The Merits of Doing Less in More Time

With the forthcoming Autumnal Equinox, I feel a bit like an excited school girl, anticipating what the coming year has in store for me.  Even though we don’t have Autumn Leaves falling here in Los Angeles and we really didn’t have much of a summer, I can feel Autumn in the air.  It is, to me, an opportunity for fresh starts. However, instead of getting carried away with my brand new to-do list, I am taking a moment to understand what I am doing already. Indeed, where do the hours go? I find myself unwittingly buying into the popular notion of doing more in less time. But what if I just flipped that whole notion on its head? What if I accomplished less in more time? How would I feel at the end of the day?

Be Kind, Rewind
First, let me provide a little background to this tale of self-observation. Years ago, I decided to take charge of my time and be my own boss. This was a positive move that enabled me to “get things done”.  I became focused on what was important to me and gradually let go of doing things that weren’t central to my goals. A friend of mine joked that I must have been born a human doing. I had to make trade-offs, but I felt happy overall. Sounds great, right? So what’s the catch?

Well, once I saw that I was good at “getting things done”, then I wanted to “get MORE things done.” And, just like that, in one fine millisecond I realized that being in charge of all my time all the time was not as much fun anymore. I felt unhappy. I had no one else to blame if I was not making the most of my time. Therefore, I took what seemed to me to be the next logical step:  I decided that it was unreasonable of me to expect myself to make the “most” of every moment of my life, whatever “making the most” might have meant to me at any given moment. After all, I am a human being, yes? So why couldn’t I just be? And so begins the tale of the time log and the human being.

The Tale of the Time Log and the Human Being
About 18 months ago, I attended a small, informal event organized by Savor The Success, a networking group for female entrepreneurs. One of the speakers was a professional organizer who addressed the issue of time management. Much of what she shared was nothing new to me. However, my ears perked up when she pulled out a week-long grid and asked us to fill it out with what we actually did, instead of what we planned to do. I was intrigued by this idea and decided to call it the “what-I-did grid”.  As one might expect, the what-I-did grid went on my something-new-to-do list. And there it stayed, untouched.

Then, after releasing When Parallel Lines Meet this past spring, an exhausted me looked back on what had been a very stressful period of roughly two years, peppered only with a few moments of calm.  Even though I acknowledged the numerous challenges I had faced and felt good about my accomplishments in spite of them, a part of me experienced that lingering feeling of “where did all the time go?” and “why couldn’t I get even MORE done?”  I took this as a hint for me to pause before embarking on any new adventures. Over the summer, I got my act together behind the scenes, plus I took some time to catch up with family and friends. I also began to revisit my goals and the path I am taking to achieve them.

At the end of this period of reflection, I was ready to go under the microscope. About 10 days ago, I created my very own what-I-did grid. (Yes, it lives in a spreadsheet, of course, for those of you who are familiar with my proclivity for Excel!) Next, I told that inner judge to take a vacation and I began tracking what I was doing (and sometimes how I was feeling), 24 hours a day. Call me crazy. But I’ve learned a lot about myself.  As I evaluate the data, I realize that there is an inherent observer bias. I’ve definitely been more aware of what I am doing and how long it is taking. For example, if I felt like goofing off and recognized that I needed to relax, then I just let myself be and carried on.  If I became distracted when I wanted to be focused on completing something, then I quickly stopped myself and got back on task. I also observed that keeping the log did not take up much time, mainly because I used a system that worked well for me.

The What-I-Did Grid Tells it Like it Is
The what-I-did grid is a witness to my life’s twists and turns, as well as a party to the moments of joy. It is a testament to the fact that I am doing the best that I can. Like any human being, I have personal quirks that may inhibit me at times. The what-I-did grid helps to highlight these issues, so I can be more aware of them in the future and understand what I can do to change them or work around them. In addition, I can see what kinds of activities bring out the best in me.

With respect to a number of “non-thinking” types of activities, I feel that I’m more or less as efficient as I can be…or, should I say, as efficient as I want to be. For example, I’ve come up with systems to save time in completing repetitive tasks and/or make use of “wait time”, I’m fairly organized so that things have a place to go (most of the time), and I have even timed myself in the past to see how long it takes me to complete certain everyday activities in order to allocate enough time for them. During these days of logging, I noticed that I made a concerted effort to speed up activities that don’t require much thinking. I tried to avoid obsessing over things that otherwise might have taken me more time to complete.

I am a great believer in discipline and efficiency – to a point. Certainly I can be a little more disciplined here or there and I can do this or that a little more efficiently to “skim” time at the margins and it will add up. But I am not a robot.  There’s only so much skimming I can do before the process itself is not as enjoyable (for me). The marginal satisfaction derived from each additional efficiency improvement diminishes and eventually becomes zero (or negative). So I think that being more disciplined than I am right now and doing things more efficiently will only marginally help me get more of what I want out of my life.

When it comes to activities that require a lot of thinking and/or the involvement of others, the what-I-did grid demonstrated (painfully) that such activities often take longer to complete than I hoped they would.  This was no surprise. Moving forward, I have decided that I probably need to allow even more time for these types of activities…and that means I’ll probably be better off taking on fewer activities in a given period of time – if I want to keep my sanity, that is.

“Hope” is the operative word above.  I can hope all I want that Y will take X hours, but hoping by itself produces nothing. It is entirely possible that my standards are too high in some respects and I could stand to skim a little here and a little there, especially in a society that is consumed with speed to market and the number of widgets produced. And it will probably be a good idea to confront that inner judge when she comes back from the vacation. But the bottom line is that no amount of hoping will save me from having to make a choice of some kind.

And, therein lies the problem. I don’t want to choose. Choosing is hard. Those of you who know me will understand that I’ve already made some difficult choices. I’ve taken some risks. Yet, the what-I-did grid makes it clear to me that, even in the course of pursuing my dreams, I have to keep on choosing…or someone or something will choose for me.

I might still wish that I could “do more in less time”, but the reality indicates that there may be some merits to my trying to “do less in more time”.   Whenever I try to do less, I’m more relaxed and I can think more clearly.  More often than not, I’m happier both with the process and the end result. The question is: How can I buy myself the luxury of time? Can I afford not to? What’s the point of pursuing my dreams if I can’t enjoy myself along the way? The more I allow for the ebb and flow of creativity, inspiration, and productivity, the more likely I am to enjoy this passage of time known as life.

Here’s a little joke I remember. I’m not sure if the scenario is spot on, but this is the essence of it:

Wife: “What are you doing today?”

Husband: “Nothing”

Wife: “I thought you did that yesterday.”

Husband: “I didn’t finish.”

So what?
That said, what is the moral of this tale? What does it mean to “try to do less”? Should you become complacent and stop aspiring to be the best that you can be? That’s not what I am suggesting. In fact, I’m all for dreaming. But I do think it is helpful to understand your limitations in light of the dreams you are pursuing. Some limitations you must live with, but other limits can be removed by changing your perception. Knowing every time management trick in the book is helpful only if you know yourself well enough to understand what will work for you.

What do you think?  Please regale me with your own tales!