The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 231 - Time Audit

Transcript:

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Hi, Peter.

Pete: So I've been running a little experiment that I would love to bounce off you.

Jen: Okay.

Pete: And it comes from a book that I'm reading at the moment that has existed for sixty years and I've never read, and the book is called The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker.

Jen: This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: So this book, I feel like most people might have heard of, especially those in leadership positions or executive positions. It's widely considered, in certain circles, one of the most impactful, I guess, management books of its time or leadership books of its time. You know, kind of in the same vein as Dale Carnegie's kind of work, so How To Win Friends and Influence People and those kind of books. It's sort of in that same ilk. And I realized the other day that I haven't actually read it, and I was like, "I feel like I should read it." Just because, I often read books that have been written in the last five years.

Jen: Yep.

Pete: And I thought it would be interesting to read a book that was written in the sixties, about some of the topics that I like exploring and nerding out on and thinking about, which is leadership and executives and management and all those things. And I'm halfway through, and I will say there are...obviously with a book that's written in the sixties, there are things that are on the nose a little bit, and there are parts of it where I'm like, "Huh, definitely not sure you should be writing that." But there is, amongst all of that, there is some actually real gold that I'm discovering. And so, one of the things that I've done, which the book encourages, is to do a time audit and to basically make an account of how you're spending your time on any given day. And holy guacamole, this is a scary and illuminating prospect.

Jen: In my Shift class, which is my mindset class, we spend one week that is dedicated almost exclusively to your relationship to time, and one of the exercises is to do at least one full day of time tracking. And some people track time for the whole week.

Pete: No way. Wild.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: So, that's what I did. I've done two weeks.

Jen: It's amazing to see how you're spending your time.

Pete: I mean, amazing is one word...confronting is another, I would say.

Jen: Yep.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah, confronting is another. I think that...it's funny, like even knowing that I'm tracking my time has now influenced the way I spend my time, already. So, I feel like the experiment has already been worthwhile. Because I catch myself thinking, "Well, you're going to have to put this on your spreadsheet, so make sure you're doing something that actually you'd be proud of seeing on that spreadsheet." And so, for the most part, I would say I'm pretty happy with how I'm spending my time. So like, things that take up chunks of time that are very common in my calendar, for example, are like recording a podcast with Jen, delivering a keynote, delivering this workshop, I had a one-on-one client. They're like big chunks, often one hour, two hours, three hours, whatever, maybe a full day if it's a full-day workshop. I feel good about those. And, you know, waking up and going to the gym. And like, they're good, solid chunks. The fascinating thing I've found is there are these what I think of as like almost transitory moments. So if I finish a one-on-one call and have half an hour until my next workshop or next one-on-one, there's this like weird thirty minute transitory moment. And the short version of this is like, I'm wasting so many of those transitory moments. The aha moment I had was, "I don't even know what to label it in my spreadsheet, because there's so many random things that I do. Like, I'll check email. Okay. I'll check Slack. Okay. I'll check my phone. Okay. I'll go get a cup of tea. Okay. Now, I'm going to water a plant. Okay. Now, I'm going to check my notes for the next couple of workshops. And it's like, it's so all over the place that I can't even name it. There's not even a name for it, because it's so...I'm so distracted, and like doing tiny little moments of little things. And so, I haven't figured out what to do with this other than the awareness of it has just been wildly fascinating, and the amount of times I end up just in my inbox is remarkable, really confronting. Help.

Jen: They really should put a tracker on your phone, that every time you open your phone to check your email, it like adds another number, and you can see that you're, you know, checking your email fifty-six times a day or whatever it is.

Pete: Right.

Jen: Somebody invent that. I'm sure it exists. I'm sure it exists.

Pete: It probably does.

Jen: So I have so many clients who have expressed to me, almost verbatim, everything you've said.

Pete: Great.

Jen: And part of what happens later in the week after we've done the time tracking, is people are like, "I don't particularly like how I'm spending my time, but I can't figure out what else to spend my time doing."

Pete: Yes.

Jen: So one of the things that some people have opted to do, which maybe you'd be interested in doing this or maybe not, is to start a running list of things that I want to do if I have extra time. And some people have broken that into categories, like, "People I'd like to call if I had fifteen minutes," or, "When I have more than twenty minutes, lay down and take a nap," or, "Pour myself a cup of tea, but really savor the drinking experience," or, "Look out the window." It could be anything. But to your point, when we don't really know what to do, we just start doing things to distract ourselves from the fact that we don't know what to do.

Pete: 100%. I've heard this said recently, that like this is why we pick up our phone, is because we feel the discomfort of, "I don't know what to do."

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: And we can immediately get rid of that discomfort by picking up our phone.

Jen: Yep.

