A New Way To Think About Your Time | Ashley Whillans (2021)
Harvard Business School Professor Ashley Whillans, author of "Time Smart," discusses how intentional time management can lead to happiness and time affluence. She shares strategies like time audits, funding time, and reframing time to help listeners prioritize time over money and reduce feelings of time poverty.
Deep Dive Analysis
14 Topic Outline
Introduction to Time Affluence and Ashley Whillans' Work
Personal Journey into Time and Happiness Research
Understanding Time-Money Trade-offs and Happiness
The Concept and Practice of a Time Audit
Distinguishing Meaningful vs. Pleasant Activities
Strategies: Funding, Finding, and Reframing Time
The Impact of 'Time Confetti' on Daily Life
Proactive Time Management and Technology Use
Work-from-Home Challenges and Time Stress
Organizational Strategies for Employee Well-being
The Critical Importance of Taking Time Off
Addressing Underemployment and Time Fulfillment
Challenging Traditional Productivity Mindsets
Time Management for All Income Levels
8 Key Concepts
Time Affluence
A feeling of having control over one's time, moving away from time starvation, and deliberately using time thoughtfully to promote happiness. It involves making conscious decisions about how time is spent to align with personal values and goals.
Taylor vs. Morgan
A framework for understanding individual preferences where 'Taylor' values time over money (willing to give up money for free time) and 'Morgan' values money over time (willing to sacrifice leisure for work). This preference reliably predicts happiness and how individuals allocate their time.
Time Audit
A process of becoming mindful of how one spends and wastes time on an everyday basis. It involves identifying activities that bring meaning and joy versus those that are unpleasant or stressful, with the goal of reallocating time more effectively.
Funding Time
A strategy where individuals use money to outsource or delegate unpleasant, non-meaningful, or stressful tasks (e.g., household chores, certain work tasks). The aim is to free up time for more positive, meaningful activities.
Finding Time
The practice of identifying 'missing' pockets of time, often lost to mindless activities like excessive technology use (e.g., doom scrolling, constant email checking). The strategy involves proactively substituting these lost moments with more positive, scheduled activities.
Reframing Time
A strategy to mitigate goal conflict and stress by consciously changing one's perception of certain activities. Examples include viewing work drudgery as contributing to colleagues' success or treating a weekend like a special vacation to enhance savoring.
Time Confetti
A term describing how modern technology and constant alerts break up leisure time into small, fragmented moments. This phenomenon leads to feelings of time poverty, increased goal conflict, and reduced enjoyment of present activities due to constant distractions.
Big Why
An individual's core purpose, goal, or intention in life. Keeping this 'big why' in mind helps guide daily decisions and time allocation to align with personal values, leading to a more intentional and fulfilling life.
10 Questions Answered
She initially researched how people spend money for happiness with Elizabeth Dunn, then realized similar principles applied to time, especially after experiencing personal struggles with time management while teaching at Harvard Business School.
Yes, people who prioritize time over money (Taylors) are generally happier and spend their time in ways that promote greater happiness, such as volunteering or socializing more.
You can do a 'time audit' by reflecting on a typical day, noting activities in the morning, afternoon, and evening, and assessing whether each activity was meaningful, pleasant, stressful, or unproductive.
It involves picking up each activity from your day, asking if it brings you meaning or is attached to a higher goal, and if not, considering whether you should stop doing it, delegate it, or outsource it.
By finding where time goes missing (e.g., passive scrolling) and proactively substituting it with active leisure like exercising, going outdoors, or spending time with loved ones, even for just 30 minutes a day.
You can reframe them by connecting them to broader goals, such as seeing work drudgery as helping colleagues, or by treating leisure time (like weekends) as a special vacation to enhance savoring and reduce goal conflict.
Technology creates 'time confetti' by fragmenting leisure time with constant alerts and notifications, leading to objective loss of leisure and increased feelings of goal conflict and stress.
Employees are working longer days (about 49 minutes more), experiencing more time stress due to blurred boundaries between work and personal life, and are taking less vacation time, leading to increased burnout.
