A New Way to Think About Your Time | Ashley Whillans
This episode features Ashley Whillans, an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School and author of "Time Smart," who discusses moving from "time poverty" to "time affluence." She shares strategies like time audits, funding, finding, and reframing time to prioritize happiness over money.
Deep Dive Analysis
13 Topic Outline
Ashley Whillans' Personal Journey to Studying Time
Understanding Time-Money Trade-offs: Taylor vs. Morgan
The Importance and Process of a Time Audit
Diversifying Your Time Portfolio: Meaning vs. Pleasure
Strategies for Time Affluence: Funding, Finding, and Reframing Time
Combating Time Confetti and Technology's Impact
Proactive Time Blocking and Planning for Focus
Tailoring Time Management Advice for the Pandemic Era
The Value of Unscripted Social Interactions at Work
Why Taking Time Off and Vacations is Crucial
Addressing Time Affluence for the Underemployed
Counter-Programming Against Traditional Productivity Hacks
Time Management for All, Not Just the Affluent
8 Key Concepts
Time Poverty
A state of feeling overwhelmed by having too many things to do and not enough time, which negatively impacts happiness, social relationships, and health. It's often exacerbated by modern conveniences and technology that fragment leisure time.
Time Affluence
A feeling of being in control over how you spend your time on an everyday basis, leading to greater happiness, less stress, and better social relationships. It involves consciously allocating time to meaningful and satisfying activities.
Taylor vs. Morgan
A framework used to categorize individuals based on whether they prioritize time (Taylor) or money (Morgan). This preference reliably predicts career choices, daily decisions, and overall happiness, with 'Taylors' generally reporting greater happiness.
Time Audit
A mindfulness exercise to understand how one spends and wastes time, involving listing daily activities and assessing their meaningfulness, pleasantness, and stress levels. The goal is to identify activities to minimize, outsource, or reframe.
Funding Time
A strategy to achieve time affluence by using money to outsource unpleasant, non-meaningful, or stressful tasks. This frees up time for more purposeful or pleasant activities.
Finding Time
A strategy that involves identifying pockets of time that often go missing or are passively spent (e.g., on technology) and proactively substituting them with more positive, intentional activities. It can also involve bundling desired activities with disliked ones.
Reframing Time
A strategy to mitigate goal conflict and increase enjoyment by changing one's perspective on unavoidable or less pleasant tasks, or by treating leisure time (like weekends) as special. This helps in savoring moments and reducing feelings of 'should be working'.
Time Confetti
A term describing how modern technology fragments leisure time into small, bite-sized moments, leading to objective loss of leisure and increased feelings of goal conflict. Constant alerts pull attention away, making it harder to be present and enjoy activities.
8 Questions Answered
She initially studied how people misspend money for happiness and realized the same might apply to time. Her personal struggle with work-life balance at Harvard Business School, despite her research, further motivated her to apply and teach these concepts.
The first step is to become aware of how you make decisions between time and money, understanding if you are more like a 'Taylor' (values time) or 'Morgan' (values money), and then conducting a time audit.
Yes, people who are more time-focused tend to be happier because they are more likely to spend their time in ways that promote happiness, such as choosing intrinsically motivating jobs, socializing, and volunteering.
One should aim for a balance of activities that are high in meaning (e.g., childcare), high in pleasure (e.g., massage), and both (e.g., purposeful work or volunteering), while minimizing time spent on unpleasant or stressful activities.
By reframing weekends like a vacation, consciously telling oneself that the upcoming leisure is special and different. This helps in savoring the moment, being more present, and reducing goal conflict.
Taking time off, even short breaks, helps employees return to work happier, more engaged, and more productive. It's crucial for reducing burnout and stress, especially given current challenges.
They can find ways to spend their discretionary time making a positive contribution to society or engaging in activities they find productive. This helps foster a greater sense of competence, control, and meaning, even when facing economic hardship.
No, time management strategies like reframing and finding time are applicable to everyone, regardless of financial status. In fact, those who are financially constrained often experience the most time poverty and stand to benefit significantly from alleviating it.
24 Actionable Insights
1. Prioritize Time Over Money
Consciously choose time over money when possible, as prioritizing time reliably predicts greater happiness, less stress, and better social relationships compared to prioritizing financial gain. This choice influences career decisions and daily trade-offs, leading to more meaningful time allocation.
2. Conduct a Time Audit
Regularly review how you spend your time (e.g., a typical Tuesday) by identifying activities that are meaningful, pleasant, stressful, or mindless. Aim to maximize time on meaningful and pleasant activities while minimizing time spent on unpleasant or stressful ones.
3. Define Your “Big Why”
Articulate your core purpose, goals, and intentions in life, asking yourself what you would do if you had one day remaining. Strive to align your daily time allocation with how you would ideally spend your time, or if it were your last day, to live with greater intentionality.
4. Protect Leisure Time
Schedule and protect your leisure time in your calendar as diligently as you would work appointments, refusing to move it for work deadlines. This deliberate protection of leisure is crucial for overall well-being and happiness, as it is often more important than work projects.
5. Diversify Your Time Portfolio
Allocate your time across activities that are high in meaning (e.g., parenting), high in pleasure (e.g., a massage), and ideally both (e.g., purposeful work or volunteering). Minimize time spent on unpleasant and stressful activities, similar to diversifying financial investments.
6. Fund Time by Outsourcing Tasks
If financially able, spend money to outsource or delegate unpleasant, non-meaningful, or stressful tasks (e.g., household chores, certain work tasks). This frees up your time for more meaningful or enjoyable activities, reducing stress and promoting happiness.
