have to invest. Time investment success (External expectations) + (Internal expectations) ≤ 24 hours — (Self-care) Time debt stress Here’s an example of this breakdown:
What makes for a dream job? Here's what the evidence says. 80,000 Hours is a non-profit that gives you the information you need to find a fulfilling, high-impact career. Our advice is all free, tailored for talented graduates, and based on five years of research alongside academics at Oxford. Start with our career guide. We all want to find a dream job that’s enjoyable and meaningful, but what does that actually mean? Some people imagine that the answer involves discovering their passion through a flash of insight, while others think that the key elements of their dream job are that it be easy and highly paid. We’ve reviewed two decades of research into the causes of a satisfying life and career, drawing on over 60 studies, and we didn’t find much evidence for these views. Instead, we found six key ingredients of a dream job. In fact, following your passion can lead you astray. Rather, you can develop passion by doing work that you find enjoyable and meaningful. Watch this video or read the full article (15 minutes). The bottom line 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
If You Don't Have Time, It's Because You're Afraid Source: PicJumbo. One of the most common excuses for not improving a habit is arguing, “I don’t have time”. This is a lie. You do have time. But you say you don’t because you’re afraid. Afraid to ship your art, say, “This might not work”, press publish, strength-train, make time for yourself, etc. If you weren’t, you would find time. Saying “I don’t have time” translates to, “I’m busy” and, “I have a lot on at the moment”. But are you working hard on the right things? If not, it’s because you haven’t asked yourself The Focusing Question, found your ONE Habit and distinguished the vital few from the trivial many. Finding time isn’t that dissimilar to overcoming your fear: you make what your putting off a priority, you make it a must. Here are a few examples of how you can do that. How to Prioritise Track Your Time: You do have time. Checking Facebook. Use time tracking software like Toggl or Timely and learn how you really spend your time. Start by saying no to ONE activity or effort.
Mini-Retirement Week 1: Time Management | theOrangeMango The past 4 years have been a blur operating, expanding and managing The Hostel Crowd. I can speak for the entire team when I say that 24 hours in a day was never enough. We just bounced from one crisis to another. Somewhere along the way, a method to deal with the madness began to emerge. So what is success? The Evolution of Time-Management The First Generation of time-management consists of simple to-do lists which all of us are more than familiar with. The Second Generation of time-management solved this problem with the Calendar through scheduling. And that’s when the Third Generation of time-management brought prioritization to the table. The point of this article is to look at busier and smarter people than myself for answers to the fundamental problem of the information age – How to Effectively Get Shit Done? Unconscious incompetence → Conscious incompetence → Conscious competence → Unconscious competence The New Time-Management Paradigm Quadrant 2 – Steven Covey The Tools No Join Me
How a Themed Schedule Can Help You Stay on Task I’m a writer, a productivity coach and a speaker. Since I work from home, I have work-related activities that may carry over into my home life if I’m not careful. I’m also a stay-at-home parent who has responsibilities during the week that can bleed over into my work life … if I’m not careful. So what keeps me on the right tasks at the right times more often than not? It wasn’t something that happened overnight. It took discipline — discipline that was forged over a period of time in large part because of a framework I put in place that fostered it and allowed it to flourish. The framework I built revolves around assigning themes to periods of time. A theme is defined as “a unifying or dominant idea.” Here are my themes, listed by day: Monday The focus on Monday is on the creative aspects of my business, Productivityist. Tuesday Every Tuesday is a Daddy Duty Day. Wednesday Like Tuesday, Wednesday is also a Daddy Duty Day. Thursday Friday Friday is generally Meeting Day. Saturday Sunday
The Myth of Quality Time Photo EVERY summer for many years now, my family has kept to our ritual. All 20 of us — my siblings, my dad, our better halves, my nieces and nephews — find a beach house big enough to fit the whole unruly clan. We journey to it from our different states and time zones. That’s right: a solid week. The answer to the second question is yes, but to the first, an emphatic no. I used to think that shorter would be better, and in the past, I arrived for these beach vacations a day late or fled two days early, telling myself that I had to when in truth I also wanted to — because I crave my space and my quiet, and because I weary of marinating in sunscreen and discovering sand in strange places. With a more expansive stretch, there’s a better chance that I’ll be around at the precise, random moment when one of my nephews drops his guard and solicits my advice about something private. There’s simply no real substitute for physical presence. We can try. But people tend not to operate on cue.
Measure Your Time “You can’t change what you don’t measure.” I’ve read this quote, or something very similar to it, in all kinds of contexts—running, professional, budgeting, eating, etc. This post will look at the statement in the context of time management. In What Would You Do If You Had More Time, I wrote “The first step in optimizing your time is to find out where all your time goes… Keep a time log for at least a week… Success in any endeavor always begins with assessment of where you are right now… Discover your time leaks, your time stealers, to get rid of them.” You can download a printable or a digital (Excel) time log from Laura Vanderkam’s website (author of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think). Since I am on the computer most of the day anyway, the Excel version was best for me. When I started tracking my time, I was looking for ways to streamline my morning routine. You’ll note that in the category “Personal Care” I include making my bed. And so the process goes. Like this: