0:00:00.902,0:00:03.500
When people find out[br]I write about time management,

0:00:04.588,0:00:06.263
they assume two things.

0:00:07.564,0:00:10.548
One is that I'm always on time,

0:00:11.747,0:00:12.984
and I'm not.

0:00:13.525,0:00:14.870
I have four small children,

0:00:14.894,0:00:17.710
and I would like to blame them[br]for my occasional tardiness,

0:00:17.734,0:00:19.842
but sometimes it's just not their fault.

0:00:20.365,0:00:23.112
I was once late to my own speech[br]on time management.

0:00:23.136,0:00:24.176
(Laughter)

0:00:24.200,0:00:27.773
We all had to just take a moment[br]together and savor that irony.

0:00:28.972,0:00:32.191
The second thing they assume[br]is that I have lots of tips and tricks

0:00:32.215,0:00:34.108
for saving bits of time here and there.

0:00:34.132,0:00:37.846
Sometimes I'll hear from magazines[br]that are doing a story along these lines,

0:00:37.870,0:00:41.197
generally on how to help their readers[br]find an extra hour in the day.

0:00:41.221,0:00:44.507
And the idea is that we'll shave[br]bits of time off everyday activities,

0:00:44.531,0:00:45.708
add it up,

0:00:45.732,0:00:47.906
and we'll have time for the good stuff.

0:00:47.930,0:00:51.964
I question the entire premise[br]of this piece, but I'm always interested

0:00:51.988,0:00:54.671
in hearing what they've come[br]up with before they call me.

0:00:54.695,0:00:55.847
Some of my favorites:

0:00:55.871,0:00:58.777
doing errands where you only[br]have to make right-hand turns --

0:00:58.801,0:00:59.829
(Laughter)

0:00:59.853,0:01:01.999
Being extremely judicious[br]in microwave usage:

0:01:02.023,0:01:04.746
it says three to three-and-a-half[br]minutes on the package,

0:01:04.770,0:01:07.206
we're totally getting in on[br]the bottom side of that.

0:01:07.230,0:01:09.969
And my personal favorite,[br]which makes sense on some level,

0:01:09.993,0:01:13.745
is to DVR your favorite shows so you can[br]fast-forward through the commercials.

0:01:13.769,0:01:16.061
That way, you save[br]eight minutes every half hour,

0:01:16.085,0:01:18.182
so in the course of two hours[br]of watching TV,

0:01:18.206,0:01:19.749
you find 32 minutes to exercise.

0:01:19.773,0:01:20.789
(Laughter)

0:01:20.813,0:01:22.098
Which is true.

0:01:22.587,0:01:25.208
You know another way to find[br]32 minutes to exercise?

0:01:25.629,0:01:27.961
Don't watch two hours of TV a day, right?

0:01:27.985,0:01:29.001
(Laughter)

0:01:29.025,0:01:32.499
Anyway, the idea is we'll save bits[br]of time here and there, add it up,

0:01:32.523,0:01:34.807
we will finally get[br]to everything we want to do.

0:01:34.831,0:01:37.743
But after studying how successful[br]people spend their time

0:01:37.767,0:01:40.404
and looking at their[br]schedules hour by hour,

0:01:40.428,0:01:43.724
I think this idea[br]has it completely backward.

0:01:44.305,0:01:47.947
We don't build the lives[br]we want by saving time.

0:01:48.566,0:01:50.126
We build the lives we want,

0:01:50.636,0:01:53.603
and then time saves itself.

0:01:55.194,0:01:56.345
Here's what I mean.

0:01:56.369,0:01:58.063
I recently did a time diary project

0:01:58.087,0:02:02.291
looking at 1,001 days in the lives[br]of extremely busy women.

0:02:02.315,0:02:04.959
They had demanding jobs,[br]sometimes their own businesses,

0:02:04.983,0:02:07.118
kids to care for,[br]maybe parents to care for,

0:02:07.142,0:02:08.472
community commitments --

0:02:08.496,0:02:10.309
busy, busy people.

