9 Strategies To Better Control Your Time - Laura Vanderkam

1. 0:00 – 0:22

   Intro

   1. LVLaura Vanderkam0:00

      ... the biggest culprit is this time where you don't even know what you're doing. There's not a good way to describe it. And when I've had people do this, they'll write, "Hours of time, no recollection." Like, what happened? Was I abducted? I don't know. We were doing something. It passed. It was there. But it wasn't memorable, it wasn't particularly enjoyable, it was just time. And I think that's often the biggest culprit for many people. (airplane whoosh)

2. 0:22 – 4:44

   Why Is Time Management So Overwhelming?

   1. LVLaura Vanderkam0:22

   2. CWChris Williamson0:22

      Why do you think it is that people are so overwhelmed when it comes to time management? What's the problem that they're trying to solve?

   3. LVLaura Vanderkam0:30

      Well, I think the biggest problem for most of us is that time keeps passing, no matter what you do. And so, it is incredibly hard to spend time mindfully. Um, no matter what you do, a week from now, a week will have passed. And so getting, you know, ourselves in the place where we can step back and, and direct that time as much as possible is, is challenging, especially as life keeps swirling around us. So, you know, I'm always on the lookout for ways that can help people kind of calm this chaos around us and, and make sure that we have something of a say in where our time is going.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:05

      One of the common threads that I've found between a bunch of different conversations that I've had recently, whether it's been to do with time management or, uh, dating, how you're supposed to find your partner, or, uh, productivity and focus and attention and stuff like that, is intentionality. That seems to be one of the most common word- word... You could call it whatever you want, right? Like effort, directionality, focus, like being intentional with how you do the thing. And it seems like there are a lot of ways, more than ever ways, a sensorium of opportunities that we have to be distracted by tons of things. Uh, I think we lay a lot of problems at the feet of the modern 21st century. I... The biology hasn't changed, just the options have, but intentionality seems to be like the thing that can cut through it all.

   5. LVLaura Vanderkam1:50

      Absolutely. Although I'd argue that, you know, life isn't really that different. (laughs) Um, you know, uh, people have always wasted time. Um, people have always felt busy. I, uh, at various points in my life have collected old magazines, um, you know, from the 1950s and 1960s and as you can imagine, many of the articles are on how people feel very busy and, you know, modern life is just so crazy. And of course, now people go, "But they didn't have sma- smartphones. They didn't have, you know, internet access. They... H- What happ-..." I don't know. Your boss can call you at home. Like if they had phones, that could happen, or people got stuck at the office late, or, you know, f- we have to fill time with something. And so you can feel oppressed by whatever is going on in your life, even if some future version of the world has entirely different distractions. So yeah, I, I... You know, we've always managed to waste time. We've always felt like life can just happen to us. We've always needed to take steps to feel more in charge of our decisions and our time, uh, in order to spend life a little bit better.

   6. CWChris Williamson2:57

      There's a story that I heard about ancient Greece and the ancient Greek word for work. Ancient Greek word for work was translated as "not at leisure."

   7. LVLaura Vanderkam3:08

      (laughs)

   8. CWChris Williamson3:08

      And I thought that was very interesting that the Greeks saw work as an aberration. They saw that as the thing that was the outlier, and that leisure time was the thing that was the set point for humanity. And now that's kind of been a little bit inverted. But yeah, you're right. I mean, you know, you can go back... (laughs) I was learning about, uh, when bicycles were first invented and it meant that women could go out of the house without a chaperone. And the fact that women could go out of the house without a chaperone was gonna cause havoc and this lady cycled in trousers and everybody was up in arms.

   9. LVLaura Vanderkam3:37

      I know. I was gonna say, even worse, their legs were on opposite sides of the bike. (laughs)

   10. CWChris Williamson3:40

       They couldn't believe how sexualized this woman was as she, she wore trousers. She was appropriating male uniforms or whatever. So, yeah, you're right. Um, it's a very easy get out of jail free card for every generation to lay their challenges at the feet of something that previous generations didn't have to deal with.

   11. LVLaura Vanderkam3:58

       Or to think that they are somehow entirely different than all of humanity up till this point. (laughs) I mean, you know, at, at the moment, it appears that we still have 24 hours in a day, as people always have. And, uh, you know, the weeks, weeks are a human invention, but days and years are not. So, um, you know, we've, we've been dealing with this for a while.

   12. CWChris Williamson4:17

       Have weeks always had seven days in?

   13. LVLaura Vanderkam4:19

       Well, that's a... I mean, if you think of like the biblical, um, seven days of creation and the seven-day cycle of the Sabbath, um, that's where sort of that idea comes from. There are, there are some cultures that have sort of a different repeating cycle. Like the market day is the every, every fifth day, right? And so they have a cycle of five days. But if people are listening to this podcast, you're at a place where you have seven days in a week. (laughs) So, uh, that's, uh, that, that's most likely

3. 4:44 – 9:28

   Common Errors in Managing Time

   1. LVLaura Vanderkam4:44

      the case.

   2. CWChris Williamson4:44

      You've looked at thousands of peoples' schedules. You've looked at what the most successful people do on a morning, about how women can be a mother and have a career and time management and not drown in it and all that stuff. What do you think most people get wrong when it comes to managing their time? What are the most common major errors that they make?

   3. LVLaura Vanderkam5:03

      Well, one of the biggest errors is not knowing how much time there is. Uh, we, we live our lives in weeks. We talked about this being a human invention, but it's a very useful one. This is how most people structure their lives. Um, you know, Tuesday and Saturday are both typical days in that they both happen just as often. Um, but, you know, your life probably looks different on a Tuesday and a Saturday, whereas a week contains both of those. So, it's a week is a, is a better, uh, vision of your life. But most people don't even know that there are 168 hours in a week, right? That is a number that people do not have on the top of their heads. It's 24/7. People say 24/7. They do not multiply it through. But the problem of not even knowing this number is that we have all sorts of ideas of how much time we devote to different things in a week, but if we don't even know the denominator, it's kind of hard to get, you know, adequate senses of proportions for different things. I mean, just as one example, I think a lot of people assume you don't have a lot of time for other things, right? 'Cause it's full. It's full time. It's right there in the name. But if you work...... 40 hours a week, so pretty standard full-time job. Sleep eight hours a night, so that is 56 hours per week. Subtract those from 168, you got 72 hours for other things, which is almost twice as much time as you are working. I mean, it's just- but people don't think that way, right? (laughs) So, it's- it's, uh, you know, it's the intentionality thing, but it's also a data piece that's missing, and so that's one of the reasons I always suggest people do try tracking their time for a week, um, 'cause many people are just surprised to see where the time is, um, where it goes, how much time they're sort of unclear what they're actually doing with it because it's spent on, you know, random stuff that hasn't necessarily been actively chosen or noticed or particularly enjoyed.

   4. CWChris Williamson6:50

      Is that most of the time that people are surprised that, "I can't believe I spent so much time doing..." Is that a lot of the time phone, TV, screens?

