456 - Laura Vanderkam On Time Freedom Habits From The World’s Most Successful People

0:00I think we share a little bit of similar DNA. and I have been and love talking about productivity and time management. It's just a topic area I can't get enough of. We talk about it a lot on the show. So I'm really curious, where did you develop this love of this topic? How did this start for you? Yeah, well, I wish there was a really good story of hitting rock bottom and then that would make a much better self-help book. But I've always been interested in productivity and it really came to a head when I had my first kid several years ago. And I was trying to figure out how I could make the pieces of work and life fit together.

0:36And so I started studying people who were making it work. And as I looked at their schedules and asked questions about it, I saw that, you know, a lot of the stories we tell ourselves about where the time goes may have some problems with them. And I find that fascinating. So I decided to write about it. Yeah. And so then it just was because I know for some authors, they could, you know, go on to a topic and be like, okay, I kind of did this. but there must have been something about it for you that you're like, and I'm going to do it again and look at it from a different point of view. Yeah. Well, I find the topic fascinating because we all have the same amount of time.

1:07Yes. We all have 24 hours in a day, 168 hours in a week. And so when you find people who are doing all these amazing things in their lives, both personally and professionally, it's not because they have any more time than the rest of us. They may have other things going for them, but they don't have that. And so I enjoy studying what are they doing with their hours? How are they making the pieces of work and life fit together? And what can the rest of us learn from that? Yeah. So Being Off the Clock, which is the title of your latest book, as you call it, it implies time freedom, yet time freedom requires discipline.

1:39I want to talk about the time paradox, meaning that time is both precious and plentiful. I thought this was so fascinating. Why do you feel it's important to really dig into this paradox and like really understanding both where the minutes go and then almost simultaneously not wanting ourselves to be obsessed with where the minutes go? Yeah, there really is this paradox about it. And I mean, the whole genesis of off the clock came when I was feeling off the clock while on a run this morning in Maine, where I was there all by myself. Nobody was expecting me to do anything. I could do whatever I wanted.

2:10It was this very sort of liberating sense. And yet I realized in the moment when I was having this wonderful run along the Maine beach, that I had had to figure out so many logistics to get me to that place. in terms of making sure I didn't have work at that time, the logistics of getting there, childcare, all this other stuff. And so all that time discipline is what had led to time freedom. And as I explored this more with people, I saw that many of the people who do feel the most relaxed about their time are also the people who are most in control of their time. They have figured out where the time is going.

2:44They have figured out what needs to happen in their life. They have put the systems in place to make it work. And when you have that going on, well, then you can relax. Then you can enjoy time because you're not vaguely worried that something's not happening that's supposed to. You've got some deadline coming up you're not sure about. So that's when you can really feel off the clock. For me, the more disciplined I am, I do feel that's true. The more freedom I have. And I've seen that in the decades of my career. It's like the more organized I've become, then when it's time for me to be truly off the clock, I don't need to check into email.

3:17I don't need to pick up the phone. It's like things are taken care of. But so many people, I feel like, don't do the first basic steps, which we're going to get into, about figuring out, well, where does it all go? So when it comes to things like money or time, for me, it's always about, right, you can't measure what you don't manage. And I love the phrasing of Pearson's law, that which is measured improves, and that which is measured and reported improves exponentially. So let's talk about time tracking. That's one of your big... I get so excited about this. And for anyone in the audience who's like, no, like if they needed to, please don't make me, but it's so exciting.

3:54So for us, at least I'm not sure if everyone, but I feel like if we can inspire them to do it, because there's so much goodness and benefit and joy that can come from it and the results that can come if you're just willing to dig in there. So first, let's talk about you. What inspired you to start tracking your time? Well, I was curious about where my time went. And at the time I started tracking my time continuously, which I did in spring of 2015. So I now know where every half hour block of my time has gone since then, which I put this right out there. Nobody else has to do this. Nobody else has to track their time for three years.

