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6. Six Ways to Take Control of Your Time

TIME IS SO SLIPPERY, isn’t it? The time spent in line at the bank goes so slowly you can practically feel yourself wrinkling up as you stand there. But the hour you spend on the phone with your best friend whizzes by. And remember the moment when they first put the baby in your arms? Time ceased to exist entirely.

I hear from. . . well, from almost everyone, really, that they have trouble managing their time, so here are a few critical little changes you can make today that will help you stop struggling with the idea that there’s never enough time and start enjoying the time you have.

Get Your Cell Phone out of the Bedroom

The first few moments on waking are an important time of day, especially for the creative, sensitive, and overworked person.

Your reticular activating system is the part of your brain that helps regulate your levels of consciousness and tells you when to wake up. (If you’ve ever wondered how one tiny sound, like the creak of a floorboard, can wake you out of a deep sleep, you can thank your reticular activating system. Isn’t the body amazing?) Science tells us that your waking-up time is one of your most creative moments in the day, because your brain has spent the night organizing your memories and thoughts, and your body is relaxed, so you are more likely to make unusual connections between ideas, discover new solutions to problems, and have especially entertaining thoughts first thing.

Nothing ruins the cozy mood of a morning like a cell phone. There is nothing on the internet that cannot wait for twenty minutes while you do some mindful breathing and think grateful thoughts.

There is a pure, animal pleasure in allowing yourself to gradually come to wakefulness, to stretch, to doze, to cuddle, and to greet the day with a big, delicious yawn. Even just thirty seconds of 4:7:8 breathing before you leap into action can benefit your whole day.

“But I use my phone for an alarm clock,” I hear you protest. Right. Cut that out. Go get an alarm clock. “But I have teenagers — what if they call in the middle of the night?” Okay, then put a little shelf or charging station near the door to your bedroom and leave your phone there. You don’t have to be out of touch if there’s an emergency. You just don’t want to begin each morning as though it is an emergency.

Don’t Check Email or Social Media as a Way of Easing into Your Workday

You’ve got your mug of coffee or tea, and you’re settling in at your desk. “Okay,” you think, “I’ll just check my email to make sure there’s nothing too pressing, and then I’ll get to the important stuff.” And the next thing you know, two hours have gone by, you haven’t gotten to any of the important stuff, and the rest of your day is crowded with meetings and calls.

Do the important stuff first.

The email can wait.

Honestly — how often have you received an email that couldn’t have waited two hours for a response? If your answer is “Well, it has happened,” then set your timer for two minutes, during which you may skim your email for anything that’s a genuine crisis. Assuming there isn’t one, go ahead and spend the next two hours on the important stuff.

Important stuff is the work that only you can do. It’s the work that yields long-term benefits. It includes any creative work, any educational or self-improvement work, strategic thinking about projects or business, planning, relationship building, developing new material, staying on top of accounting and administrative systems, and dreaming up new ways to spread the good word about your work.

The important stuff is the work that only you can do.

If you commit to spending the first two hours of your day on your important stuff, I guarantee that your overall productivity will go way, way up. I will also bet that once your team knows that you don’t respond to every little tiny request immediately, they’ll start figuring stuff out for themselves. Heck, they might even stop bothering you with the small stuff entirely.

Communicate Promptly, but Not Necessarily Immediately

I usually wait four to twenty-four hours to respond to emails, calls, texts, and private messages. I find that this gives me time to prioritize, to consider people’s requests, and to give them a solid answer, either yes or “No, but thank you so much for thinking of me.” It’s good to be a bit elusive, I think. Be reliable, but not infinitely available.

Consume News Consciously

I love our global connectedness. I love staying abreast of trends and learning about the world. I consider it part of my civic responsibility to stay up on current events.

For me, the best way to get the news is from a good, old-fashioned newspaper. Does that mean that I am usually learning about the world’s latest violent action the day after it happened? Absolutely. I prefer it that way. I have to be careful what images I allow into my brain, because I can never get them out. I’m not really interested in live coverage of the latest car chase, mass shooting, or political dustup. I find discretion really is the better part of valor, and being able to learn about the world’s events at my own speed — not as dictated by the ceaseless twenty-four-hour news cycle — helps make me a calmer, more peaceful person.

Be careful what images you allow into your brain, because you can never get them out.