   5. LVLaura Vanderkam7:00

      It certainly can be. I mean, I know many of us have had the experience, um, uh, that moment of truth if you have the Screen Time app on your iPhone, for instance, that it sends you a message. In my case, Sunday morning, I'm often, uh, in the little bit of time I have before my choir rehearsal and this Sunday morning, the church service starts and I'm getting a ding on my phone telling me, "You watch three hours of screen time every day." I'm like, "What? Where did I do this?" You know, I don't- I don't remember that happening. (laughs) But, you know, I did. I'm sure. I was not making it up. Um, and- and I think a lot of us have had that experience. That it's more time than we might think. But- but it's far from the o- only culprit. I think, you know, there's obviously, you know, things at work. People spend a ton of time, like, randomly checking email. Um, people spend a lot of time in meetings that maybe didn't even have to happen or could have been shorter. But I think the biggest culprit is this time where you don't even know what you're doing. Like, how would you even describe it? You're not- there's not a good way to describe it. Um, a- and when I've had people do this, like, you know, they'll write, like, "Hours of time, no recollection." Like, what happened? Was I abducted? Like, who do- I don't know. We were doing something. It passed, it was there. But it wasn't memorable, it wasn't particularly enjoyable. It was just time. Um, and- and I think that's often the biggest culprit for many people.

   6. CWChris Williamson8:19

      For the people that have got iPhones that have updated it to the most recent iOS, there's a way that you can make your screen time become a widget on your home screen. And what that means is that rather than... I mean, it's in the arse end of your settings, right? You're not going, you're not going into that. You get the weekly Screen Time report, which makes you depressed for one day a week. But if you wanna make yourself depressed every day of the week-

   7. LVLaura Vanderkam8:39

      (laughs) Constantly. (laughs)

   8. CWChris Williamson8:40

      ... you can create a widget, uh, and you can have it and it'll show you, uh, the time and it'll continue to do that. Also, there is another function. Look at me just going down life hacks route here. Um, sleep now links up with people that if you use a Whoop or presumably if you use a Fitbit or something else, that'll link in with Apple Health and you can create a sleep widget as well, which tells you every single day how much sleep you got last night. And it just, it's just there. So, for those things, I think screen time and sleep, two pretty good examples. I'm sure we're gonna talk about more today as well. That it's a nice reminder whenever you go on your phone, it just reminds you like, "Oh yeah, you did good last night." You would, "You did good yesterday." You would, "The- the habits that you're doing are working." Or it gives you a kick if you-

   9. LVLaura Vanderkam9:24

      (laughs) A little kick, if that's what you need. Yeah, exactly.

   10. CWChris Williamson9:26

       ... if you didn't quite so much. Yeah.

4. 9:28 – 19:49

   Creating a Life That You Enjoy

   1. CWChris Williamson9:28

      You've got this quote that says, "We don't build the lives we want by saving time. We build the life we want, and then time saves itself." What's that mean?

   2. LVLaura Vanderkam9:37

      Well, generally, I want people to focus on the things that they want to spend more time doing. So, when it comes to time, you know, people are like, "Time management. I need hacks," right? "I need ways to shave bits of time off everyday activities." And I guess the idea is that we can add all those little bits of time up and we will magically create these wonderfully awesome lives. Um, which, you know, is somewhat ridiculous if you think about it. I mean, one of the hacks I've seen out there is like if you send a lot of emails where the answer is okay, just type K instead of okay. And like, great. Like, but even if I'm sending hundreds of emails a day, if I'm typing K instead of okay, does that all of a sudden mean I have an awesome life? Like, no, it does not, you know? (laughs) Like, there- there's another step in there. Um, and- and that other step is figuring out what you want to spend time on. Um, so maybe we know what we don't wanna spend time on, but what actively do you want to fill your 168 hours with? And, you know, that takes some work to figure out. There's obviously the things we have to do, but there's also things we want to do. What are those things? Um, and if you actively try to put more of those in your life, they tend to crowd out some of that space of nothingness that we talked about where it's not even clear what you are doing. And I- I've certainly seen this in my own life. I mean, I mentioned singing in this church choir, and I- a couple years ago, I- I've loved to sing in the past and I hadn't done it for a few years and I was like, "Well, I'd like to get back into it." I'm like, "Well, you know, how's this gonna work? I've got, you know, four small children. Like, I've got a job. Where do you find the time?" And then I'm like looking at my time and most- most of the evenings are just this like nothingness. It's like half kid interaction, kind of hoping they're watching TV so I can put around the house and do something else. I'm like, "You know, I could probably skip one night of that." (laughs) And like they'd still have me puttering around while they're watching TV or whatever, like six out of seven nights. But that one night could be something else. And- and, you know, so I put it in and- and it's not always easy to get to rehearsal, but more or less I could fit it in. It just took some of that low value time away and filled in something better. And so we were trying to think about how we can do that. Like if you, you know, decide on the weekend to go do some fun adventure, you're gonna go with friends to an apple orchard and, you know, pick apples and then taste all their ciders and something like that. Something wonderfully fall oriented. Like, yeah, you might not spend as much time like sweeping your floor. Like you might not spend as much time getting caught up on email over the weekend. But like probably you'll answer what you have to and like you'll pick up any, you know, really obvious dirt, um, and you will have had your adventure too. It like just pushed everything out. So we don't build the lives we want by saving time with these little hacks, typing K instead of okay in our emails. We build the lives we want and then, you know, everything else sorts itself around that.

   3. CWChris Williamson12:26

      Did you get familiar with the trend of tech bros and crypto people refusing to use, uh, upper case characters-

   4. LVLaura Vanderkam12:34

      (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson12:35

      ... because typing in lowercase and using punctuation would be quicker?

   6. LVLaura Vanderkam12:40

      I, well, maybe it would. I don't know. What are these people doing with the rest of their time? I'm very curious. I guess they're-

   7. CWChris Williamson12:44

      Although there's, um-

   8. LVLaura Vanderkam12:44

      ... they're building some app that's gonna save the world.

   9. CWChris Williamson12:46

      Perhaps.

   10. LVLaura Vanderkam12:47

       I'm not sure. (laughs)

   11. CWChris Williamson12:47

       Maybe. I, I'm gonna presume that they're the people that are using Superhuman, which is this s- supercharged email app that some people that seem to send lots of emails use. Uh, but yeah, I think it's super interesting to think about the... Until you have something that you're going to spend your time doing, you're going to inevitably just fill it with whatever's the most convenient, the path of least resistance. I had this great chat with Ryan Holiday about his new book, which is to do with discipline, and he said that unless you have a goal that you're working toward, discipline is never in service of anything. And being disciplined requires you to posit yourself against the thing that you're aiming for. Like, unless you have a goal, what do you, what, what does discipline look like? Your, your day could be, your goal could be, "I want to be the person that watches the most TikTok on the planet today." Therefore, the discipline that you would have in order to achieve that goal will be very different to the sort of person that says, "I want to spend time outside. I wanna spend time with my family," and so on and so forth. So yes, thinking about, "What do I actually want to do?" If... And I think that, I don't know, maybe working people, especially parents, might, might feel a bit of guilt if you said, "Okay, let's say that you had two hours to yourself to do what you wanted, what would you do?" And if they come back and give you an answer like, "Uh, I, I'd love to clean the house," or, "I'd love to get ahead on some of the washing," or, "I'd love to prepare the food for next week." Or there's a, a cup... But it's like, "No, no, no, no, no, I didn't ask you what would be advantageous to make-"

   12. LVLaura Vanderkam14:14

       (laughs) Yes.

   13. CWChris Williamson14:14

       "... the remainder of your time more easy." I said, "What would you like to do?" And I know that my mom is like a really good example of this, would be... That would be her kind of answer. You know, she would have always been in service to the household, and self-care and stuff like that would have been something that she needed to learn over time. So yeah, I think giving yourself license to actually have things you want to do and then forcing life around that. Like, the, the dishes will... They'll wait.

