This article is the second part of a longer one about time management. You can find the first part here

 

Lesson Two: the pennies are accurate, but the billions are wrong

What most people have wrong about time is that they are trying to gain two or three minutes here and there instead on focusing on the structural time-consuming areas of their lives. I am always amazed how people convince themselves how productive they are because they have a little trick to manage their emails efficiently, tidy their cupboards like this or like that, the right app to manage their to-do list, use several colours on their calendars etc. But they often don’t realise that they are wasting ten times as much time in other areas.

The office is full of highly time consuming and unproductive tasks. They even occupy sometimes more than 80% of our work. In three words: Powerpoint, e-mails and meetings.

Colouring powerpoint decks? Yes

Millions of pending e-mails? Yes

Meetings all day long? Yes

Value of the time spent on  all of that? … (silence that means « none » or « very little »)

We say in French that in the accounting field, “the pennies are accurate, but the billions are wrong”. It is exactly the same thing about time. We focus on the few minutes lost here and there and try to be more productive, but we don’t want to admit that most of our work activities taking most of our time are actually of low value. The remedy to such situation is to completely re-consider the way we approach work by re-focusing on the important stuff and leave til later or even undone the least important tasks. Calling back the important client, attending only the important meeting with the important stakeholders (=the ones making decisions) etc.

At home, this is no different. Taking the time to perform the important tasks is the beginning of freedom, as this is beginning of making progress on the projects that matter. Whatever the place, work or home, making time for the important things is maybe the most critical success (work) or happiness (home) factor, as it consists of giving ourselves the control over what is in our hands.

On the other side, gaining time, which consists of conquering time through little organisational tricks, can only be a tactical fix. It is useful to gain a few minutes here and there, but it is not suitable to mitigate issues with structural time allocation such as focusing on the least important stuff. In short, gaining time is only a relevant effort when the fundamentals are right. If I was going back home at 10pm every night, would I want to bother buying a new brush to make the washing-up in 5′ instead of 10′ ? Certainly not. However, I may want to re-consider my working hours.

This is a reality that I realised only very recently in my own life : if my personal life matters to me, and it does, then I need to make more time for it.

I always try to leave work at a decent time, irrespective of my “workload”. Firstly because I decided that I should not be the slave of work, but work should adapt to my life. Secondly, because I realised it was actually true – we can take control of our work! I never achieved more output than since the day I stopped working beyond 6pm almost every day. Why? Because when I tell myself “I’m here til 6pm, so we need to get that project going within this timeframe”, I genuinely work from the perspective of leaving at 6pm, and what matters most gets done on time. This is a positive pressure to perform. Under the assumption that I would instead tell myself “It’s all going to be fine, I will spend all the time it needs to make this project successful anyway”, it would be completely different, as I could afford doing useless powerpoint decks, nice slides,  nice reports and using other consultants rubbish tools that just waste a hell of time. In the end, II would have to work twice as much and fast at the end of the project for a very uncertain result.

The conflict betwen professional and personal lives does not exist. A balance between both is best enabler for us to perform in both at our best. In most case, work will tend to grow on the personal time, therefore consciously taking time for ourselves becomes the answer.

 

Lesson 3 : « I don’t have the time » actually means « I am not taking the time »

The liberal credo says: “you’re the only judge of how well you spend your time”. So basically, if you want to spend all your time working, you can, that’s your choice. On your phone? Your choice. On League of Legends? Your choice. Sleeping? Your choice. Drinking? Your choice (but be careful).

All of that is absolutely your choice, only your choice. Therefore, in that context, and especially as we want to be a very much empowered person, it is inappropriate to constantly put forward the eternal and most commonly excuse of all when it comes to pushing back on stuff we are offered: “Sorry but I don’t have time”.

Again, let’s imagine such situation in the office. My manager is telling me: “Can you plan out your work for the next month, make sure it’s aligned to the project plan, and give it to me by COP tomorrow?”.

Me:  « Sorry but I don’t have time at the moment »

Then what happens ? The manager will either say « Why ? What are you working on ? » and then determine whether I should prioritise the task he just gave me over the one I am working on. [Little separate note for all the bankers reading my blog : this post assumes that we are referring to a normal job, with relatively standard working hours. It does not assume that days are normally extensible to 17 or 18 hours of work per day]. What matters is the priority of what we do. We got quite a fixed amount of time to spend on producing output during the day, the question is : what should be done first and foremost ? So that what is left out at the end of the day is the stuff which does not matter as much (eg. the colleague – you know the one you don’t really like – who asked for some help).

In the private space, things are no different, except that it is impolite to ask somebody why he or she believes that the other stuff left they have to do is more important than what you are offering them now. But the conclusion remains the same, ie. The other person thinks that he or she is the « stuff left out at the end that doesn’t really matter ». And the reality is that it is true. « I don’t have time » doesn’t mean « I already have something planned », it means « there are other more important things than yours that I have to do ». Usually, this more important thing to do is work, and it is commonly accepted that work to do is non arguable.

However, it completely contradicts the liberal credo, that is supposed to make me a very free person : « you’re the only judge of how you allocate your time ». Which means that when I cross the line of what are reasonable working hours, I am the only one responsible for what happens to me. Therefore, if I don’t have time, it means either option of the following :

  1. I am not that much of a free person as I think, and it seems that I am unable to take the time for others or myself because I am too dependent of my work.
  2. I am just not interested in what the other person is suggesting and I don’t want to take the time for that

The purpose of this blog is not re-visit the way I manage the relationships with my relatives, so I won’t make any judgemental comment about the option two. But option 1 is interesting because in this case I actually believe that I don’t have time because of adverse circumstances. The more I say that I don’t have the time, the more I actually believe it, and the more I think that the whole world is against me and that I have to carry all its heavy sufferings on my shoulders.

This is why acknowledging that instead of « not having the time » I just « am not taking the time » is the real first act of resistance I can do in my life, as it will mean that I am in control of my time, and therefore or my existence. Achieving the latter without the former is a Mission Impossible.

 

Conclusion

The funny thing is that the overarching lesson that work just taught me to about time is the following : to be less dependent on… work !