This is like that concept of retreating to the convenience of being overwhelmed turned on its head. Instead of giving in to the feeling of overwhelm, we’d be giving in to an endless spin cycle of reading productivity books and trying to get a handle on time when, of course, on a profound level, time is something outside our control.
But, on the other hand, if we’re going to do the things “we’re really here on earth to do,” then, one way or another, we’re going to have to make time to do them. Because we all know that if we don’t make time for them, they’re not getting done.
So this is where perspective comes in. We’re going to need to balance the micro perspective—our desire to start using various practical tools to get our acts together—with the big picture perspective: a larger sweeping discovery and acceptance of the natures of time and work and, yes, joy.
That’s why this book is short. So you can learn what you need to learn here, and then get out there and live.
MAKING TIME TO BE OPEN, TO PLAY, TO DO NOTHING
“This is a wasting-time day, and I allot four hours of just doing nothing, so that the next day I can really focus.”
—ISSA RAE
We can’t always be only making time to be productive and get stuff done. Yes, yes, the stuff needs to get done. The little things and also the big, lifelong-dream things.
But we’re also going to be carving out time to take walks. Time to get down on the floor and play with a child. Time to sit still and watch the world go by. Time just to be and not do much at all and see what happens.
If that kind of free-floating leisure sounds impossible and out of reach to you, well, that’s why you’re reading this book.
But if it sounds frivolous and wasteful and selfish to you, you’ve got another think coming.
We’re going to talk a lot in this book about goals and tasks and accomplishments, yes. But at a certain point all of that only gets you so far. We don’t want to turn you into some sort of task-accomplishing robot.
We want to bring more ease and joy into your life. More creativity. More love. More delight.
That’s what happens when time is your friend and you stop being so insanely rushed all the time. You unfurl your wings and feel the sun on your back.
Not all the time. Maybe just now and then. It’s really remarkable what a few small pockets of deliberate openness and leisure (which is different than just lying there at the end of the night scrolling on your phone or whatever) can do for your mind-set and even, for that matter, for your productivity the rest of the time.
READY? BEGIN!
“Let’s go!”
—LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA
The modern-day challenge of no one having enough time to do the things they want to do is very real. No one is making this stuff up.
But the possibility of using our smarts and tenacity to slide right through it and out the other side is also entirely real.
We’re going to ground ourselves in our power and our values; we’re going to reframe our mind-sets; we’re going to deploy a giant toolbox full of practical tools; and we’re going to get time on our side.
Let’s go.
THE THREE BIG CHANGES OF MIND-SET
CHANGE YOUR OWN MIND
“There is no list of rules. There is one rule. The rule is: There are no rules. Happiness comes from living as you need to, as you want to. As your inner voice tells you to. Happiness comes from being who you actually are instead of who you think you are supposed to be.”
—SHONDA RHIMES
As long as you’re walking around convinced you have to do all this stuff you think is expected of you, that your to-do list is the boss of you, that you don’t have enough time and that can never change—well, frankly, you’re screwed. It’s never going to change. But that’s not the end of the story.
THE WAY OUT
“I don’t focus on what I’m up against. I focus on my goals and I try to ignore the rest.”
—VENUS WILLIAMS
There are two main ways you recalibrate your relationship with time.
What you probably think of as “productivity” or “time management”—practical tools, tips and tricks, work-arounds and life hacks—is the second way.
That stuff comes second because you can’t get the most out of those sorts of strategies until you’ve done the first piece of work. Namely, adjusting your mind-set.
We have the ability to change things by changing the way we look at them.
Now, let’s get crystal clear right away: This is most decidedly not some Horatio Alger bootstrapping, power- of-positive-thinking, law-of-attraction kind of nonsense we’re talking about here. This is not some woo-woo self-help thing where you start vibrating at the frequency of money and suddenly find yourself rolling around in greenbacks like Scrooge McDuck; and if you’re not rolling in dough (or, in our case, time), it’s basically all your own fault for thinking the wrong thoughts.
Oh, hell no.
Like we said: The time problem is entirely real. It’s societal. It. Is. Not. Your. Fault.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some basic changes you can make to how you think about it that will help you to find your way out of it. Will it ever be perfect? Nope. Will you still feel overwhelmed sometimes? Sure. You are a 21st-century human being, after all.
It’s OK to feel overwhelmed sometimes. What’s not OK is letting your brain trick you into feeling totally powerless when you in fact do have power. Believing there is nothing you can do when in fact there are things you can do.
We can tune up our ideas, spring clean the insides of our heads, tweak the settings on our minds. We can view the problem, and its possible solutions, differently. We can do this by thinking new thoughts about three things:
Prioritization
Procrastination
Pockets
PRIORITIZATION
“Whenever you hear or say, ‘I don’t have time’—it’s a lie. Often a well-intentioned one, but whatever. We all have 24 hours in a day. Period. The accurate statement is, ‘It’s not a priority.’”
—ERIC BARKER
Barker’s words are a wake-up call. The things you think you don’t have time to do are the things you have deprioritized. Getting completely lucid about what your top priorities are will radically alter how you experience time.
A few priorities are preset for you. You have to do your work (be that paid work or unpaid work such as care-giving). You have to raise your kids if you have kids. You have to eat and sleep.
But you control how you do those things. You control whether you check work email at home. You control whether you bake for the bake sale. You control what time you go to bed and what time you get up.
And, once we’ve got the preloaded priorities out of the way, you have way more leeway when it comes to prioritizing the rest of the stuff in your life. How big a priority is housework—not for anyone else, but for you personally? Date night? Volunteering? Meditating? Working out? Taking baths? Protesting? Making art? Cooking? Reading?
If that list makes you want to shout “All of it! It’s all a priority! It’s all equally important,” then you have not yet embraced the awesome power of triage.