   14. LVLaura Vanderkam14:44

       They will wait. And, and I'm not saying it's easy to figure this out. I mean, so in, in Tranquility by Tuesday, one of the rules that I had people try, um, was to take one night for you. And it was this idea of taking, you know, two hours, like on a Thursday night, to go do something that is not work, that is not caring for family members. It is for you, that you inherently enjoy, you intrinsically enjoy. And, you know, some people did think like, "Oh, I'll, I'll, you know, spend this time doing chores," or something like that, and some people couldn't even think of what they would want to do. Like, they just hadn't even asked themselves their ques- that question, 'cause you get so wrapped up in all the things you have to do for work and all the things that need to happen to run a household. And so it's like, it, it took some time. They had to go back through extracurricular activities they did in high school, like, "Would, would any of those be an option now?" You know, or, um, when I'm doing something that's, uh, feels pleasant, what is it? Uh, you know, brainstorming, looking around at all sorts of lists that, you know, community events and the like. It, it takes work. Uh, imagine this, you know, properly using our leisure time takes work, but I think it's worthwhile work. I think we should take our leisure time seriously, because then we can have so much of a better time with it.

   15. CWChris Williamson15:56

       Yeah. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz has this great quote where he says, "We often confuse a comfortable activity for a worthwhile one." And that, uh, this is your thing, right? The path of least resistance, resorting to something which current you wants to do, but future you is going to regret you doing, as opposed to something that current you might find a tiny bit difficult, but future you is gonna be very thankful about. So, you've got these nine rules that you go through, and you did a study, you ran a study with a big, fairly big sample size of people, and you asked them a bunch of questions and got them to do all of these different strategies. When it comes to the one which is spending two hours for yourself on an evening time, what are you hoping that people are going to learn from that? Is it that they have this ability to kind of move time and requirements and urgent stuff around something which is for their self-care?

   16. LVLaura Vanderkam16:43

       Oh, definitely. That is one of the things I want people to learn, that they can make time for the things that they want to do. I mean, partly it's just fun, right? I want people to have fun. Um, and, and so there's that. And I want them to commit to something, because when you make a commitment, it actually happens, right? So people will be like, "Oh, I wanna read more. I wanna take a bubble bath." Well, you know, if your boss wants you to work late on Thursday night, you're not gonna be like, "No, no, I have an appointment with my bubble bath," like your kid wants you to drive them somewhere. You know, you, like, your bathtub isn't going anywhere. You can always push it forward. So then you wind up never doing it. Whereas if you are playing on a softball team, like they need a second baseman, you will show up, right? And, and you will go even if life is busy, even if you're tired, even if other people would, you know, kind of prefer you did something else. And as a result, you will get the benefit of this more active form of, of self-care. Um, yeah, and you know, I wanted them to see that. I wanted them to see also that the world does keep spinning if they are not actively attending to professional or family matters for two hours. I think a lot of people have this idea that only they can do the things they do, and you know, it, this comes from two places. I mean, sometimes it's arrogance, like, you know, you'll hear this with people, like, "Oh, you just can't hire good employees these days. Nobody could ever figure this out, like, except me," whatever. Okay, fine, maybe. Um, and, and people do this on the home front too. I mean, there's, you know, forums of like people thinking, you know, no babysitter could ever take care of their kids. Sometimes it's even that they don't think their partner can manage their children, right? Like, there, this happens all the time. It could be arrogance, it can be fear, um, which is the flip side of the same coin, that if I allow for the possibility that I don't have to do everything, like what's the point of me, you know? If, if things can function in my absence-

   17. CWChris Williamson18:24

       Mm.

   18. LVLaura Vanderkam18:24

       ... what is the point of me?

   19. CWChris Williamson18:26

       Yes.

   20. LVLaura Vanderkam18:26

       You know, well, you know, point of view, like everyone, we all have inherent worth apart from anything we do, which is very fortunate, because the earth is gonna go on spinning in all of our absence. So it's, uh, you know, better get our heads around that, you know? It's like in a cosmic sense it's true, so it's probably gonna be true for, you know, two hours on a Tuesday night as well.

   21. CWChris Williamson18:44

       ... relinquishing control in that way. I, I, I, I feel like that's a lesson. Uh, uh, for all of the guys that are listening, uh, the people that don't have kids yet, if you have been a part of a team, if you've been part of a business, reflect on all of the times that you didn't dare let anybody else touch the presentation before it went out. This is the exact same dynamic.

   22. LVLaura Vanderkam19:03

       Mm-hmm.

   23. CWChris Williamson19:03

       I'm, I'm speaking to 23-year-old, 24-year-old me who did 210 Saturdays in a row without a single break, setting up a nightclub that I could have paid some student £30 to go and do. But no, no, no, no, because if the, the inflatable wasn't quite over the, the lighting rig at the exact right angle, then it was gonna look bad. And if it looked bad, maybe that would be the beginning of the end for the company and da, da, da. Like, just total overbearing neuroticism and a, a lack of understanding that other people can do what you do, uh, and yeah, as well, a desire to feel important and, and to want to be the crux of things. Uh, and this is very much, I think, British people probably, uh, feel a massive affinity. The Puritan work ethic is, it's, it's strong. Strong in the British people is the Puritan work ethic. But, um, yeah. So, going

5. 19:49 – 25:06

   The Need to Set a Bedtime

   1. CWChris Williamson19:49

      back to the first rule, which I can't believe that people don't know, but this may be news to someone that you should give yourself a bedtime.

   2. LVLaura Vanderkam19:56

      (laughs) It, it, you know, we should all know it. It's kind of amazing how many people don't do it, though. Um, you know, I've seen a couple memes on social media lately, like one was somebody saying, "I would do absolutely anything to get eight hours of sleep, except go to bed eight hours before I need to wake up." (laughs) So, well, that, there's an idea. We could try that one. (laughs) Or, you know, it, it's like a, you know, 7:00 PM me says like, "Oh, I'm gonna get, I need to get eight hours of sleep tonight." Midnight me, "Whoops, there it went again." You know, it's, it's just people, for many reasons, stay up past when we know we should. But, um, it's really so much better to get the amount of sleep that you need every single night. And, and often people are like, "Oh, well, I, I can get by on less," and maybe you can for two nights, three nights, but then your body will force you to make it up. Like, we have a sleep set point that your body is aiming toward, and if you purposefully skimp on it for a couple of days, eventually, you know, the piper must be paid and you will, you know, crash somewhere or another. It's often, you know, sleeping in on weekends, but it can be falling asleep on the couch in front of the TV. It's, um, you know, sleeping through alarms. It's hitting snooze three times. So, all of these are just ways your body forces you to catch up on sleep. So, you're not saving time. You're just moving the time somewhere else. And the question is, you know, is staying up between 11:00 PM and midnight, like whatever you were doing between 11:00 PM and midnight, was that so much better than what you would've done in that other time where your body is forcing you to catch up on the sleep? And most of the time, I'm guessing, it probably isn't. Um, but again, you know, we need to do it. So, figure out what time you need to wake up in the morning, count back the amount of sleep you need. I generally have to be up around 6:30 AM for, you know, getting my family ready. I need seven and a half hours of sleep, so my bedtime is 11:00 PM. That is just a math problem. It is nothing else. It is just a statement that 6:30 AM minus seven and a half hours gets us to 11:00 PM. And then you do something before that to make sure that you can get yourself into bed on time, you know, just an alarm, a note, something that, you know, 30 minutes before so you can wind down, brush your teeth, lock the doors, whatever it is you need to do. But I think another part of it, I mean, the reason we're staying up is 'cause that's time we can have for ourselves, right? It's, you know, free time. It's like everything's done, you're relaxed, you're like, "It's pleasant. I have control of my time. I can do what I want. Who wants to put an end to that?" But a lot of the other Tranquility by Tuesday rules are about giving yourself better leisure time at other points during your day, so you don't have to only get it between 11:00 and midnight.

