By rethinking the relationship between time and money and altering small daily habits, we can make our time feel more abundant and our lives happier.
Overall, this article focuses on methods for managing time. However, to truly address the issue of time scarcity, it’s important to shift focus to strategies, rethinking and planning one’s life. Starting with clearly defining your life goals or values, you can then begin to reshape how you use your time.
Recognizing and Avoiding Personal Time Traps
The following tools will help you diagnose the severity of time scarcity in your life and identify the time traps you may be falling into.
Six Common Time Traps
- Constant Connectivity to Technology
Our phones, laptops, and other tech devices constantly interrupt us, fragmenting our work and leisure time, which adds pressure to our lives. - Addiction to Work and Money
We mistakenly believe that more money brings more happiness and time for relaxation in the future. However, the pursuit of wealth only fuels an ever-increasing desire for more. - Disregarding the Value of Time
We often fail to appreciate our time, opting to save small amounts of money at the cost of wasting large amounts of time. - Using Busyness as a Status Symbol
We tend to find meaning in our work and use our busyness as a way to define ourselves and prove our value. - Disliking Idleness
Even though evidence suggests the value of mindfulness, enjoying the present moment, and doing nothing, we still struggle to see the importance of disconnecting from electronic devices. - The “Good… Bad!” Effect
We are overly optimistic about future time, believing we will have more time tomorrow. This excessive optimism leads us to make commitments for future time that we regret when that time actually comes.
Reflect on the decisions you make about time and money, and identify the time traps you fall into.
In the following table, record the time traps that have the biggest impact on you and describe the specific decisions you make in each category.
Embracing a Simpler Lifestyle
Further reflection on your daily experiences can help you find ways to discover and “purchase” free time.
Three Ways to Accumulate Time Wealth
Carefully think about where you generally spend your time, and try the following three strategies to create more time: discovering time, purchasing time, and redefining time.
- Discover Time
This method involves eliminating the most negative and unproductive time-wasting activities from your life or turning these activities (like commuting) into more enjoyable ones (like listening to music), making them more positive and effective. - Purchase Time
This involves reallocating disposable income spent on physical items that don’t enhance your happiness toward areas that save you time. - Redefine Time
This approach means reinterpreting time-consuming activities like commuting or work in a more positive way, such as viewing commuting as “downtime.”
Tracking and Recording Time
In this task, you’ll use a “typical Tuesday” schedule to record the major activities you complete on an average workday. Then, mark these activities on your “typical Tuesday” matrix. By minimizing the time spent on high-pressure, ineffective activities, you can focus on discovering and purchasing time in areas that matter.
Try recording your time for one day with the following three categories:
- Activity
- Experience Type (pleasurable, meaningful, stressful)
- Reason
After recording your activities, reflect carefully. Which activities are enjoyable? Which are painful? Which are meaningful? Which are ineffective? Which bring you joy, and which bring meaning? For activities that cause you stress and dissatisfaction, consider if you can reduce the time spent on them. For unavoidable activities like work or exercise, think about how you can make them more enjoyable or reduce the stress they cause.
Once you understand which activities are both stressful and unproductive, and which ones are enjoyable but meaningless, you can replace them with strategies that enhance time wealth and happiness.
Discovering Time: Create a Time-Rich To-Do List
- Calculate the percentage of time you spend on activities that bring you joy and those that cause pain.
- Maximize the positive impacts.
- Minimize the negative impacts.
Regardless of the method you choose, you are transforming time-scarce activities into time-rich ones by discovering time.
To discover time, consider the following strategies:
- Turn Bad Time into Good Time
- Expand Joyful Time
- Make the Most of Work Time
- Use Leisure Time Correctly
- Find More Time for Meals
- Discover Time to Meet New People and Help Others
- Discover Time to Experience Awe
If you have five minutes, try:
- Summing up and completing small tasks.
- Sending a message to someone you care about but haven’t contacted in a while.
- Checking if you have any unused paid leave.
If you have ten minutes, try:
- Watching relaxing nature videos.
- Sending a thank-you email to a colleague, family member, or friend.
- Writing in a journal (journaling increases happiness).
If you have thirty minutes, try:
- Going for a walk in nature.
- Engaging in creative activities (like painting, writing, jewelry-making, or knitting).
- Reading a book (or reading on your phone during airport security).
- Meditating or completing an online mental resilience exercise (using meditation apps).
- Going for a short jog (15-30 minutes).
If you have an afternoon, try:
- Learning something new (learning increases happiness).
- Spending time helping others in your community.
- Planning for your next vacation (even planning positive activities enhances happiness).