4:26Don't worry. But I write about the topics that I looked at thousands of time logs at that point. I wanted to really see where my time went. And I had kept logs of a week here and there over the years. But I realized when I started tracking my time continuously that I had chosen very specific weeks to track in the past, like weeks that showed me as I wish to see myself, you know, the perfect week. And when you track all your time, of course, you can't do that. And so I got a much more holistic perspective on where the time goes. But yeah, I mean, if you want to spend your time better, you have to figure out where the time is going now.

5:02Because if you don't have good data, then your decision will be flawed. I mean, it's the same with any business decision. If you don't know which stores are selling what. How are you going to make right choices of what you're supposed to be doing with that? So that's really what it comes from. And I realized I had plenty of stories I was telling myself. Let's talk about them because I thought that was fascinating, like some of the big lies. And I think that's what's so valuable about being specific and taking the time to track anything, whether it's money or what you're eating. Every time I try kind of a new way of eating, you know, and I start to learn something new.

5:39I'm like, oh my goodness, it shows me so much about how I was kidding myself. I didn't think I ate it late at night. It's like, oh my goodness, I snack late night all the time. You start to discover these things. So with your time tracking, what were some of the lies or stories that you were telling yourself? Yes. The equivalent of the six Oreos from the kitchen next to the home office that magically disappeared on their own in the course of the day. Yeah. No, I had thought that I worked about 50 hours a week because the weeks I had tracked in the past, I'd always worked 50 hours a week. And it turned out that I had this story I was telling myself that I'm a serious professional who works long hours.

6:14With writing, sometimes people view it as a bit of a dilettante-ish sort of thing to do. So I'm very wedded to this idea of myself as a serious professional. And then when I tracked my time continuously, I realized that the average was a lot closer to 40 than it was to 50. And it's not that I never worked 50 hour weeks, because clearly I had, I'd recorded them in the past. I worked 60 hours a week. It's just, they weren't the norm any more than a week working 20 hours was. And so when I realized, well, the average is 40, not 50, that's 10 hours that even studying this topic very closely, I had no idea where they were going.

6:53And what did you discover about those 10 hours? Where did you start to go like, oh, oh, here's where it's sliding off to. Well, it's interesting. I mean, obviously some of it was going to kid-related stuff. I turned out to spend quite a bit of time in the car, which was just mind-boggling for me because I usually work out of my home office. So there's no daily commute. And that is where most people's time in the car will appear in their schedule. So I don't have to worry about that. Turns out I was spending more than an hour a day in the car listening to really bad music much of the time. And so I realized that.

7:26I need to be a little bit more intentional about this hour a day. But if I didn't know that, if I didn't know I'm spending an hour a day in the car - With crappy music. With crappy music. I mean, I could tell myself all sorts of stories, but it turns out that I'm spending more time in the car than I am exercising, than I am reading, all these other things. That was a big one. I love when you wrote, exercise takes a lot of time only in our explanations of why we're not doing it. Pretty much. I was like, amen. It was so good. And as a woman who likes to go to the gym, when I read that, I was like, yep, because the days that I'm quote unquote too busy.

7:59And then I really look, I'm like, oh, but you know what? You watched the NBC Nightly News, didn't you, girl? Yeah. And I mean, it's hard to exercise at night for many people. But that doesn't mean we couldn't have rearranged the schedule in some other way. So that leisure time would appear at a different point in the day. And, you know, I've committed to exercising every single day. And I found that's good for me because then it changes the conversation. I'm not like, am I going to exercise, which is a whole existential debate. I don't know. Am I going to exercise? Changes it to when am I going to exercise, which is a much more useful question.

8:31Yeah. So for anyone hearing, okay, I know time tracking is probably the first step, which would you agree, right? Yes. In order to make any significant and substantial changes, if we want to. If we want to. If we want to, then a first step is knowing what the hell we're dealing with right now. So for anyone who's resisting this idea, I feel like one of the big ones that you wrote about is like, well, I don't have the time to track my time. Can you address that for them? Yeah, I see all kinds of forms of resistance to this idea. And I'm sure some people are like crossing their hands listening to this like, no, I'm never going to do it.