   3. CWChris Williamson22:49

      First thing in the morning is also relatively tranquil as well. You know, especially if you-

   4. LVLaura Vanderkam22:53

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson22:53

      ... can push that wake time a tiny little bit earlier, and the sort of things that you will do at 6:00 AM versus the sor- sort of things that you will do at 11:00 PM are gonna be very different in terms of how you're going to feel about them the next day. Yeah, I mean, (laughs) for the people that have never tracked their sleep using a wearable like Whoop or an Eight Sleep mattress or something, you will be disgusted at how little sleep you get from the amount of time that you spend in bed. Now, you get, it's, it's not half, but it's not 100%. And if you get... I get somewhere typically between about 80 and 85% what's called sleep efficiency, at least on this app, uh, and that means that if I'm in bed for eight hours, I can sometimes get six hours and 45 minutes to six hours 30 of sleep. Like, hang on a second. I, I was in bed for... I did the thing, I did the thing for eight hours, and you're telling me that I've got the amount of sleep that Matthew Walker says is approaching someone that's pre-diabetic if I keep doing that for four days in a row. Like, I, this wasn't the deal that was made. So, yeah, I think another thing to add onto this, give yourself a bedtime, but I would highly recommend that people get a wearable for a, a little while. You get it for Christmas, right? And just teach yourself, force that red pill down your throat for 90 days to learn, okay, I, I actually need to be in bed for eight hours. 'Cause if you're in bed for seven hours, you would easily, easily get under six, six hours, five and a half hours of sleep, and that's, that's like super intense.

   6. LVLaura Vanderkam24:23

      Yeah. Well, and I'd point out, I, I think there's very few people who have like 100% sleep efficiency. I mean, that's probably just not the way the human body is, is built. But that's fine. It could be that, you know, you have a time in bed and you have a target sleep amount, and the target sleep amount may be low. It may be, you know, seven hours and your time in bed is 7:45 or 8:00 or something like that, or you know, but as long as it is not, you know, four hours, uh, which-

   7. CWChris Williamson24:47

      Four and a half.

   8. LVLaura Vanderkam24:47

      Yeah, which would suggest more of a, a problem, um, it's possible that those two numbers are, are different. I do know it's, being in bed for me seven and a half hours is, is what I need to do. Um, I fall asleep pretty quickly. I tend to sleep pretty well. I don't think there's a whole lot, I mean I've...... don't think there's a whole lot of, uh, not sleeping time, but, uh, you know, different people have different experiences.

6. 25:06 – 29:50

   Use Fridays for Planning

   1. LVLaura Vanderkam25:06

   2. CWChris Williamson25:06

      Plan on Fridays.

   3. LVLaura Vanderkam25:08

      Yeah. So, this is Tranquility by Tuesday rule number two, and it is about thinking through our upcoming weeks holistically, looking at all aspects of our life and looking at the whole week. So, it accomplish- it encompasses two parts. Uh, the first and most important is to plan. I think everybody needs a designated weekly planning time. You need to look forward to the upcoming week, ask yourself, "What's most important to me?" in three dimensions: career, relationships, self. Ask what you want to spend your time doing, ask what you need to spend your time doing, solve any logistical problems, uh, that you can spot when you are looking at the week as a whole. Make sure you have stuff that you are looking forward to. And, you know, you just do this week after week, and you can make steady progress toward your long-term goals 'cause you're always putting in steps toward the goals and, you know, putting a spot on your calendar for them, and that tends to, over time, mean you are spending more time on those things, and you're also feeling mar- more calm because you're seeing problems that you wouldn't see if you're just looking day-to-day. Um, so getting out of that day-to-day mindset and this is how people see, like, you know, you've got something huge due on Thursday, um, Wednesday is totally packed, you look at the week as a whole, you say, "Oh, I carve out time Monday and Tuesday to work on the thing that is due Thursday." Whereas if you were just going day-to-day, then Wednesday is either a total disaster, or you don't meet your deadline on Thursday. I mean, one of those two things is what's gonna happen. So, um, we do that. So, that's the most important part. But the Friday part, uh, is, is maybe a little bit more cryptic. I think Friday is a great time for planning, um, partly because at least by Friday afternoon, many people are not raring to go on anything else. Uh, it is really hard on Friday afternoon to start making project, you know, progress towards your long-term goals. You don't say, "I'm excited about, you know, taking on this new activity right now." Like, but you might be willing to think what future you should do, so turn what might be wasted time into some of your most productive minutes of the week. It's business hours, so if you need to make an appointment, you need to set up a meeting with someone, you're more likely to be successful in doing that, uh, versus Sunday night, which I know is another popular time for planning. It lets you use more of Monday. Like, if you plan on Monday morning, you're not gonna really get going on stuff until later in the day Monday, you need to set up meetings, and if you can't do them, then, you know, it's gonna be Tuesday, and again, if we're sliding into the weekend on Friday, like, we've just massively shortened our week. So, to use all of Monday, you plan on Friday. Um, but sort of the deepest reason is, you know, even people who really love their jobs can start to feel a little trepidation on Sunday night if they don't know what's waiting for them on Monday morning. And you know you got all this stuff, you don't know how you're gonna deal with it, if you leave Friday afternoon with a plan for Monday, then you can actually enjoy your time off because you're good. Like, you solved that problem. You know what, it's on your plate, you've got your marching orders, um, and I find that really helps people relax.

   4. CWChris Williamson28:05

      I very much like the idea of getting ahead of the week. Functionally, what... Have you got a worksheet? I know that you've got worksheets for other things, have you got a worksheet for Friday afternoons on your website?

   5. LVLaura Vanderkam28:17

      Um, I don't, but it's, it's not complicated. (laughs)

   6. CWChris Williamson28:21

      What does it look like? What does the, what does the precise process look like?

   7. LVLaura Vanderkam28:24

      Um, so, I have a planner, but, you know, you don't need one. It's ba- Uh, for years, I was just using a notebook from Target. Um, and I would put my career stuff on the left side of the page, and, you know, the relationships and personal stuff kind of on the right side of the page, look at my calendar for the upcoming week, and just list, you know, what do I wanna do in these categories? And it wouldn't be long, like, I, you know, the notebook is small, and I don't wanna go over a page. Uh, so that forces a little bit of, um, reckoning about what can actually fit in a week and, you know, what is truly most important. I'm not putting stuff like, you know, get kids to school every day or, you know, random stuff with my job. Like, I, you know, those aren't things that go on there. Uh, it's, it's more out of the ordinary sort of stuff, or steps toward long-term goals. So, as an example, I'm running a 5K with my oldest child on Thanksgiving. I run regularly, he does not.

   8. CWChris Williamson29:21

      (laughs)

   9. LVLaura Vanderkam29:21

      He needs to start doing that with me. We need to carve out one time. I mean, he's, he's gonna be faster than me, he just needs to, like, actually run a few times before this happens, you know. We, we were out of practice. So, you know, we need to carve out at least one time in the next week to do a run together. So, I've got that on the list. Like, that's a family priority for the upcoming week, and as, so that, you know, this isn't a crisis when we get to Thanksgiving, he's like, "Mom, I can't do it." Like, you know, if we're gonna do it together, like, we take the steps toward the, toward the goals there. Um, so it's stuff like that.