Purchasing Time
Time can be purchased. To evaluate whether outsourcing tasks is worthwhile, ask yourself if your time is more valuable than outsourcing the least enjoyable, least efficient activities (such as housework, errands, or standing in lines).
You need to carefully consider which tasks you dislike that can be outsourced.
Reduce the habit of “shopping around for the best price”: The time spent searching for the cheapest option is often more valuable than the money saved.
It’s important to assess the value of time—remind yourself that time, not money, is the most important resource in life, and this mindset will benefit you significantly.
Redefining Time Tracking Sheet
At first glance, activities that you cannot escape (like work tasks) may seem like a time drain. However, these time slots might contain unexpected value. If you can redefine your perspective on these activities, even if you can’t avoid them, your view may change. Record activities you dislike but must do, and think about how to face them in a way that adds value to those time periods. For instance, as mentioned in this chapter, you could redefine physically demanding tasks at work as a form of daily exercise.
Time-Rich Habits
To maintain a time-rich mindset, you need to follow three steps:
- Convince yourself that time is just as important as money.
- When facing major decisions, always remember your values.
- Make strategic decisions to ensure that you have more time every day, week, month, and year.
Here are eight strategies to cultivate a time-rich lifestyle:
- Recognize Your Reasons
When you find yourself wasting small chunks of time, ask yourself why you’re doing it. Are you truly enjoying it, or are you procrastinating from other tasks? - Schedule Free Time
After reading this book, don’t over-schedule your free time. Studies show that over-scheduling leisure time can backfire, making relaxation feel like work. Be sure to leave space between leisure activities and meetings. - Understand Your Scheduling Mindset
People usually approach time from either a clock-based perspective (specific time of day, like “1:00-2:15 PM”) or an event-based perspective (a rough time range, like “around 3 PM”). Understanding your time type will help you plan in a way that maximizes time wealth and happiness. - Set Clear Intentions
To follow through on a new goal, use strategies that support persistence. Setting intentions means identifying people, conditions, locations, times, and methods that increase your time wealth, and recording these intentions. - Reward and Punish Yourself
Reward yourself for following through with intentions, and implement penalties when you fail to do so. Keep in mind that uncertain rewards are more motivating than static ones, and the fear of losing something often outweighs the desire for gain. - Set Default Modes
Set your tech devices to stop sending instant notifications or interruptions, so you can focus on time-rich activities. You can also make time-rich behaviors the default, such as limiting annual business trips. - Identify and Counteract the Urgency Effect
Recognize the difference between urgent and important tasks. Focus on what truly matters rather than getting distracted by purely urgent tasks. - Fully Enjoy Leisure Time
Focus on enjoying your leisure time, instead of worrying about whether the time spent is “worth it.”
Long-Term Time-Rich Habits
Studies show that the following strategies can help you live a time-rich life in the long run:
- Diversify Your Activities
If you always choose the same activities, the effect of time-rich choices will diminish over time. When planning time-rich activities, include variety in your daily and weekly life. - Learn to Say “No”
Set a default response to requests that cause time pressure. Practice saying “no” to requests that you don’t have time for, while agreeing to engage in conversations that don’t demand your time. - Request More Time
Many deadlines are not set in stone. If more time can improve your work quality, proactively request more time. If you need a break or feel overwhelmed, communicate with your boss. - Remind Yourself of Opportunity Costs
Whenever you say “yes” to one thing (a trip or an extra project), you’re saying “no” to something else (spending time with family, attending a child’s soccer game, or helping parents). Consider the opportunity cost before committing to something new. - Identify the Root Causes
When making major life decisions, ask yourself what you truly value and why time is so important to you. Place an object in a visible spot to remind you to reflect on whether the decision you’re about to make aligns with your overall life goals and values.
Major Life Milestones Plan
In the left column of the following table, list significant life events, especially those related to money (such as choosing a job, selecting a place to live, getting married, having children, buying a pet, or caring for family members). In the middle column, record the time cost of these events, detailing the impact these decisions will have on your time (for example, commuting and travel time for a job).
After considering the time costs, think about how to offset some of these costs—either by making different choices or by investing more energy into time-rich strategies like purchasing time, discovering time, or redefining time.
Time-Rich Checklist
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by time scarcity, try the following:
- Track your time: Figure out where your time is going.
- Think about what you love to do: Focus on activities that bring you joy, meaning, or productivity.
- Find small pockets of free time to do what you love: Prioritize experiences that bring pleasure, meaning, and productivity.
- Reflect on things you dislike or cause stress: Pay attention to activities that cause pain, stress, or are ineffective.
- Minimize time spent on these activities: Use strategies like purchasing time, discovering time, or redefining time.