7. Find Time by Substituting Mindless Activities
Identify pockets of time lost to mindless, unproductive activities like excessive technology use (e.g., doom scrolling, constant email checking). Proactively substitute these with more positive, intentional activities such as exercising, socializing, or going outdoors.
8. Reframe Weekends as Vacations
Treat your weekends as special ‘vacation time’ rather than regular leisure, consciously telling yourself they are different. This reframing helps you savor moments more and feel less goal conflict about not working.
9. Practice Savoring and Presence
Actively remind yourself to be present in the moment and savor everyday experiences, especially social interactions with loved ones. This practice enhances satisfaction and contributes to a feeling of time affluence.
10. Create a Time Affluence To-Do List
Maintain a list of enjoyable, meaningful, or socially connected activities to capitalize on unexpected free time, such as a canceled meeting. Instead of defaulting to work or mindless scrolling, use these moments for activities that nourish you psychologically.
11. Use Physical Reminders
Place physical reminders in your environment (e.g., a tattoo, a note) to keep your core values, intentions, and the preciousness of time top of mind. This helps you center yourself and align daily actions with your ‘big why’ despite demanding work or technology distractions.
12. Disrupt Morning Habits
Break the habit of immediately engaging with work (e.g., checking email) upon waking. Instead, take 30 minutes before going to your desk to be deliberate and mindful, setting intentions for the day to foster greater intentionality and focus.
13. Proactively Block Time for Goals
Schedule uninterrupted blocks of time (e.g., two hours, twice a week) in your calendar for important goals, treating them as non-negotiable as critical meetings. This practice significantly reduces burnout and stress by protecting focus time.
14. Plan Proactive Time Blocks
Dedicate a 30-minute planning block each week before your proactive work blocks to outline specific tasks for those focused periods. This ensures accountability and maximizes productivity by preventing you from wondering what to do when the time arrives.
15. Structure Tasks for Progress
Begin challenging work sessions with an easy, low-level task (e.g., editing, organizing) to build a sense of competence and progress. This approach helps get the juices flowing and eases you into more substantial and difficult work.
16. Bundle Activities to Find Time
Combine an activity you enjoy (e.g., listening to music or a podcast) with a less enjoyable but necessary task (e.g., errands, exercise). This ‘bundling’ makes the latter more pleasant and effectively helps you find more time for preferred activities.
17. Reframe Unpleasant Work Tasks
For unavoidable, unpleasant work tasks, reframe them by consciously recognizing their connection to broader goals or how they benefit colleagues. Simply seeing this connection can transform negative experiences at work into something more positive.
18. Cancel Unnecessary Meetings
Don’t hesitate to cancel meetings if there’s no clear agenda or purpose, as the recipient is often happier than you’d expect. This frees up valuable time for both parties, reducing unnecessary obligations.
19. Build Breaks & Boundaries (WFH)
Deliberately schedule breaks, boundaries, and transitions (e.g., virtual commutes, no meetings during certain hours) into your workday, especially when working from home. This mitigates time stress and goal conflict caused by blurred work-life lines in a virtual environment.
20. Shorten Meetings for Interaction (WFH)
As an employer or team leader, shorten meetings and create deliberate buffer time before or after them to allow for spontaneous, unscripted social interactions among colleagues. This fosters connection without adding formal social obligations to overwhelmed schedules.
21. Encourage Random Social Chats (WFH)
Implement or participate in ‘random coffee chats’ programs (e.g., Donut through Slack) that randomly pair colleagues for casual online conversations. This mirrors spontaneous hallway interactions, fostering joy, creativity, and informal mentorship missing in virtual environments.
22. Take Short, Frequent Vacations
Prioritize taking short, frequent vacations (e.g., three to five days) rather than fewer long ones. Research suggests shorter breaks can be more relaxing and effective for recharging without the overwhelming backlog of work upon return.
23. Engage in Productive Activities (Underemployment)
If underemployed or unemployed, actively seek out and engage in productive activities or acts of service that contribute positively to society or help others. This can boost feelings of competence, satisfaction, and control over your time, even if financially constrained.
24. Move Work to the Periphery
Consciously shift work, productivity, and economic success from the absolute center of your life to a more peripheral role. This challenges societal norms that reward constant availability, fostering greater individual and societal happiness and better navigation of economic challenges.
6 Key Quotes
Knowing and doing are two very different things.
Ashley Whillans
People who say they're more like Taylor are happier and spend their time in ways that are more likely to produce greater gains and happiness, like volunteering or spending more time socializing.
Ashley Whillans
You want to be thinking about time as diversifying your portfolio, just as you would your financial investments.
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
The most productive employees are the ones who take a break from their workplace so they can come back to work being more fully engaged.
Ashley Whillans
Time poverty isn't our fault. We're time poor in part because our organizations incentivize us to work constantly.
Ashley Whillans
2 Protocols
Time Audit Protocol
Ashley Whillans- Think back to a typical work day (e.g., a normal Tuesday) to capture typical strains.
- List 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.
- If an unpleasant activity cannot be removed, consider reframing it to mitigate goal conflict.
- Identify where your time goes missing (e.g., passive scrolling) and how to substitute that time with active leisure (e.g., exercise, socializing).
Proactive Time Blocking Protocol
Ashley Whillans- Put proactive blocks of time into your calendar (e.g., two hours, twice a week) where you will not allow technology to disrupt you.
- Hold to these blocks as if they were your most important meeting with a colleague or supervisor.
- Schedule a 30-minute planning block once a week before your proactive blocks to plan exactly what you will do during those times, ensuring accountability and preparedness.