7. 29:50 – 32:47

   Do Physical Activity By 3pm

   1. LVLaura Vanderkam29:50

   2. CWChris Williamson29:50

      Move by 3:00 PM.

   3. LVLaura Vanderkam29:52

      So, this is, um, another sort of foundational habit. I, you know, I love when people exercise, but I think we have sort of a faulty idea of what exercise needs to be. It doesn't need to be an hour in the gym that leaves you covered in sweat. Uh, it doesn't have to involve any equipment. Physical activity, in and of itself, is good for the human body. We are built to move far more than we truly do. Um, so we need to be in the habit of moving every single day. And so I suggest, you know, build this habit by 10 minutes of physical activity at some point before 3:00 PM each day. Now, if you say, "Well, I work out in the evening, I go to the gym after work." That's awesome. Like, you keep doing that. But you could still take a 10-minute walk break at some point during your workday before 3:00 PM, and in fact, that would be a really, really good idea. Um, because, you know, many jobs involve sitting, and many jobs feel like they could be done just sort of back to back to back, going one thing to the next. But everyone takes breaks in some shape, you know, or form, it's just sometimes they're unintentional. I'm telling people to take an intentional break, to do something that...... is pretty much guaranteed to boost your mood and boost your energy levels. Um, look at your day strategically, see where you can squeeze it in. You'll get the benefit of the exercise, of course, but you'll also get the bene- benefit of that strategic thinking if you're looking at your day as a whole, seeing where the space could go. And it was that strategic mindset, which, as much as anything, is what I was trying to teach people with this rule.

   4. CWChris Williamson31:25

      The more that I spend time around guys like Aaron Alexander that does the Align podcast, and Ben Greenfield, it- I think that the next big fitness movement is going to be beyond progressive overload and weightlifting and zone two cardio and, like, sort of the stuff that most people understand, and into, "Your body is like a battery. It needs to be exposed to the elements. It needs to see sunlight, it needs to enter your eyes. You need to get some time in and around nature that would be good for you. You need to be near grass." Some of the research is a bit woo for me at the moment, but the guys that are starting to come to the fore seem to be more evidence-based, which gives me more belief in it, and from an N of one total anecdote, I feel better when I do that stuff. So yeah, I mean, it blows my mind that we have to say... and don't get me wrong, like I've gone through... there was- there would have been months of me during my 20s where I wouldn't have moved by 3:00 PM, and what I would have thought is, "Well yeah, but I'm gonna go and annihilate myself for 90 minutes later on. I'm gonna go and lift heavy things with my friends with loud music playing, so I fixed it." That's not, that's not really health or fitness. That's just lifting weights, that's just bodybuilding or whatever, like, pursuit you're going after. So yeah, I think a more holistic view of what it means to move, uh, is something that I would be very, very surprised if we don't see, like, completely on the ascendancy soon.

8. 32:47 – 38:42

   Form Habits by Doing Something 3x a Week

   1. CWChris Williamson32:47

      And then talking about habits, three times a week is a habit. What's that mean?

   2. LVLaura Vanderkam32:52

      (laughs) Yeah, so this is about a mindset shift, um, of many people when they have things they want to do in their lives, their first thought is, "I should be doing it daily." Um, and, you know, that's how a lot of people think about habits. Like, "Oh, this is gonna be my daily habit." But the truth is, even people who have really good habits in life, often they don't do them daily. I mean, one of the occupational hazards of writing about time management, people always want to tell me about their great daily habits, and I talk to them a little bit more, and I find that they often mean Monday through Friday. But that's not daily. That is five times a week, right? So, you know, we're still under seven. We're not at daily. Like, you know, you might consider it a very frequent part of your life, but it isn't every single day. So the question is then, well, how many days does it have to be to be, you know, an important part of your life? And I- I think three is a defensible number. It's often, it's just not always. And it's often a very doable number. Um, so I've... when I asked people in my project to think about things that they wanted to have in their lives more frequently, and I asked them to think about when was the last time you did this? Like the majority had done it in the last week, and an even bigger majority had done it within the last month. Like these are things people do sometimes. The question is how can we go from sometimes to regularly? And I think aiming for three times a week tends to be doable, 'cause if you're already doing something once a week, getting to three is not that hard, right? You're just saying, "How can I do this twice more?" Like at some point in my life, in the whole of seven days, can I find two more spots? And that is a very doable thing, and then you're the person who's doing it regularly. It can be part of your identity. So what are we talking about here? I mean, it could be a formal workout, like going to lift weights, right? That would be something that you might aim to do three times a week. It could be, you know, practicing a musical instrument. Doing that three times a week in a busy life would be enough to have it feel like it is part of your identity, you know. You are somebody who plays the guitar. You are somebody who is regularly playing the piano, um, or singing your scales or whatever it happens to be. Uh, you know, it might be something like practicing a foreign language, it might be something, you know, relationship-based, like getting one-on-one time with family members or eating family meals together. It could be connecting with your partner in some way, shape, or form. Um, any of- any of these things would make excellent three times a week sort of things. And sure, there are some things that should be done daily, right? Like our moving by 3:00 PM, I- it should happen every single day. But the things that are going to happen daily need to be very small, 'cause in general in life it is hard to do something every single day. I have done a few streaks at various points in my life, um, because I'm obsessed with streaks. I find them fascinating. Uh, but I can also tell you it can wind up being something that you then have to schedule a lot of your life around to make sure that it happens every single day. Allowing for three times a week is just more doable for so many people. When something is doable, then we do it, as opposed to sort of lamenting that it can't be part of our lives, which is what happens when people aim for daily.

   3. CWChris Williamson35:52

      That's the "perfect is the enemy of done," right? What-

   4. LVLaura Vanderkam35:56

      Yeah. Perfect is the enemy of the good, perfect is the enemy of done.

   5. CWChris Williamson36:00

      Why-

   6. LVLaura Vanderkam36:00

      Aiming for perfect is just a problem.

   7. CWChris Williamson36:02

      Why is the identity thing a component here? Why is that... You've mentioned a couple of times y- you can call yourself a footballer, soft-baller, guitar player. Why is that a contributor?

   8. LVLaura Vanderkam36:16

      Because I think it helps people have a vision of themselves as something that you have more control over, right? That you're not just your job, you are not just, you know, caring for family members or anything you need to do there. There is this other aspect to you that is a different- a different identity, to use that word again. And- and this is, you know, how people get their self-image too, right? Like, you know, it's something that you can feel more control over, more autonomy, you can see progress in. All of those things are associated with wellbeing. Um, and- and so, you know, I found that people, especially in what I call the busy years, of people, you know, building their careers, raising their families, they do wind up often feeling like they don't have the identity they wish to have. Like they're- they're missing that component. And so, you know, whatever it is, having that be...... part of your life, you know, part of your life story, this is something I make space for regularly, um, can, can make you feel more like you are making time for what matters.

   9. CWChris Williamson37:12

      My favorite rule from Atomic Habits by James Clear is never miss two days in a row, and that is exactly the same as what you're talking about here. You know, three times a week is an acceptable habit, and three times a week also happens to line up with never miss two days in a row.

   10. LVLaura Vanderkam37:29

       Well, I think you might miss two once (laughs) , right, if you do three.

   11. CWChris Williamson37:33

       Hm. What other-

   12. LVLaura Vanderkam37:33

       'Cause you could do Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then you'd miss Saturday, Sunday, and do Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

   13. CWChris Williamson37:36

       Damn it, James.

