Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done

People often complain about not having enough time to accomplish what they want to do. Yet, when delving into their detailed time usage, they find that they end up wasting a lot of their time. Off the Clock recommends being mindful of time usage in order to accomplish what we need and have more free time. 

It is tempting to pick up the phone to scan some random social media when we have a free moment. However, very few people would mention "spending three hours scanning social media" as something they want to accomplish for the day. Even though exercising only takes a few minutes, most people claim they don't have enough time to fit it into their schedule. By tracking our detailed activities each day, we can get an idea where our time really is going. We may find that we are spending less time working than we think. 

In choosing the areas to spend our time, it is often valuable to block of time, such as the start of day to engage in our high-value individual activities. We should also know how things typically work. If meetings run late, don't schedule them back to back. If it often takes longer than expected to go to a soccer game, add in buffer time. Make valuable use of the time that you have. Spending time socializing with coworkers can be help accomplish more than working through lunch. "Appearing busy" does not provide as much value as we think. Accomplishing things does. Even in a marriage, we have picked somebody that we want to "suffer the least" with. We will have challenges with our time. We can make the best of them.

168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think

A day has 168 hours. How do you spend them? Laura Vanderkam invites you to explore your time usage. People tend to do a poor job estimating where they are spending their time. Often those that claim to work crazy amounts of hours do much less actual work. (Much of the "work" is actually personal or social behavior.) Multitasking can result in little progress in either task. However, "intelligent multipurpose behavior" can be beneficial. (For example, combining service and social work.) Little things like responding to a new email alert can end up sucking a large amount of time before you are able to get back to where you were. Trying to work form home and watch kids at the same time can be a recipe for not doing a good job at either. Finding a job that you truly enjoy makes the work less "work".
The author tends to be more focused on females balancing work and job, though there is material for everyone. It was also written during the "great recession", and thus has plenty of examples of "forced" job changes.
It is important to look at what you are doing and how that accomplishes your goals. Often people will say they would love to have a little more time to do something, but given the time they don't do it. If there is a strong desire to accomplish something, we can often find time to do it. (But alas, we will often spend more time on the phone or TV.) Switching from full time to part time work often does not significantly change the amount of time spent with family. Ironically, stay at home parents only spend a little more interactive time with their children than working parents. (The extra time is often spent doing other activities while the children are on their own.) It is useful to look at our core competencies and considering outsourcing other things. It is fine to do things that we are not great at because we want to. But, even things like laundry may be more efficiently done by others than us.