How to Gain Control of Your Free Time to Do What Matters To you

It is time to build the life you want with the time you have got

Photo by Fabrizio Verrecchia on Unsplash

“We don’t build the lives we want by saving time. We build the lives we want, and time saves itself” — Laura Vanderkam

Four months back, I remember staring at the growing pile of my to-do lists. Cleaning up the house, buy groceries, finish the development object for work, call parents and grandparents, finish writing an article…the list never ended.

The only direction in which my thoughts went was, “There is so much to do, and no time!”. I was tired, blank (in the head) and just wanted to sleep. So I did. For 12 hours straight. That is when I decided that things needed to change. Deadlines were approaching (personal and professional) for which I had to complete tasks.

Like so many people out there, I started prioritising the to-do lists, trying to tick off as many as possible. But being an avid procrastinator, it did not work out much.

It was about the same time when I saw Laura Vanderkam’s Ted Talk “How to gain control of your free time.” She explained some tips and tricks in her talk, which I thought I could implement. When implementing it, my mindset was, “Why not? I will lose nothing, right?”.

And thus my journey with time management started. I have learnt so much from the entire process. I also found some other tips along the way during my experiment, which I plan to share in this article.

1. Know what you are spending your time on

Before starting the whole exercise, I wanted to know where my time went. How can I manage my time if I had no idea what I already did with the time I had?

Have you faced situations where the entire day passes by, and you have no clue how the day went? Or what you did during the day? This used to happen to me all the time!

By the end of the day, I could hardly count with one hand the things I had completed and was unhappy because of the unproductiveness. The same cycle used to repeat for weeks. Get up in the morning, do X Y Z tasks, have no idea where the rest of the day went, and crib about the day not being productive by the end of the day.

There were some rays of sunshine in between, no doubt, but mostly this was the cycle getting repeated. And that is when I decided to track my time. Throughout the day, for a week. I wrote everything I did, what I spent time on, how much time I spent on each task, everything (other than the phone usage, since the device automatically informs you about how much time you spent on it).

Sound so simple, right? But it taught me a lot of things, and 3 of the below points were the most important:

1. I used to spend 6 hours a day on my phone! 6 hours! Mostly on Facebook videos. I felt so ashamed of this revelation. No wonder I did not realise where the time went.
2. My sleeping habits were a mess, which was leading to me being tired all the time.
3. I could not concentrate on anything for more than half an hour.

I always knew about the points mentioned above in the back of my head. But writing about it on paper made me realise the extent of the situation, thus made all the difference in the world.

So now you know where you are spending your time on. And hopefully will become more conscious about it. But what next?

2. Long-term goals — What do you want your 3 accomplishments to be next year? Who are you?

Laura asks you to write your professional and personal accomplishments for the next year, now. Imagine it is December 2021 now. Looking back, what were your accomplishments for the year? What were the 3 to 5 things you did to make the year amazing? Write a letter to yourself (do not share it with anyone) as if you are writing your 2021 year-end review.

Unfortunately, a lot of us write a humongous list of “New Year Resolutions”. There is a larger probability of you leaving it in between because the list might terrify you over a period. Set 3 to 5 goals instead for each aspect of your life.

How did I use this lesson learnt for myself?

I used a mix of Laura’s advice and Atomic Habits author James Clear’s advice for this step.

In his book Atomic Habits, James explains the relationship between habits and identity. He gives an example of his friend who lost 100 pounds. Instead of thinking of herself as an unhealthy woman who wishes to lose weight, he talks about how she kept telling herself that she was healthy. And how she let it define her life.

She would ask this question in every moment of her day, “What would a healthy person do in this situation?”. Let it be eating healthy, climbing up the stairs instead of taking the lift, she made every decision thinking of herself as a healthy person.

This thought process boggled my mind and was the fundamental reason for a change in my mindset. It also made me question, “What do I want to be? Or rather who do I want my future self to be”. This was an arduous task. When asked, many people tell vague things like, I want to be free, or I want to be financially independent, or worse, I want to be happy. But what do these things mean? I wanted to be extremely specific.

Again, make sure to not write over 3 to 4 points (in each aspect — personal, professional). One of the points in my “Wishlist” looked something like this — I am a writer. I have published an X number of posts by the end of the year and pitched to a Y number of magazines. I am proud of it.

Thus in this task, you are telling yourself continuously what you are (identity) and where you will be by the end of the year (which will be your accomplishment and make you proud)

3. Think through your weeks before you are in them

Okay, now you have written down all your priorities and your goals. What next? Divide the effort required for each of those goals into months and weeks. For e.g. If you want to publish 160 articles for the year, you can divide the task to publish 3 articles a week.

So now your goal for next week is to publish 3 articles among other priorities. Laura suggests scheduling time for all your priorities in your calendar a week before. Preferably Friday afternoons because no one has the mood to be productive during that time.

Make a 3 category priority list — career, relationships, self. She explains how we usually focus on only one of them in a timeframe and do not give the other 2 it’s required importance. Dividing your priorities between all 3 reminds you that there should be something in all 3 categories. 2 to 3 items in each.

She explains how there are 24*7 = 168 hours in a week. That is a lot of time.

Even if you work 50 hours a week (most of us do 40 hours), and sleep for 9*7 = 63 hours, you will still have 55 hours a week. I am keeping an upper limit here (on an average). This is the time where you can decide and fit in all your priorities.

Check out the whole of your time and see where you can fit your priorities and make adjustments. If you cannot attend a family dinner because of work, have a family breakfast instead. If you want to read X number of books/ Y number of pages in a week, try to read in short bursts throughout the day when you are taking a break from work, instead of allocating a specific time to do it. It is all about how much you can adjust your priorities in the given timeframe.