0:02:10.799,0:02:13.006
I had them keep track[br]of their time for a week

0:02:13.030,0:02:15.343
so I could add up how much[br]they worked and slept,

0:02:15.367,0:02:18.176
and I interviewed them[br]about their strategies, for my book.

0:02:18.200,0:02:20.189
One of the women whose time log I studied

0:02:20.213,0:02:22.276
goes out on a Wednesday night[br]for something.

0:02:22.300,0:02:24.929
She comes home to find[br]that her water heater has broken,

0:02:24.953,0:02:27.589
and there is now water[br]all over her basement.

0:02:28.380,0:02:30.834
If you've ever had anything[br]like this happen to you,

0:02:30.858,0:02:33.738
you know it is a hugely damaging,[br]frightening, sopping mess.

0:02:33.762,0:02:36.472
So she's dealing with the immediate[br]aftermath that night,

0:02:36.496,0:02:38.373
next day she's got plumbers coming in,

0:02:38.397,0:02:41.897
day after that, professional cleaning[br]crew dealing with the ruined carpet.

0:02:41.921,0:02:43.987
All this is being recorded[br]on her time log.

0:02:44.011,0:02:46.311
Winds up taking seven hours of her week.

0:02:47.191,0:02:48.473
Seven hours.

0:02:49.179,0:02:51.981
That's like finding[br]an extra hour in the day.

0:02:52.834,0:02:55.628
But I'm sure if you had asked her[br]at the start of the week,

0:02:55.652,0:02:58.870
"Could you find seven hours[br]to train for a triathlon?"

0:02:59.893,0:03:03.698
"Could you find seven hours[br]to mentor seven worthy people?"

0:03:03.722,0:03:06.413
I'm sure she would've said[br]what most of us would've said,

0:03:06.437,0:03:10.881
which is, "No -- can't you see[br]how busy I am?"

0:03:11.521,0:03:13.318
Yet when she had to find seven hours

0:03:13.342,0:03:16.141
because there is water[br]all over her basement,

0:03:16.165,0:03:18.675
she found seven hours.

0:03:19.055,0:03:23.206
And what this shows us[br]is that time is highly elastic.

0:03:23.594,0:03:25.637
We cannot make more time,

0:03:25.661,0:03:29.840
but time will stretch to accommodate[br]what we choose to put into it.

0:03:30.366,0:03:32.933
And so the key to time management

0:03:33.541,0:03:35.776
is treating our priorities

0:03:35.800,0:03:38.847
as the equivalent[br]of that broken water heater.

0:03:40.162,0:03:41.312
To get at this,

0:03:41.336,0:03:44.781
I like to use language from one[br]of the busiest people I ever interviewed.

0:03:44.805,0:03:47.093
By busy, I mean she was running[br]a small business

0:03:47.117,0:03:48.586
with 12 people on the payroll,

0:03:48.610,0:03:50.633
she had six children in her spare time.

0:03:50.657,0:03:53.275
I was getting in touch with her[br]to set up an interview

0:03:53.299,0:03:55.795
on how she "Had it all" -- that phrase.

0:03:55.819,0:03:57.628
I remember it was a Thursday morning,

0:03:57.652,0:03:59.659
and she was not available[br]to speak with me.

0:03:59.683,0:04:00.839
Of course, right?

0:04:00.863,0:04:03.282
But the reason she was[br]unavailable to speak with me

0:04:03.306,0:04:05.246
is that she was out for a hike,

0:04:05.270,0:04:07.308
because it was a beautiful spring morning,

0:04:07.332,0:04:08.895
and she wanted to go for a hike.

0:04:08.919,0:04:11.256
So of course this makes me[br]even more intrigued,

0:04:11.280,0:04:14.456
and when I finally do catch up with her,[br]she explains it like this,

0:04:14.480,0:04:16.747
she says, "Listen Laura, everything I do,

0:04:17.592,0:04:21.205
every minute I spend, is my choice."

0:04:21.830,0:04:22.981
And rather than say,

0:04:23.005,0:04:25.434
"I don't have time to do x, y or z,"

0:04:25.893,0:04:31.007
she'd say, "I don't do x, y or z[br]because it's not a priority."