9:04One category of people who resist it is people who have to track their time for work. So lawyers, accountants, or, you know, anyone who's punching in and out of something, you may feel like I track my time at work. I can't deal with it for the rest of my life. You don't have to do it for three years. Like that's, that's not expected. Just one week will give you so much insight into your life that I hope you'll find it worth it. As for the argument of being too busy, for me, it takes about three minutes a day. I check in three times a day. Each check-in takes about a minute. So it's the same amount of time I spend brushing my teeth.

9:35So if you argue that you're too busy to brush your teeth, then that's fine. But most people find the space in their schedule for it. And they can do it electronically. They can do it electronically. You can use a time tracking app. Like there's some that are, you know, even intuitive. So like you just go in at the end of the day and correct the record. Like, you know, it doesn't have to take that much time. I think it's more often people don't want to do it because they don't actually want to know. Yeah. It's the same thing with the food tracking. Like you don't want to know. The truth hurts. The truth hurts.

10:00But then it does set you free. It does set you free. And it's really, I'm trying to tell people, it's not about playing gotcha. Like I don't actually care if you're on Instagram for two hours every night. Like if life is working for you, go for it. Yeah. Right. But if you are telling yourself, oh, I have no time to start this business on the side. I have no time to exercise. I'm not spending enough time with my family. Whatever stories you're telling yourself, and you also have this two-hour chunk on Instagram every night, that's when we need to start working on it. I am with you. I'm with you all the way.

10:28So I have a question for you, and I know this is a big one. Okay. And it's impossible that we'll be able to get into all the nitty gritty, but you do talk about this in your work, specifically in this book. What can we do to clear our calendars of activities that are boring, stressful, or just not the best use of our time? Yes, that is a big question. How do we get rid of the stuff we don't want to do? I'll give you two practical suggestions. The first, and I know you know this, being very careful when you say yes to things. Yes. And it is so hard to say no. And I find with people that the further something is in the future, the more we are saying yes, because it feels like we're assigning it to a completely different person.

11:10Yes. It will never be February. I'm sure you've probably had that. No one recently, but it's like there's some times where there's a thing where you have to get on a plane or show up. And you're like, oh, that's going to be fine. And then the time comes, you're like, I don't. Why did I agree to this? Yes. I have so many friends who have this syndrome all the time. Well, you know, you think it'll never be February or somehow you'll be a different person in February. Like you'll have more time. You'll be more patient with the world. The future you always seems to have an open calendar. The future you has nothing going on.

11:40So the future you could totally do this. Except it's not true. I mean, the future you will be exactly the same as you are now. We don't really change as much as we sometimes hope we will. So, you know, the better question always to ask yourself when you are asked to do something in the future is would you do it tomorrow? Would you do it tomorrow? And if you would, like if you, you know, you're probably booked solid tomorrow, but if you're thinking, yeah, I could try to move this around and cancel these things because I really want to do this. Yes. Then you will feel the same way in February. I like that.

12:08But if no. If no, no. No. Are you exhausted from working nonstop and still not seeing results? I get it. And look, it's not your fault. Most of us were never taught how to manage our time in this crazy modern world in a way that actually works. That's why I created a brand new free masterclass called Stop These Three Profit Killing Mistakes Before It's Too Late. In it, I'm going to walk you through the three hidden mistakes quietly draining your time, your energy, and your joy, and more importantly, how to stop them right now. Go to jointimegenius.com slash free training and watch it today. One of my favorite things to teach folks that work with me is I tell them to get on the no train.

12:50I get a first class ticket on the no train because some of us are so habituated to just people pleasing and saying yes or looking at opportunities like they're the only ones we're ever going to get. And we just say yes to things. And like what you said happens. The calendar gets filled up with shit. You're like, I don't care about this. And all of my other priorities just can't fit in. So I like that. What was the second? The second one is I usually plan my weeks on Friday afternoons. I find this is a really good time for it. Not a whole lot else going on on Friday afternoons, kind of drifting into the weekend.

