Free up time. Every. Single. Day
A few months back someone in a feed on social media suggested to prepare a “Not to do list”. A reflection of things one should stop doing. This is a quite common practice in the workspace, but less common in your own space. Hmm, I thought, Why not?
My list ended up with 5 items:
Facebook
Long to do lists (…)
Spread meetings over the entire work week
Games on my mobile
Smartphone in the bedroom
Did you just begin to reflect on the pros & cons of the 5 items? Well, they may not be the right ones for you! I felt these were right for me and have executed on them accordingly.
Reflecting on it, I realize that they have one key thing in common: They take focus away from what is important and rob me from my respites during the day.
They had all gotten so ingrained in my daily routines that I just did them without thinking – like when you look at your wristwatch even though you actually already know the time…
From Spending Time to Gaining Time
Initially, I contemplated to take a break from Facebook altogether. I disliked this quite a bit as I have a lot of good friends important to me around the world that I mainly am in contact with through Facebook. So I deleted Facebook from my phone. Et voila: 90% of my time on Facebook evaporated!
Gradually more and smaller items had sneaked their way in on my to do lists. Suddenly “moving the lawn” or “weekly meeting” found its way to my lists. Hey, let’s face it: these things would eventually get done whether on the list or not. I found myself sometimes having crossed out 50% of the items on my to-do list. Offhand it felt good and accomplished, but the reality frequently was that I had procrastinated with the small simple things at the expense of more important matters.
Meetings can kill. Almost literally, and certainly meetings can kill positive energy or your creativity. Luckily, I decide myself, which meetings I join, so today I am only in meetings I desire to be in. This is pure luxury compared to the past in corporate life! Even then, I found myself having physical meetings scattered across the week. Every such meetings robs you of a lot of valuable time: for transport, interrupting the task you were working deeply concentrated on, buffer, the coffee before and after etc. etc. Now I group all physical meetings into one day. If the meeting cannot happen this day, then it must wait until next week (which it generally can) I save hours! My focus is uninterrupted.
I had 7-8 small games on my mobile: Sudoku, Mahjong, Hearts (interestingly, right now I cannot even remember the others…). I have deleted them. I often used them as a small break or reward. Travelling, I often ended up playing for a while. Waiting for the metro, I could just manage a quick game. Waiting for someone, it was a little pastime. Before going to sleep, I could do just one little game. Or two. The thing is that all of these small breaks replaced proper breaks. As human beings we need a little respite, a breather, a proper break from work, from IT, SoMe or just from doing stuff. We need to reclaim these many small moments of “nothing”. Although they are not “nothing”! They are moments of preparation for the next thing, for putting your mind right again, for reflecting on how that last thing went. For remembering to call your loved ones. You know, just like the marbled fat in a good steak is not the core but nevertheless core to a great steak – then the many small breaks during the day are not core, but they are core to a good life.
Like so many others, I found myself starting and ending my day with my smartphone. I stopped that. Now I start my days by reflecting on what this day should bring, what I would like to achieve today and how I best can go about it. I end my days on looking back on how the day went, what went right and what could go better next time. I often think about my children or others dear to me, not just work or Facebook feed. It is infinitely more relevant and it is a great way to start or end the day. It recharges my batteries in a wonderful way.
The amazing thing is this: I have improved my life dramatically with these 5 things. I genuinely feel I have lost nothing. I estimate I have regained probably 1.5 hours of valuable time per day. Every day. Most importantly: I have regained all the small breaks. The small watering holes we all need in order to be our best through the day – and life.
Try it! I promise you, it is so worth your time.
Check out more on my website: www.anderskoksbang.com/i-m-anders