Pete: That is super helpful. I really like that. I really like that idea, writing a list of...yeah, almost breaking it up. If you have fifteen minutes, then this. If you have thirty minutes, then this. If you have an hour, then this. That's good.

Jen: Yeah. The other thing that I just want to offer is...I don't know if I've ever seen your to-do list, color me curious. So, my to-do list is broken down by location.

Pete: Huh.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: Do I know this about you?

Jen: I don't know. I borrowed this idea from Getting Things Done, and it's just really, really worked for me. So I have, you know, my to-do list for the studio, my to-do list for home, but then I have a category called "anywhere".

Pete: Nice.

Jen: So, I could go to the anywhere to-do list if I have extra time and everything else is done. And if I'm wanting, in that moment, to be particularly productive, I could pick something from my anywhere list and get it done.

Pete: This is good. This is really good. I love that idea. I'm going to incorporate that as well. I think listeners are nodding their heads and like, "Oh my gosh, I want to do that, Jen. Thank you so much." So, the thing I think I hear in what you've articulated versus where I have noticed myself floating through space is there's an intentionality to it. And I think that's what's missing in the transitory spaces for me. Is like, I can be really intentional and know how I need to show up and focus when I'm doing the workshop or I'm running the one-on-one or I'm doing a keynote or whatever it is, going to the gym. It's those white spaces, those gaps in your calendar where, unless you have intentionality to what you're going to do in that, you literally just feel like you're floating through space.

Jen: Yes.

Pete: At least, that's how I've described it. And actually, the word I mentioned...I had trouble coming up with a word for it.

Jen: Mmm-hmm.

Pete: The word I've been using is faffing: F-A-F-F-I-N-G.

Jen: Is this an Australian slang?

Pete: Maybe, I don't know. Like, "...to faff about," would that be an expression you would use in America?

Jen: I've never heard that expression in my life.

Pete: Must be an Australian thing. Let me just look it up real quick...oh yeah, informal british. There you go.

Jen: Ah, okay.

Pete: I can't actually even find a definition that I think articulates it. It's like, you know, okay, if I'm in North America, maybe I would say, "...farting around." Does that make sense to you?

Jen: Yes. Although, I don't really use that phrase either. But I understand what it means. I get it, I get it.

Pete: Like, I'm meandering around. I'm wasting time I'm doing...

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: It's like ineffectual. You're doing stuff, but it's totally ineffectual. You're just like picking this up, you go, "Oh, there's a notepad. Yeah, I'm going to put that there. I'll tidy my room." Faffing, totally unproductive, ineffectual uses of time. And so, in my calendar, I have like, you know, "One-on-one coaching. Recording with Jen. Faffed." And then like, "Ran a workshop. Faffed. Got some lunch."

Jen: "Faffed some more."

Pete: "Faffed some more."

Jen: Oh my gosh, that word is really funny.

Pete: It's a, yeah, I mean, it's a word we use in our household quite a bit because Tracey thinks I faff around a lot, which is actually like a running joke but...and I've always denied it until I've had my calendar in front of me, my calendar audits, and I'm like, "Well, maybe she's right. Maybe I do faff around."

Jen: Wow, that is hilarious.

Pete: So my goal, in hearing what you shared, is like turning faff to action or turning faff to intention.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: We once upon a time did a podcast called Thrash to Action, I think, or thraction.

Jen: Yeah, thraction.

Pete: I feel like this is from faff to intention. You know?

Jen: Fintention, yeah.

Pete: Oh, fintention.

Jen: Fintention, yeah. Fafftension? I don't know...wow, off the deep end.

Pete: Here we go, trying to invent words again. Anyway, so I've been doing way too much faffing. And I've realized, in thirty-three years of existing as a human, I have never done a time audit. Literally, never. And, you know, I have friends who work as accountants or lawyers and even like project managers, and they have to account for like their time in eight minute chunks or thirty minute chunks. And I've always been like, "Well, that sounds like overkill. How is that beneficial?" And having done it, I'm like, "Oh, yeah. It's beneficial for my perspective, to just get clarity on where I'm spending and wasting time...where I'm faffing, ultimately."

Jen: So, there's another seminal leadership book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Pete: Right.

Jen: I'm sure you've read it and are familiar with it. Well, one of the concepts in that book is the important and urgent matrix. And, you know, there are four quadrants: Important/Not Urgent, Important/Urgent, Urgent/Not Important, Not Urgent/Not Important. And I would consider the not Urgent/Not Important as probably the faffing quadrant.

Pete: Renamed: The Faff Quadrant.

Jen: The Faff. And for a lot of my clients, they feel really disappointed in themselves, how much time they're spending in that quadrant. But they don't necessarily want to abandon some of the things that they're doing there.