13:20at that point. But I'm willing to think about what future me should be doing the next week and figure out my priorities for the week. But while you're doing that, take a look at what is already on your calendar for the next week and start triaging it. Like, you know, you can figure out at that point, well, is there anything that just really doesn't actually need to happen? Or anything that I think probably won't happen, but like nobody's going to make that call. Like, if that's the case, go ahead and cancel it. You know, you do it ahead of time. Everyone can make other plans. Maybe you see on your calendar that somebody's asked for 60 minutes for a meeting and it's like something you think could happen in a five-minute phone call, like Friday afternoon, make that phone call, right?

13:57Get it done. And then that hour is opened up in the next week. Or maybe it's delegating something that someone on your team could go handle this matter. There's three of you on the same team going to the same meeting. Like, please just send one of you. And you could free up hours and minutes by doing this. I love this. I especially love just taking the time, especially on Friday, because most people are. You're kind of taxed from the week. There's a lot going on. You are thinking about the weekend. And it doesn't have to take that long, right? You can just take five, 10 minutes. Five minutes and you get hours back.

14:26I mean, that's about the best investment you can make. Absolutely. So you told wonderful stories in the book. I would love to talk about the Canadian artist because we have many, many creatives in our audience who have struggled or are struggling with a creative block and feeling like they have all of these other obligations. They likely have maybe a day job. Maybe they have two jobs and things that they want to do. So tell us about this incredible woman. Yeah. So Laureen is a wonderful artist. I mean, fabulous work. She does a lot of paintings of flowers. She lives up in rural Saskatchewan, which has a beautiful landscape, but a little bit hard to get around to do things.

15:03Anyway, she had written me originally because she was feeling not as productive as she wanted to be. And so I asked her to track her time and share her schedule with me. and she sent in a time log where she was working for about 40 hours of the week, but on various different projects, only 12 hours were on her top priority of actually painting, which is, you know, she's an artist. That's what she wants to spend her time doing. And, and she, you know, wasn't happy about this. So I sort of had various ideas about productivity, but when I sent them back and then she wrote me back a little bit later, she, she wanted to share a little bit more about this, which is that she was facing this real creative block.

15:37Like she was having such a hard time getting going on things. She was feeling like there was never enough time for art, like the world was conspiring against her, house problems or plumbing goes out and you're trying to get a plumber out to rural Saskatchewan. He's not coming when you want him. He's coming when he wants to be there and, you know, various things going on. And, you know, so we talked about this and how she could deal with this. And the thing though, as looking at her schedule, she's complaining about this worst possible week ever. And I saw that she had actually spent 16 hours that week on making art versus the 12 hours the week before where she hadn't complained about how crazy everything was.

16:13And it's like, well, wait, you're actually scaling it up. Like you're doing a good job. It's just that your expectations are unmatched with reality. So a better question, sort of better way to think about this is to make art when you can and relax when you can't. If you lower your expectations in the short run for what you can get done, I find that that's actually the secret to long-term productivity. Because when people think that in any given day they're going to, you know, paint 10 paintings and spend 18 hours in their studio, that's not going to happen. Yeah. And then they get discouraged.

16:50You feel like shit. You feel like a loser. And then you stop. Totally. And then you don't keep going. And then that's when those voices come in and tell you you're never going to do this, you're never going to work again, whatever the story is that's going on. in your head. And so, you know, we talked about how she could try to get to the studio on Monday just to sort of start the week well, but then the rest of the time, like, make art when you can. When you can't, relax. See how it goes. And while it sounds like that would be an excuse to, like, underperform, underperform, it turns out not to be the case at all.

17:20Because when you get rid of these extreme expectations for yourself, say, well, I'm just going to do a little, yeah, that felt pretty good. Okay, I could not do anything. I could do some more. Okay, I'll just do a little bit more. And next thing you know, she's like got this huge exhibit going on the next year, like with many, many paintings, because when art feels good rather than a source of stress, then you want to do more art. Absolutely. And it's so counterintuitive. Like I can even hear the part of my brain. Like I can feel it in the audience too. No. Like, you know, if I'm not listening to the drill sergeant who's mean in my head, I will absolutely do nothing.