0:04:31.709,0:04:36.077
"I don't have time," often means[br]"It's not a priority."

0:04:37.075,0:04:39.963
If you think about it,[br]that's really more accurate language.

0:04:39.987,0:04:42.551
I could tell you I don't have time[br]to dust my blinds,

0:04:42.575,0:04:43.744
but that's not true.

0:04:43.768,0:04:46.208
If you offered to pay me $100,000[br]to dust my blinds,

0:04:46.232,0:04:47.832
I would get to it pretty quickly.

0:04:47.856,0:04:48.872
(Laughter)

0:04:48.896,0:04:50.531
Since that is not going to happen,

0:04:50.555,0:04:53.159
I can acknowledge this is not[br]a matter of lacking time;

0:04:53.183,0:04:54.784
it's that I don't want to do it.

0:04:54.808,0:04:58.194
Using this language reminds us[br]that time is a choice.

0:04:58.218,0:04:59.391
And granted,

0:04:59.415,0:05:02.447
there may be horrible consequences[br]for making different choices,

0:05:02.471,0:05:03.677
I will give you that.

0:05:03.701,0:05:05.323
But we are smart people,

0:05:05.347,0:05:07.205
and certainly over the long run,

0:05:07.229,0:05:09.229
we have the power to fill our lives

0:05:09.253,0:05:11.929
with the things that deserve to be there.

0:05:13.204,0:05:14.492
So how do we do that?

0:05:15.127,0:05:16.559
How do we treat our priorities

0:05:16.583,0:05:18.914
as the equivalent[br]of that broken water heater?

0:05:19.531,0:05:21.850
Well, first we need[br]to figure out what they are.

0:05:21.874,0:05:24.628
I want to give you two strategies[br]for thinking about this.

0:05:24.652,0:05:26.410
The first, on the professional side:

0:05:26.434,0:05:28.945
I'm sure many people[br]coming up to the end of the year

0:05:28.969,0:05:31.292
are giving or getting[br]annual performance reviews.

0:05:31.316,0:05:33.581
You look back over[br]your successes over the year,

0:05:33.605,0:05:35.650
your "opportunities for growth."

0:05:35.674,0:05:37.697
And this serves its purpose,

0:05:38.221,0:05:41.151
but I find it's more effective[br]to do this looking forward.

0:05:41.175,0:05:43.769
So I want you to pretend[br]it's the end of next year.

0:05:44.326,0:05:46.687
You're giving yourself[br]a performance review,

0:05:46.711,0:05:51.227
and it has been an absolutely[br]amazing year for you professionally.

0:05:52.034,0:05:57.821
What three to five things did you do[br]that made it so amazing?

0:05:58.734,0:06:02.534
So you can write next[br]year's performance review now.

0:06:02.558,0:06:04.805
And you can do this[br]for your personal life, too.

0:06:04.829,0:06:07.458
I'm sure many of you,[br]like me, come December,

0:06:07.482,0:06:11.028
get cards that contain these folded up[br]sheets of colored paper,

0:06:11.491,0:06:16.321
on which is written what is known[br]as the family holiday letter.

0:06:16.345,0:06:17.983
(Laughter)

0:06:18.007,0:06:20.638
Bit of a wretched genre[br]of literature, really,

0:06:20.662,0:06:23.946
going on about how amazing[br]everyone in the household is,

0:06:23.970,0:06:25.257
or even more scintillating,

0:06:25.281,0:06:27.456
how busy everyone in the household is.

0:06:27.815,0:06:29.464
But these letters serve a purpose,

0:06:29.488,0:06:31.695
which is that they tell[br]your friends and family

0:06:31.719,0:06:35.044
what you did in your personal life[br]that mattered to you over the year.

0:06:35.068,0:06:36.452
So this year's kind of done,

0:06:36.476,0:06:38.926
but I want you to pretend[br]it's the end of next year,

0:06:38.950,0:06:41.704
and it has been an absolutely amazing year

0:06:42.172,0:06:44.825
for you and the people you care about.

0:06:45.391,0:06:50.094
What three to five things did you do[br]that made it so amazing?

