3464: Become a Time Realist by Julie Morgenstern on How to Improve Productivity and Focus

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[00:00:30] Before we start, please check out our new podcast, Good Sleep. Have you ever noticed how a calm mind can really set the stage for a good night's sleep? That's the idea behind our new podcast, Good Sleep. Greg, our host from Optimal Relationships Daily, is here to help ease you into a peaceful night's rest with some positive affirmations. And these affirmations aren't just comforting, they can help ease anxiety and nurture positive thoughts, setting you up for true good sleep.

[00:00:55] So press play on Good Sleep tonight, because a good tomorrow starts with a good night's sleep. Just search for Good Sleep in your podcast app and be sure to pick the one from Optimal Living Daily. This is Optimal Living Daily. Become a Time Realist by Julie Morgenstern of juliemorgenstern.com. And I'm Justin Malek, your very own personal narrator. And we keep on narrating as we optimize your life.

[00:01:26] Become a Time Realist by Julie Morgenstern of juliemorgenstern.com. The number one time management question to ask yourself when approaching any task is, how long is this going to take? Yet, we often resist asking ourselves this question for fear of discovering that we actually don't have enough time to do it all. Better close our eyes, jump in, and hope for the best. Other times, we miscalculate based on wishful thinking.

[00:01:56] We believe if we are extra disciplined and diligent, we can get things done more quickly than usual. Unfortunately, denial doesn't change reality. Things take as long as they take. If we ignore the truth, we may very well run out of time before we've even started on the most important work. That is why asking the question, how long will this take?

[00:02:18] Of every single task you do is the number one gateway skill, not only to good time management, but to peak prioritization. Unfortunately, it's easy to dramatically under or overestimate how long tasks take based on how we feel about them. More often than not, we feel that tasks that we don't enjoy doing take far longer than they actually do. Whereas tasks that we do enjoy doing only seem to take a few seconds.

[00:02:46] In order to be effective at time estimating, you must take your feelings out of the equation. To find out how long it really takes you to do things, you must move away from wishful thinking and take a more quantitative approach. Improving your own estimating skills. As best you can, try to be literal when you make a time estimate. So many of us are in the habit of saying, that'll take two seconds.

[00:03:11] Whether we're talking about getting dressed, making a call, or running to the store. As silly as it may seem, this affects the way we think about time. If you break this habit and start paying attention to how long things really take, you'll find it's much easier to accomplish all you want to do. Here are two exercises to help you quantify the time it really takes you to conquer your to-dos. Exercise number one, target three tasks.

[00:03:40] Choose three tasks you tend to procrastinate on and study yourself. Create a chart with the columns, the task, your estimate of how long it will take, and how long it actually took. Time yourself doing each task at least three times to get a solid average. If your times vary dramatically, did you approach the task at different times of day? That could affect your energy or ability to concentrate. And exercise number two, keep a time journal.

[00:04:10] For one week, next to each item you put on your to-do list, jot down how long you think it will take. Then when you do the task, time yourself and write down the actual time it took to complete it. Compare your estimates to the actuals. Do you see a pattern? Are your estimates always off by the same amount of time or the same percentage of time? Are there certain types of tasks you find harder to judge than others,

[00:04:33] like work tasks versus personal tasks, tasks you enjoy versus ones you don't, etc.? Are there some tasks that took much more or much less time than you estimated? What does that tell you about your relationship to the task? In one week, you might not have gotten to all the kinds of tasks you routinely do, or you might not feel you've fully gotten a handle on this skill yet. That's okay.

[00:04:59] Try keeping a time journal for up to a month and observe how your time estimating abilities change as you master this tool and make it your own. It's worth the effort. Once you get good at this skill, you'll be able to schedule your time much more realistically, which is to say, much more effectively. Now, it's worth noting, you won't have to be this detailed forever. After two weeks to a month of concerted effort, you won't have to estimate the time required

[00:05:27] for each and every five-minute task on your list. You'll develop a keen sense of how many calls you can fit into an hour time slot or how long it takes you to make a standard weeknight meal. Once you know how long it takes you to do something, you can more easily find the room in your schedule to get it done. Alternatively, you might decide it's a better use of your time and energy to delegate the task

[00:05:50] to someone else, diminish the task for a better return on investment, or delete the task altogether. Now, that's what I call proactive time management. You just listened to the post titled Become a Time Realist by Julie Morgenstern of juliemorgenstern.com and I'll be right back with my commentary.

[00:06:44] Thank you to Julie. I'm definitely a tracker. I've talked about this recently. I've tracked every penny in and out of my life since 2010. And another one I've done multiple times is time tracking. Now, this is the one that I would likely never do consistently for a very long time because like she talked about, a lot of your tasks stay the same from day to day and you don't really need to track it.

[00:07:10] But trying it for a week or two or a month can be very enlightening. Things we think are quick might actually take quite a long time when it's totally done and the opposite can be true of other tasks. And as Julie said, as much as we think we know, we really don't unless we actually track it. And from there, we can make better decisions about what we need to do and when and even question if we actually need to be doing those things,

[00:07:37] saving time and then possibly saving money as well. With the internet and new services popping up every day with grocery delivery, food delivery, ride sharing, and more, you never know what could end up saving you both time and money, letting you truly focus on what matters most to you. So try it out if you can. Let me know how it goes. Thank you for listening every day. Have a great weekend if you're listening in real time. And I'll see you tomorrow as usual, where your optimal life awaits.