17:56You know, and they think, and I've had this. This is something that my man Josh is actually quite good with, you know, because I'm one of those people who can just drive, drive, drive, drive, drive. He's like, you know, you've done a lot today. I'm like, not really enough. He's like, no, you can actually be nice to yourself and you're going to get more done. I could do more. Yeah. I could always do more. I could always do more, but it's so true. And when I do take his advice, your advice, I do find myself feeling just even more light and more restored and just happier. Yeah. And the truth is you can do amazing things in the long run with very small steps.

18:30I mean, if you want to write a 70 ,000 word book, well, write 1 ,400 words a week for 50 weeks of a year. At the end of the year, you've got a 70 ,000 word book. Like 1 ,400 words a week is nothing. Right. It's 350 words a day for four days. You send that many emails by 9.30 a.m. Well, I wanted to – this is actually where I was going later, but we should just talk about it now. You have that section in the book called The Secret of Prolificy, if I pronounce that right. Katie Cannon. Yes. the UK writer who had just had a baby and managed to write and edit five books, a novella, and three short stories in one year.

19:05I was like, damn. It was great. And part of what you said, and I'm going to share this and I want to hear more from you because you wrote the story, but just this simple technique of setting that timer in 20 to 30 minute blocks of focus. Yeah. And pumping out a little bit. Just a little bit. Just a little bit. And then a little bit more. And this is how people who are incredibly prolific get it done. I love this woman. She has to write under multiple pseudonyms because so many books are coming out that it can't be managed under like one name. Really? That's kind of amazing. But that's what it is.

19:33And so if she is writing a 70 ,000 word book, I mean, she has a bit more of a tighter schedule than a year for doing that. But she can write it in seven weeks. That's 10 ,000 words a week. She'll set a goal to do 2 ,500 words a day, four days a week. 2 ,500 words, that's going to be three 800 to 1 ,000 word scenes. sets a timer, you know, 20, 30 minutes. She can write an 800 word scene because she knows what she's supposed to be doing because she's got it outlined. So she's working from that. Does three of those a day. We're good. Next day, does another three. Next day, another three. You know, then she's got her weekend, relax.

20:07Next week, do some more. At the end of seven weeks, she's got a novel and then she can spend, you know, two weeks editing it and it's out. I think one of the other benefits that we didn't touch on, but you certainly go into in the book in great detail, is how also knowing where our time goes helps us savor the memories. Oh, yeah. And then extend our experience of how we live our time. I know even from my journals, if I look back at the meal I had in Italy, like what was the lunch? What was the dinner? What did we do the next morning? Even if we had a fight, what was it about? It brings me back to a place of this feeling of expansiveness.

20:43Yeah. So savoring time is really associated with feeling like you have more time. because not only are you experiencing the pleasure, you're acknowledging that you're experiencing the pleasure. And the more moments that you notice, the more time is memorable. And I have a great quote in the book. Somebody had said that very often when we say, where did the time go? What we're actually saying is, I don't remember where the time went. When time isn't memorable, then we don't remember it. But when we really savor these good experiences, they become these robust memories that we can then look back on.

21:15And that's actually been an upside to me of my time logs. I mean, I did it to see where my time really went, you know, can I spend more time on X, Y, or Z, which is fine. And I've learned some useful things for that, but it's also provided this wonderful equivalent of a journal for like the past three years that I can look back and see my memories of that week. And, you know, with, with a journal itself, you often even just write about the highlights or, you know, the things that were worrying you at the time. I've read some of my old journals and I'm like, well, please, the angst is just like, It doesn't matter.

21:45You'll forget what this was even about within two years. But I mean, the time log, you not only see that dinner, the wonderful lunch in Italy, but you see what you were doing immediately before and what we're doing after. It gives you the whole context of the memory. And so it's even more rich. And so it creates a bigger memory. One of the things that has been really helpful for me, and I know you talk about this as well, is why tackling your top priorities, both at the top of the week or in the morning, is so effective. Yeah. Well, most people have more energy and discipline and focus in the morning.