The purpose of a news show is to keep you watching the news. The news — whether it’s on radio, TV, or online — is entertainment. It is written and produced in a way intended to keep you engaged and emotionally stimulated. This means that the people reading and commenting on the news are entertainers. No matter how highbrow (or lowbrow, for that matter) they may seem, they are acting out a story for you. That’s why they structure the news the way they do, and why they run those teasers. (In your best news-announcer voice, say this: “Scissors. They cut things. Will they cut you? Find out at eleven!” Or, “Stay tuned and find out which popular TV star just got a haircut that could change everything!” Now make up your own.)

I invite you to take a look at the amount of time you spend on this kind of entertainment (known in my house as info-ad-u-edu-tain-u-ment). Examine the voices you are allowing to influence your opinions, and consider whether the thoughts you have about current events are your own. When you let other people — particularly people in the entertainment industry — form your opinions for you, or tell you what’s important, you give away your power.

Seek Out New Media

We are fortunate to live in a time when artists are able to control the means of distributing their work. We don’t need to wait for a record label to discover the next great jazz musician and deliver a CD to our local store. The jazz musician can put her music out into the world all by herself, in her own way, and you can get it straight from the source. Better yet, you can engage in a conversation with her, and with her other fans, who, since they clearly share your excellent taste, will probably be people you’ll enjoy getting to know.

There are so many wonderful, quirky, interesting, and uplifting pieces of art, writings, music, podcasts, games, movies, puzzles, blogs, novels, poems, craft projects, meditations, videos, and lectures available right on your laptop that you need never be constricted by mass-market entertainment again — unless you want to, because there is some terrific mass-market stuff out there, too.

You no longer need to live in a big city to experience diversity. Culture is everywhere, and not just “high” culture. You can so easily find out about whatever interests you — whether it’s deep-sea fishing or Maori tattoos or carving radishes into roses. The human community is telling stories, and it is our privilege to listen.

Refuse to be bored.

Get out of your rut. Doing, watching, or listening to the same things every day makes time feel like it’s slipping right through your fingers. On the other hand, the hours you spend learning and enjoying great culture will enrich your days and enliven your nights. Give yourself some new memories.

Write Everything Down in Your Calendar

Schedule your morning walk. Schedule your visit with a dear friend. Schedule your summer vacation, your trip to see the family (because spending time with family, while enjoyable in its own way, is not a vacation and should not be treated as such). Schedule your reading time, your clearing off your desk time, and your flea-market browsing time. If you put it in your calendar, you increase the chances that you will actually do it a thousandfold.

I hear from people all the time, “I wish I had time to write a book.” You do. You are just spending that time on other things. So if you want to write a book, start putting it down as an unmissable appointment. Decide that there’s no such thing as writer’s block, sit down, and put words on paper. They don’t have to be good words. In fact, they probably won’t be. But you can’t make it better if you never start. And you can’t start if you never set aside the time.

You can’t make it better if you never start.

I still keep a datebook, because I have yet to find a better technology. I find paper and pen to be easy to use and reliable, with the added benefit that once I’ve written something down, I am much more likely to remember it. I can also leave myself important visual clues when I mark my calendar by hand.

For example, today’s entry has the word write in tall, stretched-out letters that take up the whole area in order to cue me that I shouldn’t even think about doing anything else today. Tomorrow is Friday, and I have a big X through the last part of the day. I don’t like to work on Friday afternoons, so I block out that time each week to play hooky. Yes. I actually schedule my goofing-off time. Because if I didn’t schedule it, I would be sitting at my desk, not really working but not really enjoying the free time, either. Being in that gray area is neither productive nor restful, and I suspect it’s why so many people feel burned out. They don’t experience the energy surge that comes with doing good work or the recharge of really walking away from work for a while.

I also maintain a Google calendar because my team needs access to my schedule, but I can’t say I refer to it very often. Either way — analog or digital — experiment until you find a system that you enjoy using so that you actually use it.

Caution: this calendaring activity might trigger your inner teenage rebel. “No way, man,” you think, “I need my freedom! I’m not going to be tied down. I just want to go wherever the day takes me.” I know the feeling. But examine, for a moment, the results that strategy has gotten you. If you’re getting everything done and enjoying plenty of free time and you’re not constantly stressed out that you might have forgotten something important, then congratulations, you can skip this suggestion. But chances are, you are not really enjoying your freedom. Chances are, you are feeling chaotic and always running a bit behind. Give this writing it down in the calendar thing a try. I think you’ll find that when you schedule your playtime, as well as your work time, you get to enjoy both.

Structure is freedom.

LITTLE CHANGES ACTION STEP: Pick a heretofore neglected activity that’s important to you and put it in your calendar. No backing out, even if it starts to seem impractical later on, okay?