No time? Chances are, your to-do list is far too long. Many of us wildly overestimate how much we ... [+]
If you’ve ever struggled with the overwhelming feeling that there just isn’t enough time in the day to do everything that needs to get done, you’re not alone.
‘Time poverty’ is endemic: a 2015 poll by Gallup found that 61% of working Americans reported not having enough time to do what they wanted.
“If only I just had a few more hours in the day…” you might find yourself daydreaming wistfully. But would this actually help solve the problem?
This is something that Cassie Mogilner Holmes, a psychologist and professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management–and a busy working mother who constantly felt time-poor–set out to investigate. And while her project focused on leisure time, it has interesting implications for our working lives, too.
Holmes’ study, which looked at the relationship between leisure time and happiness, found that people with less than two hours a day of free time had decreased levels of happiness, just as might be expected.
However, it also found something seemingly counterintuitive: those with more than five hours of free time per day also had decreased levels of happiness.
This suggests, then, that the key to becoming “time affluent”–which Holmes defines as “feeling confident that you are able to accomplish everything you want to do”–isn’t having an abundance of time.
While having some time (i.e. more than two hours) is essential, the positive correlation between time and satisfaction only goes so far.
You might recall that, in 2018, researchers investigating the exact amount of money it takes to make people happy landed on a similar result. They determined that an income of $95,000 was optimal when it came to life satisfaction and that further increases in income beyond this threshold tended to be associated with reduced life satisfaction and well-being.
We all know that having too much or too little of something doesn’t do us any good – it’s a tale as old as time. Consider the maxim “everything in moderation”, or the children’s fairy tale of Goldilocks and The Three Bears and the significance of something being ‘just the right amount’. The Goldilocks principle is applied in science, engineering and psychology.
Being time affluent, then, is less about having an excess of time, and actually about how you use the limited time that you do have.
This is great news: we can’t magic more hours of the day, but we can all make changes in how we manage our time. The first step anyone intent on achieving time affluence should take is thinking about what it is you want to accomplish in a particular day.
Chances are, your to-do list is far too long. Many of us wildly overestimate how much we can get done. Advocates of the 1-3-5 rule argue that we can only reasonably deal with one big task, three medium-sized tasks and five small tasks per day.
Deciding which tasks to tackle, and in which order, requires effective prioritization. Ask yourself, which is the most urgent and important item on my list? (This is the one you should do first). Which is the least? (Strike this one off altogether).
For tasks that fall somewhere in the middle of this scale, consider automating them if you can, or delegating them to someone else, if that’s an option.
Once you’ve figured out exactly which tasks you are going to handle, make sure you allocate sufficient time to getting them done.
Time blocking is a great way to do this: take your calendar and mark out an hour or two-hour period for each job, making sure to include regular breaks too. Creating a visual representation of the day ahead helps make it feel far more manageable.
Then it’s time to sit down and get on with each job. Banishing distractions as much as you can will make this easier–whether it’s leaving your phone on the other side of the room to stop you from scrolling through social media–or saying no to interruptions from colleagues or employees.
Try practising ‘monotasking’–the opposite of multitasking–by focusing your attention and energy wholly and solely on the job at hand.
These approaches work because they all treat time for what it really is: a limited resource. Once you lean into that fact and learn to work with the time you have, it becomes a lot easier to take control.
We may think we crave the freedom of unlimited time. But actually, most of us function a lot better when we have defined boundaries, structures and deadlines.
Why? Because the sense of urgency and accountability they foster helps keep us motivated and drives us to be more productive.
So, next time you find yourself fantasising about what you could do with more hours in the day, take a closer look at how you already spend the hours you have. Learn how to use them better, and you’ll find you have all the time you need.