Taking time off, even short breaks of 3-5 days, significantly reduces burnout and stress, makes employees happier, more engaged, and more productive upon return, and helps them recharge and recover.
By reframing their free time as an opportunity to engage in productive activities or acts of service that make a positive contribution to society or their community, which can foster a sense of competence and satisfaction.
23 Actionable Insights
1. Prioritize Time Over Money
Consciously choose time over money by being willing to give up money for more free time (e.g., working fewer hours), as this reliably predicts greater happiness and better time allocation towards meaningful activities.
2. Conduct a Time Audit
Reflect on a typical day (e.g., a Tuesday) by mapping out activities in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Identify what activities are meaningful, pleasant, stressful, or mindlessly engaged in to cultivate awareness of your time spending habits.
3. Maximize Meaning & Pleasure
After auditing your time, maximize time spent on activities that bring meaning, joy, or both (e.g., purposeful work, volunteering, family time). Diversify your ’time portfolio’ to include both meaningful (e.g., parenting) and pleasant (e.g., massage) activities.
4. Minimize Unpleasant Activities
Reduce time spent on activities that are unpleasant, stressful, or lack meaning (e.g., doom scrolling, excessive email checking). Consider if these can be eliminated, outsourced, or delegated.
5. Fund Time by Outsourcing
Use money to pay others to do unpleasant, non-meaningful, or stressful tasks (e.g., household chores, certain work tasks) to reduce stress and free up your time for more positive activities.
6. Find Time: Proactive Scheduling
Identify pockets of time that ‘go missing’ (e.g., due to technology traps like email or social media) and proactively schedule positive activities (e.g., walks, conversations, calls) during those blocks instead. Set specific times to actively disengage from technology.
7. Find Time: Activity Bundling
Combine an activity you enjoy (e.g., listening to music or a podcast) with a less enjoyable but necessary one (e.g., errands, exercise) to make the latter more pleasant and effectively ‘find’ more time for what you like.
8. Reframe Unpleasant Tasks
For tasks you cannot outsource or eliminate, reframe them by connecting them to broader goals or positive outcomes (e.g., seeing how work drudgery helps colleagues, or how chores instill values in children).
9. Reframe Weekends as Vacations
Treat your weekends as special ‘vacation time’ by telling yourself they are different and trying to savor them. This helps you be more present, enjoy leisure, and reduce goal conflict related to work.
10. Keep Your ‘Big Why’ in Mind
Regularly reflect on your purpose, core values, and what truly matters in life. Strive to spend your time daily in ways that align with how you would spend an ideal or your last day.
11. Create Physical Reminders
Place physical reminders in your environment (e.g., a tattoo, a note) to help you stay centered on your intentions and goals, encouraging you to savor everyday experiences and disconnect from distractions.
12. Time Affluence To-Do List
Prepare a list of positive, socially connected activities (e.g., going for a walk, calling a friend) to engage in when unexpected free time arises (e.g., a canceled meeting), instead of defaulting to unproductive habits.
13. Schedule Undisrupted Work Blocks
Allocate specific blocks of time (e.g., two hours, twice a week) in your calendar for important work, free from technological disruptions, and treat these blocks as critically as any other meeting.
14. Plan Proactive Work Blocks
Dedicate a 30-minute planning session weekly before your proactive work blocks to outline exactly what you will accomplish during those times, ensuring accountability and maximizing their benefit.
15. Ease into Difficult Tasks
When starting a work block, begin with easy, low-level tasks (e.g., editing, fixing references) to build momentum and a sense of competence before transitioning to more challenging or substantial work.
16. Build WFH Breaks & Boundaries
Deliberately incorporate breaks, boundaries, and transitions into your work-from-home schedule (e.g., virtual commutes, starting meetings later/ending earlier) to mitigate increased work hours, time stress, and goal conflict.
17. Foster Unscripted Social Interactions
As an employer or team leader, shorten formal meetings and create space at the beginning or end for casual chats, or implement ‘random coffee chats’ to encourage spontaneous social connections, joy, and creativity among colleagues.
