You Do Have Enough Time

Do more of what’s important and less of what isn’t.

I’m a busy person. Mostly by choice, and mostly because I’m a better human when engaged in activities. I get restless and bored easily, and I have the tendency to go to the extremes of laziness (and self-destruction) when I’m idle, so I juggle a lot of things, and I like it that way. I’m a boxer, a musician in three bands, and I run a design studio. I also own a runt of German Shepherd who needs love and attention, and I have a handful of friendships that have similar requirements. All of these areas of my life are important to me, and each one of them takes a considerable amount of time and attention to keep everything running smoothly.

So here, I have some things to say about time, our relationship with it, and how I manage my life. I’ll keep it brief, and maybe I’ll follow up with some more stories or go into greater detail in some of these areas at a future date.

Do more of what’s important, and less of what isn’t.

I’ll start with something I vehemently dislike: when people say “there aren’t enough hours in the day”. Mostly because it’s bullshit, but also because I’m weary of this new thing we all seem to do lately, which is to compete for who has a busier life, when the truth is that being busy doesn’t make you powerful or more important, and harder work doesn’t mean better work. If you can’t find the time to get everything done in a day, a shakeup is probably overdue.

And if you’ve come to that conclusion, here’s a small list of things I’ve done to try and get all of my ducks in a row. It might help you with your ducks too.

If you don’t have time, I understand.

Sacrifice

This is easy. Do more of what’s important, and less of what isn’t. Take a look at your life and cut out the bullshit. Be honest with yourself. You do stuff every day you shouldn’t be doing, so stop doing it, and you’ll have time for things that are higher priority. It’s that simple.

And instead of going nuts, you can start out small: watch one less episode of Community a day instead of cutting out TV altogether. Set a limit to how long you’ll spend on social media instead of deleting your accounts. Being overzealous is probably bad for you anyway: when we go to extremes, we’re much more likely to relapse back into our old habits instead of making gradual, sustainable changes.

Distill

Distillation is like Sacrifice, but on a more granular scale. It’s about taking what you’re already doing and fine-tuning it to make it more useful or meaningful.

The easiest way for me to explain this is to use an example:

I know each day I need to read and write emails, and each day I need to design stuff. Both are essential to my making a living, and neither can be sacrificed. Figuring out when to do these tasks has been hugely beneficial to helping me make the most of my day. I recognize that I’m a night owl, so I’ve adjusted my schedule to fit my natural clock. I do things that don’t take as much focus or energy in the morning and do my creative and active work in the afternoon, with a break for fun stuff around dinner time, resuming work into the evening. I can’t tell you how much more productive this small change has made me. Also, sticking to a regimen uses less of your will power and helps with decision making for more important things.

Be the Boss

On a similar note, don’t let other people control your day. Obviously, you have responsibilities and commitments to other humans and organizations, but you have more control over your tasks then you’re probably exercising. When someone requests something from you, it’s up to you to decide where it fits into your scale of priorities. And it’s fine if it is the most important thing you need to be doing right now. But be intentional about it instead of just automatically reacting to every email that lands in your inbox.

Here’s another example:

Remember how I usually do admin tasks in the morning while I’m still waking up? This applies to external requests too. If I get an email later in the day asking for an invoice or requesting me to look over some numbers, it waits until the next day, unless it’s an emergency (99.9% of emails are not emergencies). Sometimes, I shut my email off for the entire afternoon if I really need to focus. There’s a great post from Jessica Hische about how she treats digital correspondence. Reading it was incredibly helpful when I was first starting my studio, as are most of her thoughts about productivity.

Abandon Guilt

I can’t tell you to do this without being a bit of a hypocrite. Feeling guilty is the single biggest thing I struggle with when it comes to managing my time and deciding where to spend my energy. When I’m not doing something useful like work, something creative like playing music, or something peaceful like walking my dog, I feel sinful. And I know this way of thinking is unhealthy — we all need to re-energize.

We all need downtime. Sometimes spending the evening playing video games or fucking off work for the afternoon to play ball with friends is the right thing to do, even when it feels wrong.

So take breaks.

Take as many as you need. And if you honest-to-goodness don’t have time for a break but you’re getting antsy or overwhelmed in the middle of whatever you’re doing, the next best thing is to switch tasks. Sometimes, I get so restless I’ll bounce from thing to thing all day, sitting at each for an hour at a time. It seems counter productive (it probably is), but if they’re all things that need to be done eventually, I’d rather float around than get overwhelmed with one of them and go crazy.

Take Control

This last tip ties everything I’ve already mentioned into a neat little package: Your time is yours to spend. It’s about choice. If you treat it that way instead of being a slave to it, or to other people’s expectations, you’ll find a lot more of it to work and play with each day.

I came across this passage from Gary Gruber that illustrates the point:

“Time is a construct, an invention for our convenience. There is always enough time because each of us has the same amount available to us whether 24 hours every day or the days in a week or weeks in a year and so on. As I get ready to begin my 80th year, I have come to understand and appreciate that time is a gift and my choices about how I use time are what make the difference between feeling like I have enough for those things that are important and dismissing those things that aren’t. That’s about values and priorities and choosing to live well regardless of resources. That was true in my 50 year career and even more so now. I am blessed with enough time and grateful for every moment. Make the most of it in your own way. Take your choice, pay your price.”

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Also, I recently picked up Daily Rituals by Mason Currey which is informative, inspiring and entertaining. You might like it too.

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As a freelancer, small-business-owner, and entrepreneur, I’ve become a little obsessed with where I spend my energy. I hope some of these insights help you take control of your day to make more time for what’s important to you.

Talk soon,

Adam

Shoot me an email or get in touch on Twitter (@adam_analog) if you have any questions, want to chat, or have your own stories you’d like to share.