Image by author: My division of tasks into 3 categories

How did I use this lesson learnt for myself?

The first mistake I made was putting too many things on my “priority list” and being extremely rigid with my schedule. I hardly ticked off anything on my first week of the experiment. Be careful not to do that. The problem for me was, I used to procrastinate a lot, and once I missed the schedule even by a few minutes, I lost the motivation to do the task.

I am an “inspired” worker. I do all my work in huge chunks. For example, there will be days where I write 5000 words and I would write nothing for the next 2 days. And I am like that with everything. So if you are anything like me, have a lot of flexibility in your schedule.

Some tips for adding flexibility to your calendar

1. If you are a person who cannot concentrate on one task for an extended period, you can schedule multiple tasks for a longer duration. For example, 3 tasks take 1 hour each. Instead of scheduling 1 hour for each task separately, you could schedule 3 hours in bulk for those 3 tasks. That way you can always shuttle between tasks. What works out for me is having 1 or 2 important tasks and 1 task that does not require my focus. I found out that my brain works better that way. This option will also allow you to chose what task you want to do based on your mood.
2. Instead of having daily goals. Have a weekly goal or a goal for 3 days. For e.g. instead of saying you have to complete 1 article a day, you can complete 3 articles by 3 days. Thus, even if you want to complete all 3 on the same day, it would be okay.

Photo by author: A screenshot of my calendar for this week

These are just some tips that worked for me. If a daily rigid schedule works for you, go for it. Do whatever is comfortable for you.

Another important point to note is to set realistic expectations. If you have never written before, setting a goal to write 2000 words a day is not a realistic goal. You could probably do it for a day or two, but you will fail in the long term. Start small. It is okay to even make a little progress. Something is better than nothing. This year I have decided to increase my per day writing count by 100 words per week. I hope it works for me. Again, you know what is best for you. Decide appropriately.

4. Short-term goals — Treat your priorities as a broken water heater

What would you do if, one day when you come back from home, you realise your water heater has broken down, filling your basement with water? You would have to set some time aside from your busy schedule and fix it as soon as possible, right? Come what may, you would have to prioritize this task irrespective of how “busy” you are.

This the example that Laura gives and asks you to treat every priority of yours as a broken water heater. She also explains that if you say “I don’t have time for x, y, or z”, what it basically means is, “This is not on top of my priority list”. As simple as that.

So how did I use this lesson learnt for myself?

For every to-do task on my list, I wrote about what would happen if I didn't do it.

This was the easiest tasks of all. And it also made me realise a lot of things in life and gave me answers to a lot of questions. What do I take for granted? What do I definitely need in life? Am I selfish? What is important to me? Who is important to me?

Image by author: An example of writing down what happens when you do not complete your To-Do tasks.

It was an emotionally difficult, disturbing and an eye-opening experience for me. I realised I have been taking my relationships with friends and family for granted all this while. I was always of the thought that, “They are not going anywhere. I can talk to them tomorrow too. What is the difference?”

Doing this helped me reset my priorities in life and also acted as an intense “year end review.”

When I wrote what would happen if I did not do those tasks, the initial priority list I had in my head completely changed. We usually take professional assignments seriously in the fear of escalation from our seniors. It is the personal tasks that take the backseat. This task made me realise the importance of personal tasks and maintenance of relationships. Especially during these tough times.

I am not “there” yet, but I am sure I am somewhere in between

It’s been four months since I have started implementing the above-mentioned practices. And they have been four difficult and great months. As a specialist in procrastination, it was so difficult for me to get myself on track and I am positive I am not “there” yet. But I am sure that, I am far better than what I used to be. Below are some lessons/points to note from the whole exercise (this is only my personal experience):

1. I can focus on things for a long time since I have almost cut down my phone addiction — this is a topic for another article:)
2. I feel great and get a sense of achievement at the end of each day since I have completed the specific set of tasks which I had laid out for the day. There are some unproductive days of course, but no one is perfect, and that is okay. I have learnt to not put too much pressure on myself.
3. I have completed reading a lot more books, and have got back to my long lost love for books.
4. My relationships with friends and family are far better than before. And I can talk to them without the guilt of not being in contact with them.
5. Because I got so much free time in my hands (after calculating my “time expenses”), I am looking forward to trying out new things. It might be planning my next travel, looking out for new restaurants nearby, looking out for new genres in books etc.
6. I don’t have many excuses to not perform a said task anymore. Since I know how much time I have and know how much I am wasting, my guilt usually propels me to complete the tasks, only to feel the sense of satisfaction at the end of the day.

Final thoughts

Time management is difficult. It takes time to see the results (see the irony there?). But it is okay. Do not lose hope. With continuous implementation over a long period, the returns are tremendous. Start small. It is okay to increase in increments. But make sure you do what you have assigned to yourself.

Do not beat yourself up for not being perfect. No one is. The 80–20 rule helps me in these situations. In short, these are the steps you can implement to use your time efficiently.

1. Know where you spend your time first. Write about what you do every day for a week. This will give you an idea of when you waste time when is your most productive time of the day, where do you spend your time the most on, etc.
2. Write a letter from your future self (December 2021) to your present self. What were your accomplishments? What are you proud of this year and what did you achieve? Remember to keep it simple and realistic.
3. Make a schedule for the upcoming week. Every Friday (or whatever suits you). Make it flexible enough to suit your needs and again remember to keep the goals realistic.
4. Treat your goals with the utmost priority every day. If you still cannot do it, write what would happen if you don’t do it. This is a tedious task to do every day, but over time, it helps.

I hope you get the time to follow your dreams and do what you want this year!