   14. LVLaura Vanderkam37:38

       (laughs) .

   15. CWChris Williamson37:39

       Come on, now. But yeah, i- i- i- in, in broad strokes-

   16. LVLaura Vanderkam37:42

       But I think that works for people too. You know-

   17. CWChris Williamson37:43

       Yes.

   18. LVLaura Vanderkam37:43

       ... if it's kind of just you, then you do it four times a week, right? Then you'd never miss two days in a while, if you want to aim for that.

   19. CWChris Williamson37:48

       Close enough.

   20. LVLaura Vanderkam37:48

       Like, the exact number doesn't matter. It's more that you want a doable number. And I think for many people, three is, is probably more doable than aiming for four or five.

   21. CWChris Williamson37:57

       Yes. Oh, also, the momentum as well, of having a minimum viable whatever it is. It's so strange. I see it in myself as I've started to try and do new stuff with a new lifestyle out here in Austin, trying to build new habits having been the person that's harped on about, you know, minimum viable and just one push-up's enough and stuff like that. But ego gets in the way, and ego tries to tell you, "Well, yeah, but if, if, if it's not, if I can't get th- the optimal amount, and maybe I should do a bit of research about how much pickleball I actually should be playing, and oh, if I can't get in there for a full hour, what's the point of going for 15 minutes?" Uh, and th- the bottom line, I think, is intentionality again. Like, look, just, what did you say, what did you say was a good rule? Good rule was to just do it if you can-

   22. LVLaura Vanderkam38:39

       (laughs) .

   23. CWChris Williamson38:39

       ... to just do it.

   24. LVLaura Vanderkam38:40

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson38:40

       And just get it done.

   26. LVLaura Vanderkam38:40

       Do it.

   27. CWChris Williamson38:41

       All right.

9. 38:42 – 43:19

   Creating Backup Slots in Your Schedule

   1. CWChris Williamson38:42

      Create a backup slot.

   2. LVLaura Vanderkam38:44

      Yeah, so we need resilient schedules. I mean, people get very frustrated that they make plans to spend time on their priorities, and then life intervenes. Um, and the more sort of moving parts you have in your life, the more likely that life will intervene. Um, that, you know, you might want to meet with an employee at work to talk about the great things they're doing, and then, you know, right before you're supposed to meet there's some huge client crisis. Or, you know, on your personal front, you're trying to get together with a friend that you haven't seen in a while, and then, you know, something happens. One of you gets sick, or there's, you know, a work emergency for one of you or whatever. And then these things get very frustrating. Like, "I wanted to make it happen. I did my best. Life intervened." So, what we need is i- if people have been invited to outdoor events, you know that often on the invitation it says, "A rain date." And this is really just a great scheduling concept if you think about it. The organizers are acknowledging that much can go predictably wrong with outdoor events. Like, it's right there in the rain date name. But there's no question of whether the event will be rescheduled or for when. It will be on the rain date. And so, if you want to go to this event, you won't put anything unmovable in the second slot. And by having a rain date, you vastly increase the chances that the event happens even if not when originally planned. And so, if something is important to you in life, you need a rain date for it, right? You need a, a time where, if you're meeting with an employee, you and, you know, he both know when this is gonna get rescheduled to if the first time doesn't happen. Um, if you and your friend are planning to get together Tuesday night, you know, and it's been planned for a long time, you really wanna make it happen. Well, why not say like, "Look, I wanna make Tuesday happen, and for some reason it doesn't happen, we are automatically gonna reschedule for next Tuesday." Why not that, why not do that? Like, right? That, that just-

   3. NANarrator40:38

      (laughs) .

   4. LVLaura Vanderkam40:38

      ... vastly increases the chances that it happens, that you get together with your friends. Now, I, it can get unwieldy to create designated rain dates for everything. Um, so, you know, for, for sort of life in general, it helps to just have more open space, because then you can put things in the open space when life doesn't go as planned. So, if some emergency bumps one of your priorities earlier, you know, you put that priority in the open space. Um, if some great opportunity comes up, you have spots to put it, because you have not booked every single minute. And, and I actually find that having that open space allows you to be more open to opportunity. You're not pushing it away 'cause you have no time for it, right? You're, you're sort of like, "Yeah," you know, stuff comes, "I'll, I'll read that email from the person I didn't know to see, you know, what they have to say." Or, um, you know, your friend mentions getting together and you're like, "I've got open space to do it," and then you have a conversation that leads to something really productive. Like, open space allows those things to happen. Um, so we need to have open space in our lives, and that's what gives us resilient schedules.

   5. CWChris Williamson41:42

      Have you found a correlation between how busy successful people's schedules are and how successful the successful people are?

   6. LVLaura Vanderkam41:49

      (laughs) Well, I mean, I think everyone has a different approach, 'cause I'm sure there are plenty of people who, you know, call themselves successful and are successful that, you know, have booked themselves solid, right? Like, I, you know, it's fine. Uh, we all have different approaches. I do think, though, especially, um, you know, a lot of the people who wind up reading my books and listening to my podcasts are women who have kids and also have jobs. And I think I write for everyone, but I have found that one of my things that draws people to my work is I have acknowledged that stuff can go wrong that is totally not your fault that keeps you from doing productive things, and you need a plan for it. I mean, there's a lot of, you know, .......................... or others, you know, who have never had a childcare crisis in their life. Like, they don't understand the idea that you could have a huge day full of meetings and, like, your babysitter could call in sick. Like, they, they do not even get the concept that that could happen. And yet, a lot of people, that is their life. And so, it's like, you know, thinking about, "Well, what can I do? Like, will I need backup childcare options? I also need backup slots, so if I cannot get to something on one day, where can it go so I'm still a reliable person who meets my obligations, um, in a timely manner?" And I, you know, a lot of my audience needs to think about that.... and, you know, it's- it's- it's how you make life work. Um, so, yeah, I'm- I'm- I think that some people can get away with a little bit less open space, um, but the more moving parts you have in your life, probably the more space you need.

10. 43:19 – 50:12

    One Big Adventure, One Little Adventure

    1. LVLaura Vanderkam43:19

    2. CWChris Williamson43:19

       One big adventure, one little adventure.

    3. LVLaura Vanderkam43:23

       So, this is about making life more memorable. Um, a lot of adult life can become pretty much the same day-to-day. A lot of people have the experience, you know, you get up, get ready for work, you work, you, you know, get to the end of the day, have dinner, watch TV, go to bed, um, and you do this day-after-day-after-day. And it's fine. There's nothing wrong with routines because routines make good choices automatic, but when too much thing that stacks up, like, all of it, it feels like whole years are disappearing into these memory sinkholes, where, you know, nothing exists to, you know, distinguish one day, one week, one year from another. And the solution to this is to start putting in some memorable things. And one big adventure, one little adventure is to have two adventures each week. A big adventure is three to four hours, half a weekend day. A little adventure could be less than an hour, you know, doable on a lunch break, doable on a weekday evening, as long as it's out of the ordinary. And this is a pace that is not going to exhaust or bankrupt anyone. Like, if you like to come home from work and get in your pajamas, four out of five days, you can do just that (laughs) you know? If you like to spend your weekends on the couch, that is totally fine, you just take three hours to do something other than being on the couch, okay? You know, it's not going to exhaust or bankrupt anyone. But, it will change your entire experience of time, partly 'cause you start looking for things to do. You start being on the lookout for adventures. Like, you become an adventurous person. It's part of your identity. You're the one who's looking for that fun thing to do. And you also just create so many more memories. And- and our perception of how much time we have is, uh, influenced by how many memories we have of any given unit of time, so the more memories we have of a particular stretch of time, the longer it feels like it was. Uh, and- and so this is creating more memories. It's, like, not just another week that was like every week. It was like, "No, that's the week that we went mini golfing, that's w- the week we went for that hike in the state park to see the changing leaves, that's the week we tried that new place that serves the excellent hot chocolate." You know, these are all the things that would make this week different from all other weeks.

