Hasta La Ideas

An acquaintance of mine recently told me about a problem she is having in her retirement. After decades of working and thinking, “I’ll have time for that when I retire,” she’s now overwhelmed by all the things she promised herself she would do with her free time and resources.

I read about the injustices in the world — now that I have time to read — and I want to help out in all of the causes. I want to give my time, energy, and money to help others. But there are so many causes, so many people in need, and I can’t possibly give to all of them.

Her home is primarily uncluttered, yet her dining room table is piled high with magazine articles, donation solicitations, and printouts from websites detailing organizations, people, and causes in need. Her heart and good intentions are pulled in numerous directions. Most of us face similar situations in our lives — maybe not with looking for ways to help charitable causes but how to spend our personal time.

I gave her the following advice, and I suggest the following for anyone who feels pulled in too many directions.

1. Take the time to reflect on and determine what matters most to you. We’ve written about this process before, and I believe it is the most important step to determining how best to spend your time.
2. Choose ONE opportunity that aptly reflects what matters most to you to account for 80 percent of your available resources. Out of all of the possibilities that stand in front of you, pick the one thing that you feel comfortable making a true commitment to.
3. Budget the remaining 20 percent of your resources (time, money, whatever it is that you wish to commit) for all other projects that are in line with what matters most to you. For example, if you have $1,000 to donate to charity every year, $800 will go to the ONE organization and $200 might be distributed in $20 gifts to 10 other charities.
4. Stick to this arrangement for at least six months. Give yourself a decent chunk of time to commit to the new system. After six months you will be able to re-evaluate and decide how to proceed into the future.

In this list, I give the example of budgeting money, but you can budget your time just as easily. Commit to volunteering eight hours a week at the local animal shelter, one hour to your grandchild’s PTA, and one hour to sorting food at the food bank. Or, maybe you have a young family and you’ll commit eight hours a week to coaching your son’s soccer team, one hour to a professional organization, and one hour to a committee for your neighborhood association.

(With my job, I try to budget 80 percent of my time to writing and 20 percent of my time to administration. It doesn’t always happen, but I’ve found that focusing the majority of my work day on the most important aspect of my job makes it more enjoyable and more productive.)

If you look at the situation as “what do I get to do” instead of “what don’t I get to do,” it makes saying no to other opportunities simpler. You stop feeling overwhelmed and your attention is focused on what matters most to you.

The New York Times has a fascinating set of graphics about how different groups of people in the U.S. spend their time.

The data for the graphics came from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey. The people surveyed were over the age of 15 and were asked to record what they did every minute of the day. I am a little surprised by some of the data, but mostly it is to be expected. I’m especially interested in the “household activities” category, as it is probably the most closely tied to uncluttering and cleaning activities.

Americans typically eat lunch between 12:10 and 12:20 p.m. and dinner at 6:10 to 6:40 p.m. What little socializing takes place happens between 5:50 and 8:00 p.m. (and people with advanced degrees appear to do the least amount of socializing in the evenings but the greatest amount of household activities). People without children work the least and socialize the least in comparison to people with children. And, women do more household activities than men.

To check out all the different sets of data, select the words in the chart above the graph:

And to see specific percentages, move your arrow on the top of the graph.

How do you compare to your peers? I definitely play more sports than others in my age bracket (you can only see “sports” labeled on the graph for the category Age 15-24). I think it would be extremely interesting to see how people in other countries spend their time.

(via Lifehacker)

Mark at Productivity501 has a helpful post on 17 Things you Should Stop Doing. The 17 items he suggests will save you time in your day and open the way for more productive behavior. A few of my favorites:

5. Unpacking your Laptop Power Adaptor — If you go from work to home with your laptop, get an extra adaptor for each work area so you don’t have to unpack and crawl under the desk each time.

11. Dialing into Voice Mail — Get your voicemail setup to send you messages as email attachments that way you only have to check one mailbox.

17. Clubbing Baby Seals — Just in case this applies to you, this would be a good thing to stop as well.

Check out his full list, and then head back here and share your time-saving tips in the comments.

My friend Jane (not her real name) has three children (7, 5, and 2). When Jane was pregnant with her third child, she and her husband made a decision to restrict their children’s involvement in non-family activities, things like music lessons and sports.

“We’re not a taxi service,” Jane explained to me. “We like spending time with our family, we don’t like constantly running around town to lessons and practices. After two years of the kids being involved in every program you can name, we’d had enough.”

Jane and her husband decided that each child can be involved in one non-family activity. This means that this year her oldest daughter in second grade had to choose between being in Brownies or gymnastics (she chose gymnastics). Her kindergarten-age son had to choose between t-ball and karate (he chose karate).

Once a week, Jane’s mother comes to the house and gives the oldest two children piano and violin lessons. Everyone in the family sits in the same room and reads or does something quietly during the lessons so that they can even spend that time together.

Jane told me that when her children reach high school age that they might increase the number of activities the children can join. But, she said that decision will be a family decision and it won’t be just up to her and her husband. At that point, her children will have developed time management skills and be able to weigh in on the decision.

“People think we’re weird,” she confided in me. “I don’t particularly like people thinking I’m weird, but this is the best choice for our family.”

At the top of Jane’s list of what matters most are her marriage and her children. As a result, she and her family spend evenings doing things like playing games, watching movies, and riding bikes together. On weekends, they go to museums and zoos and have friends over for dinner.

By saying “no” to the things that don’t matter to them, they have the ability to say “yes” to what does.

I’m not suggesting that the way Jane and her husband choose to restrict their children’s activities is the only way or the best way for families to do things. Rather, I mention this story because I think it is a terrific example of how one family clears time clutter to make way for what matters most to them.

It’s easy to talk about focusing on what matters most, but actually doing it can be difficult — it’s different and it’s not what everyone else is doing. Are there things that you can say “no” to so that you have the ability to say “yes” to what matters to you? I’m interested in reading about your experiences and reactions in the comments.

Thank you to EVERYONE (all 1294 of you!) who participated in our FranklinCovey briefcase giveaway. We never expected so many entries! Wow!

At 10:00 a.m. ET this morning, I closed the comments and counted up the entries. Then, I headed over to the Random Integer Generator at random.org and entered in the data:

Out popped the following number:

#697 — Steven

I have contacted the winner and he will be receiving his prize from FranklinCovey early next week. Congratulations to our winner and thank you to FranklinCovey for their generosity!

As I mentioned yesterday, if you weren’t a winner, be sure to check out the FranklinCovey’s biggest sale of the year that is currently being held. Some items are as much as 70 percent off their regular price. If you need to get your schedule organized, now is a great time to take advantage of their biggest sale of the year.