HOW TO STRETCH TIME

We shwo oyu ways to make every minute work

Hurry up!’ Is this your catchphrase? It used to be mine. I lived like a criminal, always on the run, but perpetually running late. For the life I never got around to living there was never enough time. Every day I climbed on to an accelerating treadmill and every evening my to- do list grew longer until I realised that there is enough time – if you stop trying to out-race the clock.

We treat time as a thing: to spend, save, waste, lose or kill. But time is not a commodity; it is a dimension of experience. Your brain is always playing tricks with time. Imagine a day in which you feel one step ahead, not constantly behind. A day in which dull tasks dash by while the hours for pleasure meander. Your definition of time-rich might mean working more effectively, or doing less. Whatever your goal, if you cease to be a slave to time everything will improve.

TIME THIEVES

You can spot a time thief at work by how much it impacts you. Anything that slows you down or sends you spinning is a time thief. ● Meetings So many meetings are unnecessary. Ask: is my presence irreplaceable? Is this meeting necessary? If the answer to both is yes, go. If not, wriggle. Explain you do not want to clutter the room. If possible, question the meeting’s purpose.

If a meeting must happen, be clear as to its purpose and who will be executing any action points. If there is no agenda, seek one. If responsibilities are unclear, ask while people are in the room. Focus minds by shortening the meeting time. Coca- Cola conducts meetings standing up. Why not banish chairs and book a chilly room? ● The paper avalanche Process paper in bursts. If the information it contains is available elsewhere, does not require action or doesn’t need to be retained, bin it. Otherwise, deal with it now if you can or add the task to your to- do list. ● People Colleagues are quick to seek our time but never give it back. Once you are wise to time wasters, ration their access. If you have no office door, use a sign or schedule time when people know you cannot be interrupted. ● The email deluge A recent study concluded that managing emails consumed 28 per cent of the average person’s working week – and email traffic is growing all the time.

The accessibility of others makes us trigger happy but each communication places a burden on someone else. Even if that person ignores it, they pay a tax in guilt.

People are often careless writing emails – they fail to include relevant information. Emails then breed, as simple questions that could be answered during a face-to-face meeting or a phone call go back and forth between multiple people to clarify things.

RULES OF EMAILING

● Is your message worthy of the recipient’s time? What if you met in person? Waited? Did nothing? ● Be concise to focus attention. Have a clear subject heading and be specific about the relevant information. ● Never reply instantly. Ever. ● Chunk it. Allocate a fixed time slot for dealing with digital communication. ● Declutter. If you cannot delete emails, file them. If no category springs to mind why keep it? ● Go on an email fast. Take a day off. And another. How long can you last?

DISTRACTIONS

● Notice where time leaks. What regularly makes you late? Is it easy to find your coat or umbrella? What are the things that most distract you? ● Create boundaries around distractions – physical and metaphorical. Turn off the wi-fi. Put the biscuits on a high shelf. ● Go on a distractions diet. Banish each of yours for a week. How much did you accomplish without them? Can you quit any altogether? ● Bundle and quarantine interruptions. If you cannot get rid of a distraction altogether, chunk it into a task and give it a set time slot – with a strict time limit. ● Focus instead on a distraction’s less appealing qualities. Before an Ebay graze, ask: do you have 45 minutes of finite life to gawk at lampshades? Before hitting the shops, ask: is your wardrobe full of clothes for a life you have no time to live?

GOOD TIMING

We are all governed by a multitude of social clocks, from train schedules to office hours to other people. The more social clocks we juggle, the more varied our commitments, the greater the odds of conflict. Good timing depends on balance and on accepting a simple premise: that time keeps on moving. Master good timing with these golden rules: ● Plan ahead Thinking about the optimal timing for actions will put you on the front foot. ● Start earlier We often imagine that we have longer for complicated tasks than we actually have. ● Create extra space Allowing ten-minute buffers in your schedule means that anything that overruns will not derail you. Knowing that you have this luxury reduces time pressures and frees the mind to concentrate. ● Act when you are ready Answer the phone only when you are free to talk. Respect your own tempo. ● Remember, timing is an effort of will. Concentrate on what matters to you most and you can live at your own pace.