0:06:50.839,0:06:54.980
So you can write next[br]year's family holiday letter now.

0:06:55.789,0:06:56.982
Don't send it.

0:06:57.006,0:06:58.022
(Laughter)

0:06:58.046,0:07:00.684
Please, don't send it.

0:07:01.049,0:07:02.439
But you can write it.

0:07:02.463,0:07:06.177
And now, between the performance[br]review and the family holiday letter,

0:07:06.201,0:07:09.438
we have a list of six to ten goals[br]we can work on in the next year.

0:07:09.462,0:07:12.261
And now we need to break[br]these down into doable steps.

0:07:12.285,0:07:14.493
So maybe you want[br]to write a family history.

0:07:14.517,0:07:16.770
First, you can read[br]some other family histories,

0:07:16.794,0:07:18.056
get a sense for the style.

0:07:18.080,0:07:21.287
Then maybe think about the questions[br]you want to ask your relatives,

0:07:21.311,0:07:23.160
set up appointments to interview them.

0:07:23.184,0:07:24.645
Or maybe you want to run a 5K.

0:07:24.669,0:07:27.830
So you need to find a race and sign up,[br]figure out a training plan,

0:07:27.854,0:07:30.227
and dig those shoes[br]out of the back of the closet.

0:07:30.251,0:07:32.193
And then -- this is key --

0:07:32.217,0:07:36.312
we treat our priorities as the equivalent[br]of that broken water heater,

0:07:36.336,0:07:39.335
by putting them into our schedules first.

0:07:39.879,0:07:44.639
We do this by thinking through our weeks[br]before we are in them.

0:07:44.663,0:07:48.347
I find a really good time to do this[br]is Friday afternoons.

0:07:48.885,0:07:51.433
Friday afternoon is what[br]an economist might call

0:07:51.457,0:07:53.994
a "low opportunity cost" time.

0:07:54.764,0:07:57.664
Most of us are not sitting there[br]on Friday afternoons saying,

0:07:57.688,0:07:59.567
"I am excited to make progress

0:07:59.591,0:08:01.887
toward my personal[br]and professional priorities

0:08:01.911,0:08:03.065
right now."

0:08:03.089,0:08:04.105
(Laughter)

0:08:04.129,0:08:06.746
But we are willing to think[br]about what those should be.

0:08:06.770,0:08:08.975
So take a little bit[br]of time Friday afternoon,

0:08:08.999,0:08:15.189
make yourself a three-category priority[br]list: career, relationships, self.

0:08:16.382,0:08:19.580
Making a three-category list reminds us

0:08:19.604,0:08:23.094
that there should be something[br]in all three categories.

0:08:23.118,0:08:24.374
Career, we think about;

0:08:24.398,0:08:25.905
relationships, self --

0:08:25.929,0:08:27.248
not so much.

0:08:27.272,0:08:29.170
But anyway, just a short list,

0:08:29.194,0:08:30.623
two to three items in each.

0:08:31.013,0:08:33.394
Then look out over the whole[br]of the next week,

0:08:33.418,0:08:35.133
and see where you can plan them in.

0:08:36.171,0:08:38.181
Where you plan them in is up to you.

0:08:38.205,0:08:41.667
I know this is going to be more[br]complicated for some people than others.

0:08:41.691,0:08:45.213
I mean, some people's lives[br]are just harder than others.

0:08:45.674,0:08:48.943
It is not going to be easy[br]to find time to take that poetry class

0:08:48.967,0:08:51.697
if you are caring for multiple[br]children on your own.

0:08:52.058,0:08:53.229
I get that.

0:08:53.253,0:08:55.460
And I don't want to minimize[br]anyone's struggle.

0:08:55.484,0:09:00.010
But I do think that the numbers[br]I am about to tell you are empowering.

0:09:00.906,0:09:04.913
There are 168 hours in a week.

0:09:05.962,0:09:10.663
Twenty-four times seven is 168 hours.

0:09:11.295,0:09:14.028
That is a lot of time.