Pete: Right.

Jen: And so, one of the things we look at is, in the Important/Not Urgent part of the matrix, that's where all of the things like relationship building and health and wellness and rest, that's where those things lie. So if someone is saying to me something like, "You know, I just find myself like scrolling Facebook for five minutes, because I have five minutes. And that's faffing. It's not important and it's not urgent." Then, I'll ask, "How might you elevate that to the Important/Not Urgent category? And usually, it comes down to, "Well, I can go and engage in a group that I'm a part of on that platform, or I can send a message to a friend I haven't spoken to in a while and try to catch up." So sometimes, you can start beating yourself up for the things you're doing, but then realize that you want to keep doing them, just in a way that is more meaningful.

Pete: Ooh, I love that. Yeah. Yeah, the other thing in my calendar which comes up a bit, which is also a running joke in my household, is "...scrolled my face off." So Tracey and I will often say that to one another when we've, you know, when you go down like a scrolling rabbit hole and you're just mindlessly scrolling. It's like you scroll so hard, your face falls off. And so, as well as faffing, I also have realized that I scroll my face off a little bit too much. So, I like that idea. How do you elevate that to Important? Yeah, that's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. So one of the other things I've recognized, just very tactically, that I've actually started to implement which I really like, is, I've gotten much better at scheduling. And you are so good at this, because I've witnessed this in your calendar before. But like, I have fallen into the trap way too many times of doing back to back to back to back to back, bouncing from coaching to workshop to coaching to workshop to coaching to coaching to coaching to podcasting, and just feeling...I mean, I still am able to, I think, show up in a way I'm proud of. But I'm absolutely categorically exhausted at the end of the day, because I had so much context switching. And then, the opposite of that I've discovered, which I don't actually like that much either, is like if I have a forty-five minute or an hour break in between, which is like kind of not long enough to get something super important done, necessarily. It's like, it's the perfect amount of faff time, especially thirty minutes. It's like, "Oh, I'll get a snack. I'll scroll my face off. I'll feed the plant." Like, it's such a small, annoying amount of time. So, I've actually realized that one way I can improve my ability to faff less is to get better at scheduling, by giving myself not zero time, but not thirty minutes, like maybe ten or fifteen minutes in between calls or workshops. And what I do with that ten or fifteen minutes is more like get a glass of water, breathe, and give myself permission to not have to check email, to not have to do anything else. Your goal in that, you know, the time should be spent, like it should literally say in my spreadsheet, "Recovering between sessions," or whatever, like taking a deep breath, getting a glass of water, rather than because it's thirty minutes, you feel like you need to do something productive. So you like do a bunch of stuff, but you don't actually do anything.

Jen: Yep. I suffered from that too when my studio was online during the pandemic, because I didn't have to physically move locations. Everything was back to back to back. And then finally, I was like, "I need commuting time. Like, if I was at home and going to the studio, I would have time to prepare on my way there. And then, between classes, I would go out, I'd get some lunch and come back." So, I think there's a big danger on Zoom of forgetting the transition time.

Pete: Yeah. I think the convenience of remote work is undeniable. And I actually think that we're still unpeeling and unpicking and unpacking the downstream negative effects of how convenient it is. I had this experience this week, I spent two days in-person in Sydney with an amazing group of people, running a bunch of workshops that were so fun and so energizing and so well-received. And we were able to do breakouts, and like one of the sessions, we were right near the beach. And they were like, "Can we go and have this conversation at the beach?" And I was like, "Yes. We don't need to sit in a boardroom to have this conversation. Let's go sit." And we actually literally all went for a swim and had the conversation in the water. And it was amazing. And then, I actually, while I was there, I had to hop on to a virtual workshop and run the virtual workshop. And the difference was so remarkably stark, having experienced both. So I feel like, all of that to say, the convenience is amazing and great, and there's still some quirks that we're all ironing out as a result of said convenience.

Jen: Yeah, that is interesting. I went to a virtual workshop last week. And you know, when I do stuff for my studio, everyone's cameras are on. So, I was just shocked...I was one of only four or five people, out of two hundred, who had their cameras on. I couldn't believe. I couldn't believe.

Pete: Yeah, that's real. I mean, if that person did a time audit, I'm not sure they would say, "I was in that meeting."

Jen: Yes.

Pete: Because, yeah, they might have been in the meeting in the sense that they clicked through the URL, but I suspect they were in their email, they were perhaps faffing, they were multitasking, essentially. And how effective is that? This particular book would argue incredibly ineffective. So, I highly encourage anyone who feels like doing this activity. It's confronting. It's fun. But it creates very actionable things to change, I've noticed. So pick a day, pick a week, and just document how you spend your time.

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.