18. Take Regular Time Off
Take vacations, even short ones of three to five days, to recharge and recover. Employees who take time off return to work happier, more engaged, and more productive, and this helps prevent burnout.
19. Disrupt Morning Habits
Avoid immediately checking your inbox or starting work upon waking. Instead, take 30 minutes to be deliberate and intentional, reflecting on your purpose to infuse your day with intentionality.
20. Engage in Service (Underemployed)
If underemployed or unemployed, find ways to spend discretionary time making a positive contribution to society or helping others. This can foster a sense of competence, control, happiness, and meaning, combating feelings of dissatisfaction.
21. Shift Cultural Focus from Work
As individuals and a society, consciously shift work, productivity, and economic success from the absolute center of life to a more peripheral role, prioritizing leisure and social relationships for greater happiness and resilience.
22. Time-Consciousness is Pro-Social
Recognize that becoming more time-focused and time-affluent is not selfish; it enables you to better show up at work and in your personal life, thereby contributing more effectively to society.
23. Time Management for All
Understand that time management strategies like reframing and finding time are beneficial for everyone, regardless of financial status, and can be particularly impactful for those who are financially constrained and often the most time-poor.
7 Key Quotes
If I, someone who studies the importance of time for happiness, and making all of these decisions on an everyday basis that prioritize work over everything else, if I'm struggling to put time first, I must not be alone.
Ashley Whillans
Knowing and doing are two very different things.
Ashley Whillans
People feel like they're being judged by the psychologist that studies happiness.
Ashley Whillans
We often think we need to have a lot of free time to spend more time in ways that bring us joy and satisfaction, like helping others, like exercising, like socializing. However, even spending 30 more minutes a day engaged in active leisure can have powerful benefits for our mood.
Ashley Whillans
We need to keep our big why in mind and actually make physical reminders in our environment to stop and savor everyday experiences.
Ashley Whillans
Research suggests that these casual conversations or even acknowledgement by people that we don't interact with on a regular basis bring as much happiness in an average day than a longer conversation with a close friend or a close colleague.
Ashley Whillans
Time poverty isn't our fault. We're time poor in part because our organizations incentivize us to work constantly.
Ashley Whillans
3 Protocols
Time Audit Protocol
Ashley Whillans- Think back to a typical workday (e.g., a normal Tuesday) that represents your usual strains.
- Write down the major activities you engaged in during the morning, afternoon, and evening.
- For each activity, assess if it was meaningful, pleasant, not meaningful, unpleasant, or stressful.
- For activities that were not meaningful and not enjoyable, consider if you can stop doing it, pay someone else to do it (fund time), or delegate it.
- Cultivate awareness of what activities you find meaningful and pleasurable versus those you find stressful or engage in mindlessly.
- Identify where your time goes missing and look for opportunities to substitute passive activities (e.g., scrolling) with active leisure (e.g., exercise, socializing) for even short durations (e.g., 30 minutes).
Proactive Time Blocks Protocol for Executives
Ashley Whillans- Schedule two proactive blocks of time (e.g., two hours each) into your calendar twice a week, during which you will not allow technology or meetings to disrupt you.
- Schedule a 30-minute planning block once a week, before your proactive blocks, to plan exactly what you will do during those proactive time blocks.
- Hold to these proactive blocks as if they were your most important meeting with a colleague or supervisor, ensuring focused work on important goals.
Work-from-Home Organizational Well-being Protocol
Ashley Whillans- Implement 'virtual commutes' where employees are encouraged not to schedule meetings or log in during specific times (e.g., 8-9 AM) to allow for personal activities like breakfast with family.
- Start meetings later and end them earlier to create informal social interaction time for employees, fostering unscripted conversations.
- Avoid scheduling formal social interaction time, as it often adds another obligation to employees' already overwhelmed schedules.
- Encourage 'random coffee chats' by randomly pairing employees in small online breakout rooms to foster spontaneous social interactions and creativity.
- Actively encourage employees, especially those least likely, to take their paid or unpaid vacation time to combat burnout and maintain engagement, recognizing that short breaks (3-5 days) can be highly effective.