0:09:14.627,0:09:17.818
If you are working a full-time[br]job, so 40 hours a week,

0:09:17.842,0:09:20.934
sleeping eight hours a night,[br]so 56 hours a week --

0:09:20.958,0:09:23.538
that leaves 72 hours for other things.

0:09:24.622,0:09:26.529
That is a lot of time.

0:09:26.956,0:09:28.841
You say you're working 50 hours a week,

0:09:28.865,0:09:30.811
maybe a main job and a side hustle.

0:09:30.835,0:09:33.305
Well, that leaves 62 hours[br]for other things.

0:09:33.329,0:09:35.229
You say you're working 60 hours.

0:09:35.253,0:09:37.681
Well, that leaves 52 hours[br]for other things.

0:09:37.705,0:09:39.747
You say you're working more than 60 hours.

0:09:39.771,0:09:41.328
Well ... are you sure?

0:09:41.352,0:09:43.086
(Laughter)

0:09:43.110,0:09:46.016
There was once a study comparing[br]people's estimated work weeks

0:09:46.040,0:09:47.435
with time diaries.

0:09:47.459,0:09:50.135
They found that people claiming[br]75-plus-hour work weeks

0:09:50.159,0:09:52.263
were off by about 25 hours.

0:09:52.287,0:09:53.981
(Laughter)

0:09:54.005,0:09:56.326
You can guess in which direction, right?

0:09:57.567,0:09:59.780
Anyway, in 168 hours a week,

0:09:59.804,0:10:02.768
I think we can find time[br]for what matters to you.

0:10:02.792,0:10:04.990
If you want to spend[br]more time with your kids,

0:10:05.014,0:10:07.319
you want to study more[br]for a test you're taking,

0:10:07.343,0:10:10.688
you want to exercise for three hours[br]and volunteer for two,

0:10:10.712,0:10:11.866
you can.

0:10:11.890,0:10:15.531
And that's even if you're working[br]way more than full-time hours.

0:10:15.885,0:10:17.937
So we have plenty of time, which is great,

0:10:17.961,0:10:19.187
because guess what?

0:10:19.211,0:10:22.049
We don't even need that much[br]time to do amazing things.

0:10:22.486,0:10:25.233
But when most of us have[br]bits of time, what do we do?

0:10:25.708,0:10:27.359
Pull out the phone, right?

0:10:27.826,0:10:29.995
Start deleting emails.

0:10:30.381,0:10:32.468
Otherwise, we're puttering[br]around the house

0:10:32.492,0:10:33.752
or watching TV.

0:10:34.114,0:10:36.967
But small moments can have great power.

0:10:37.657,0:10:39.610
You can use your bits of time

0:10:40.094,0:10:42.290
for bits of joy.

0:10:43.195,0:10:46.064
Maybe it's choosing to read[br]something wonderful on the bus

0:10:46.088,0:10:47.452
on the way to work.

0:10:47.476,0:10:49.875
I know when I had a job[br]that required two bus rides

0:10:49.899,0:10:51.444
and a subway ride every morning,

0:10:51.468,0:10:54.371
I used to go to the library[br]on weekends to get stuff to read.

0:10:54.395,0:10:58.886
It made the whole experience[br]almost -- almost -- enjoyable.

0:10:59.857,0:11:03.044
Breaks at work can be used[br]for meditating or praying.

0:11:03.434,0:11:06.628
If family dinner is out[br]because of your crazy work schedule,

0:11:06.652,0:11:09.401
maybe family breakfast[br]could be a good substitute.

0:11:09.890,0:11:13.020
It's about looking at[br]the whole of one's time

0:11:13.044,0:11:15.177
and seeing where the good stuff can go.

0:11:16.504,0:11:18.217
I truly believe this.

0:11:19.054,0:11:21.755
There is time.

0:11:22.981,0:11:24.633
Even if we are busy,

0:11:25.223,0:11:26.962
we have time for what matters.

0:11:27.752,0:11:29.754
And when we focus on what matters,

0:11:30.312,0:11:31.983
we can build the lives we want

0:11:32.765,0:11:34.043
in the time we've got.

0:11:34.638,0:11:35.793
Thank you.

0:11:35.817,0:11:39.055
(Applause)