    4. CWChris Williamson45:40

       That insight of trying to create novelty and variety, uh, and intensity in order to make life feel like it goes slower is something that I've kept, what, three years ago, three and a half years ago, I think was the first time you were on the show. I keep on spouting on about that, you know, why is it that life continues to seem like it's going quicker as I get older? I know that I- uh, times... Literally, we- we have formula that tell us that time doesn't change at speed. Like, at least your subjective passage of time can do, but the objective passage of time doesn't. And, yeah, that, I think that's so, uh, such a good way to look at things. I suppose, as well, if you've got little adventures planned out even further ahead, you can enjoy the anticipation of those as they're coming up.

    5. LVLaura Vanderkam46:28

       Mm-hmm.

    6. CWChris Williamson46:28

       Uh, Tim Ferriss has got this idea about having at least four holidays booked in at once. He's got holidays booked in for 2025 and 2026 and stuff like that, because he wants... Th- there is a good amount of joy that you take from the anticipation of going away and doing a trip or something, and you can get excited with your friends and research the cafe that you're gonna go to, or whatever.

    7. LVLaura Vanderkam46:49

       No, I mean, I'm- I'm all about anticipation. I mean, I think, you know, it can be hard to do more than a- a year out for various reasons (laughs) , um, you know? And I've had the experience personally of, uh, you know, thinking I'd do something in- in a year and then, you know, it's at the same time that we've been, like, building our family. I have five kids now and, you know, you wind up, like, with a newborn, it's like, "Probably that thing isn't happening," so, I don't know. It- it's a different experience, I guess. But, uh, you know, it, I- I do think that, um, making life memorable is a worthwhile endeavor, and that the reason, yeah, as we get older, it seems that time is accelerating is because we're not putting ourselves outside of our comfort zone at all. Like, you know, that's great with adult life, we get to do what we wanna do. Like, you don't have to do things that you don't. I mean, it's kind of a privilege of- of adulthood in some ways. But, uh, you know, one of the reasons people remember high school and college, young adulthood so much is because there was so much that was new. It was, you know, first jobs, moving to new cities, uh, meeting new people, uh, you know, new relationships. Uh, you know? And obviously you're not gonna do that, and hopefully, you know, if you're settled with someone, you're not starting new relationships. But you need to think about ways that you can make things feel more novel and intense and maybe a little bit less in your comfort zone. A- and it can be hard in the moment, right? Like, future us is gonna be happy we did it. Current us kind of wants to sit on the couch (laughs) , right? Um, but- but thinking about future us and having that picture of ourselves on the other side can be really helpful in nudging that little action forward. And, you know, often, adventures are enjoyable things. I mean, it takes a little bit of effort to get going, but then you're gonna have fun while you're doing it, you're gonna make the memories, and you can look back on that afterwards and be grateful that, you know, the current you did decide to not just sit there.

    8. CWChris Williamson48:35

       What advice would you give to people who struggle with discipline when it comes to those situations? They have the choice between the comfy couch and the adventure that they promised themselves, and they need, I don't know, a mantra or a philosophy or somewhere firm to stand that they can push off of in that situation.

    9. LVLaura Vanderkam48:52

       Yeah, there's a couple things you can do. I mean, the most simple is just, you know, have this mantra, is, uh, plan it and do it anyway (laughs) . So, if you planned it in, it's because you thought you would enjoy it. Um, and so, given that you thought you would when you were making the plan, there's a pretty good chance that you will.... it's just you have to overcome that slight inertia to do it. You can also ask, "Am I gonna be happy to have this as a memory?" And if you would, like if you could say, you know, "I would probably like to, you know, three hours from now look back on saying, 'Wow, that was such a beautiful hike through that park with all the changing fall leaves," you know? If, if you're gonna be happy to have that memory, then picture yourself having that memory, and in the service of that memory, go do that thing, right? (laughs) Uh, y- you're still gonna have downtime. Like, this is the part that, you know, people are like, "Well, I wanna relax." I mean, you're gonna relax. Like, there is always unstructured time. It's just a question of, like, are you gonna spend all day doing that, or are you gonna have a couple hours to do this other thing and then have your unstructured time afterwards, having had the memory of doing something different with your time?

    10. CWChris Williamson50:02

        I love those. I think that's really, really important. And I think that that's a sticking point a lot of people are going to find themselves at, so, yes, both very, very useful. Okay. Batch the little things.

11. 50:12 – 1:00:19

    Batching the Little Tasks in Life

    1. CWChris Williamson50:13

    2. LVLaura Vanderkam50:13

       Yeah. So, this is about creating more open space in our lives for the things that we want to spend time doing. I think many people having had the experience of feeling like the little things in life are just sucking up all your brain space. Um, you know, these are small tasks at work. "You gotta fill out that form for HR. You gotta respond to these non-urgent messages. You gotta set up that week, you know, meeting for two weeks from now." And it's like, you have to do these things, but they don't really have to get done urgently. Or on the home front, you know, people are like, "I have to order light bulbs. I have to fill out that permission slip for a kid," or whatever it is. And it can feel like you're spending all your time on these things. Each thing probably doesn't take that much time, but, but, you know, if you're spreading them out over your entire schedule, you can be spending your life on the minutiae and feeling like you have no time for either deeper work or relaxing. So, the solution is to batch all these things into short windows of time. So, for instance, you could say, you know, "In the afternoon between 1:30 and 2:15, I'm gonna tackle all these little tasks I have for today." Um, and, and what that allows you to do is, you know, spend your deeper work time in the morning on other things, right? You, you don't have to be like, "Oh, well, I was gonna be working on this project, but oh, God, I got, gotta get to that form for HR." Like, no, no. There is a time for that. Now is not that time. But even more importantly, and I think this is, uh, you know, this w- this is comes up a lot, is a lot of those little tasks are very effective tools for procrastination. Like, you're like, "Well, I- I'm supposed to be doing this hard project thinking about where my business is going and writing up this solution for this, and I... Oh, but I could go order that birthday present on Amazon." (laughs) And the birthday present, it's done. It's, you know, you cross it off the list. Like, it feels like you accomplished something, even though really it was just distracting you from, from something that you should've been putting your effort into. So, um, you know, by batching the little things, you also deprive yourself of some of those easy wins so that you are gonna force yourself to try to get the bigger wins, um, knowing that there's a time, you know, that you are gonna get all those easy wins together.

    3. CWChris Williamson52:16

       One of the most uncomfortable realizations is knowing that almost everything that's on your to-do list probably doesn't move you that much closer to your goals, and that there is one thing today that might contribute 50%, two things that'll probably contribute 2- 20%, and then everything else is maybe even less. Maybe, maybe it's even more toward that first one. And, uh, yeah, you, you, you flip the bar stool upside down and try to sit on it in a desperate attempt to make yourself feel like you're being productive. Are there any other things, when it comes to to-do list creation, management, writing, are there any other big no-nos or errors that you see people making?