PAUSE FOR THOUGHT

● Speed thrills us when we can keep up Accomplishing anything quickly feels like a triumph. But ‘fast’ can destabilise us, making us stress, lose focus or become disorganised. Watch a brilliant tennis player in action and their years of training give them lightning reactions, buying them extra time to decide where to ➤

➤ hit a ball. What looks fast to us is, in fact, the opposite: a pause for slightly slower thought. ● Stop if you want to go faster Breaks give the day rhythm and help set a healthier pace. Power naps are good but so is a stroll, or five minutes off to call a friend. Even just standing, stretching or looking out of the window offers space for reflection. Stop when you hit a mental block and your subconscious may supply the answer. If you overwhelm your mind with incomplete tasks – take on too much or keep switching focus – the cognitive load will drag you down like an undertow. ● Be less available We all need do-nothing time. President Obama routinely scheduled slots of ‘thinking time’ into his daily routine. ● Choose absorbing activities How could you be more active, learn, notice, connect and give? Go dancing? Ride a bicycle? Try slow activities, too: fishing, painting, gardening. Who has the time? You may be surprised how much more time there appears to be if you slow down. ● Resist the impulse to fill every second with activities Make space for serendipitous discovery.

STRUCTURE YOUR DAY

Routines and habits impose structure, steering us from activity to activity, reducing the decisions we need to make and the pressure we feel. ● Routines A well-structured day reinforces our respect for time and ourselves. Once actions become habitual we notice them less. Habits reduce our reliance on motivation and willpower and free time and mental energy for other more original or motivating things. ● Plans Setting specific times to achieve a goal feeds confidence and momentum. Plans will budget our time and spread pressure more thinly. ● Deadlines These are the whips that drive you on. They put you in charge, so that impulse and distractions do not derail you. If you find time pressure stressful, remember that less time often means more efficiency. The trick is to keep deadlines realistic by applying just enough pressure to allow you to work at a pace that suits.

EDIT YOUR LIFE

Cast a cold eye over all the things you do without thinking. Tot up the squandered minutes. Multiply by weeks, months and years the lost time, the heightened stress. Is your routine due for an upgrade? How much of your irretrievable life leaks away on dross? ● Keep a diary for a week Note what you do, when and why. Notice how you feel as you review it. These emotions indicate where to seek change. ● Identify your prime times (for work, rest and play) and time pressures, marking the avoidable in red and the unavoidable/undesirable in green. ● Write a list of all your tasks Which ones reflect your dreams, needs or abilities? Mark those that do in green. Do you spend too long on the wrong things and too little on what matters? Mark in red anything you need to improve, brainstorming how you might do so. ● Are you doing too much or too little? Could reorganising your routine help you achieve more? How much greater might your attainments be if you attempted less? Misery comes from asking too much of ourselves, falling short and then feeling inadequate. ● Identify accelerants – which victories spur you on? Is fun a priority? Is exercise? If not, why not? ● Redeploy Is this the best division of your labour at home or at work? Are there any tasks you can defer, outsource or drop? ● What are you missing? Leisure and friendship tend to be the first gifts sacrificed to the god of spurious busyness. It is easy to keep in touch with the people we care about on social media, but ask yourself: is this a substitute social life or a decoy?

MAXIMISE QUALITY TIME

● Ask yourself how you can stretch the areas in your diary marked in green. Focus on breaks and transitions between tasks. Knowing that your toil must end at 1pm to walk the dog focuses the mind as well as extends a reward. ● When does your pace slow? Most of us slump between 2pm and 3pm. If a siesta is out of the question, make this your time for boring tasks, answering non-urgent emails or tackling the tail end of your to- do list. ● Redefine urgent Unless something is essential or brings you joy, let it go. Clarify your purpose each night with a list for the next day outlining your top priorities. Do not be defined by other people’s definition of urgent or fair. ● Mix things up to sharpen focus There is never too little time to take time out. You cannot afford not to. If your work entails repetitive or drawn- out tasks, break it up to heighten interest. ● Pick the right pace Speed hinders us if we become stressed, disorganised or lose focus as a result. But any pace can serve if your focus remains true and you retain your capacity for slow, creative thought. ● Keep time pressure under control and you will retain the confidence to use it. If your energy flags you can crank your engine using micro- deadlines. Time will seem swifter. You will be, too. n This is an edited extract from On Time – Finding Your Pace in a World Addicted to Fast by Catherine Blyth, to be published by William Collins on Thursday, price €23.79