    4. LVLaura Vanderkam52:55

       People, people make their to-do lists too long. That there's anything, it's a wish list, anything in the planet that they might wish to do at some point or another. There's no order to it. There's no sense of urgency to it. There's no sense of what is important now and what is not. And so, of course you don't get through everything. But if you've got 50 items on your to-do list, you know, you get through seven, like, the problem is, were those seven the things that you meant to do today, like you really should've done today, or were they not? Um, whereas if you consciously choose only seven things to do today and you get through those seven things, well, you feel wonderfully accomplished. And like you know that those were the things that you set out to do and you, you did them. And, you know, uh, it, there's no virtue in putting something on a to-do list and then not doing it. It's just as not done if you, as if you never put it on the list in the first place. But, you know, now you feel bad (laughs) 'cause it's sitting there uncrossed off, and you push it to the next day and push it to the next day and so on in- in eternum. So, um, better to think of the to-do list more as a contract with yourself, that if you're putting something on the to-do list for the day or the week, you really, truly intend to do it. And in order for that to be true, given that, as we noted, life comes up, it's gotta be short. Like, there's no way around it. You can't fill all available space. It has to be shorter than the available space, 'cause stuff will come up, and it has to be, you know, very focused. So, I think that's- that's the better way of doing to-do lists.

    5. CWChris Williamson54:30

       Effortful before effortless, which is my favorite one of the list.

    6. LVLaura Vanderkam54:34

       Oh, good. Well, this is the last one on the list. This is rule number nine in Tranquility by Tuesday, and this is about how we spend our leisure time. So, even the busiest people have some amount of leisure time. But the problem is that a lot of it is short in duration, it is uncertain in duration. You know, you don't know. Are you gonna have five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes? It happens during low energy times, so, you know, at night after you're done with work, done with your chores, that is the leisure time you have. And, you know, screen time fills all these constraints incredibly well. Like, you can be on Twitter for two minutes or 20 minutes or two hours. It doesn't really matter. Like, we'll take all that time, whatever you wanna give it.... um, you know, you don't need to plan ahead or, you know, make plans with friends or anything, like, in order to watch Netflix. Um, you don't need to expend a whole lot of energy. It's not making any demands of you. And because of these attributes of screen time, it winds up filling the bulk of our leisure time. And there is nothing wrong with that. Like, I like social media and I like television. There's a lot of good stuff on. The problem is that in the abstract, many people would like to spend some of their leisure time on other things, right? They would like to spend some of their leisure time on those things that we always say we don't have time for, like reading, hobbies, uh, connecting with friends. And so, in order to make more space for those things, we have to start repurposing some of these smaller bits of leisure and some of these low energy times of leisure. So, one of the best ways you can do this is to challenge yourself to do just a few minutes of effortful fun before effortless fun. So, if you've got a spot of time, you're about to pick up your phone, open, you know, one of the e-reading apps. Like, read an e-book for two minutes, and then you can go to Twitter, right? Or if you are, you know, putting the kids in bed or you've, you know, finished your chores or whatever it is and you're about to watch Netflix, like, do a puzzle for 10 minutes, and then go watch Netflix. And one of two things will happen. Like, often people get so into their effortful fun that they just keep going with it, right? They wanna find out what happened in that book. Like, they're seeing the puzzle take shape, you know? They're making progress on their hobbies. It's very exciting. They stick with it, um, and that's great 'cause Facebook will still be there whenever you come back to it. Uh, but even if you don't, you've switched the balance, and so you have at least some more of that high quality leisure time in your life than you would have had before. And that tends to make people feel more satisfied with their leisure time, and it also tends to make them notice it. I mean, many people don't even notice those small, you know, screen checks during the day. They don't notice how much time they might have at night before they go to bed that they could devote to various sorts of leisure. But when you are actively choosing some of these more effortful forms of fun, it's hard to not notice it, and so your narrative becomes like, "I do have free time. I do have leisure time. I can make time for these things." And, and it changes our entire perception of what life is like.

    7. CWChris Williamson57:37

       I very much like to think about little approaches like that, where you can... Every single time that you go to go and do something, you slot an additional bit of friction in beforehand. So, you can also do this, I suppose, in reverse, which is that if you want to do something which is effortless, you could make it more effortful. So, I have... If I try and use my phone after 8:00 PM on a night, I'm supposed to stand up when I want to use it. So, I have to go and do it, but I'm like, "Okay, I'm stood up." (laughs)

    8. LVLaura Vanderkam58:07

       (laughs) You're not on the couch, yeah, yeah.

    9. CWChris Williamson58:09

       Precisely, yeah, because the more sedentary that you are, the longer that you're going to stay on the phone, and you know that the phone after 8:00 PM... I'm in- I'm on CST and a ton of my friends are in the UK, and if I'm not out with people in the US, I'm, th- nothing good is happening on my phone after 8:00 PM, right? So, it's like, okay, well, l- let's add a little bit of friction in there. The same thing goes for doing little, little bits and pieces of work as well. When it comes to combining all of these rules together, I know that you had a process that people went through and they sort of batched them and stuff. I'm going to guess that trying to do all of these at once might be a little overwhelming and a little too much. W- Is there a protocol that people should follow when it comes to trying to introduce these?

    10. LVLaura Vanderkam58:47

        Yeah. So, when I did this project, I had 150 people try out these rules over nine weeks, and what I did is each rule I would introduce each week, right? So, each r- week, they would learn a new rule. Um, they would then answer questions about how they plan to implement it. They would follow up a week later with questions on how it went. And I went in a certain order. The first one is to give yourself a bedtime precisely because everything feels easier when you're getting enough sleep. The second one is to plan on Fridays, and that's because then you can see your week and think where you might do things, like plan in open space and plan in adventures and all these sorts of things, right? So, there's an order to it. Um, and what I had people do is they would learn a- learn the rule and then add another one, and then add another one. So, hopefully the first one is starting to feel a little bit more ingrained by the time you start the next one. And then, you know, you remind yourself to do both of those, and as you're building that, you add in the third one and, and, and so forth. And, you know, you don't have to do this. Like, I mean, if it sounded appealing to you to try the effortful before effortless fun, like, go ahead and do that first, you know? There's nothing wrong with doing that. You can certainly try that at any point that you like. But yeah, I do think that trying to adopt all nine habits at, you know, the exact same moment might be a little bit overwhelming. Um, so, you know, maybe, maybe try doing it a week at a time a- and see how it goes. And some of them might take a little bit longer to become habits. You might have to remind yourself of some of them a little bit more as you're going through, but, you know, that's like anything. I- It takes some time to develop habits and to make them stick. Um, so, you know, over time, hopefully that will happen.

12. 1:00:19 – 1:01:08

    Where to Find Laura

    1. LVLaura Vanderkam1:00:19

    2. CWChris Williamson1:00:19

       Laura Vanderkam, ladies and gentlemen. If people want to check out the stuff that you do online, where should they go?

    3. LVLaura Vanderkam1:00:24

       You can come visit my website, which is lauravanderkam.com. Um, you can learn about Tranquility by Tuesday and all my other books there, learn about my podcasts. Um, I have a short every weekday morning, one called Before Breakfast that's just a daily tip to help take your day from great to awesome. Um, and so yeah, come visit me there. We have a great comment section on my blog. I'm still blogging. I love blogging. (laughs) So, love to hear from people there.

    4. CWChris Williamson1:00:47

       Thanks, Laura.

    5. LVLaura Vanderkam1:00:48

       Thanks so much for having me.

    6. CWChris Williamson1:00:49

       What's happening, people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks, and don't forget to subscribe. Peace.

Episode duration: 1:01:08