How to Be More Deliberate With Your Time
So you don’t look back on your week and think, what have I actually achieved?
You know the feeling. You get to the end of the day, or the week — exhausted — and yet, you look back and think, What difference have I actually made?
It can create a feeling of despair, like your days are disappearing in front of your eyes and you’re simply watching them go by in idle.
This often comes when we wake up with the motivation of “Let’s just get through today”. When it’s over, I can go back to doing the things I like doing; relaxing on the couch, scrolling social media, binging Netflix.
It’s that mindset which almost always leads to an unfulfilled feeling of wasted time.
Once you have just ‘got through’ all your days, then what happens?
Days as Jelly Beans
You would have heard the analogy about the days you have on earth being equated to jelly beans.
Essentially, we all have a certain amount of jelly beans (days) allotted to us. We don’t know how many we have, but it's a finite amount.
Roughly a third of those days will be spent sleeping, and other portions of your life take up different amounts of jelly beans; brushing teeth, showering, eating, commuting, etc. Most of these are out of our control.
The biggest portion is our working life. Most adults work from the age of around 18–24 up until retirement. What we do with that time is completely in our control.
These are the days we often end up wishing away, from paycheque to paycheque, longing for weekends and holidays.
What if it didn’t have to be that way?
Opportunities, Not Tasks
What if we saw as our list of things to do for the day as opportunities for something exciting, instead of something to tick off.
It’s 5 am, your alarm goes off and you spring out of bed, you’ve got 30 minutes to get to your favorite trail before the sun comes up. It could be the most beautiful sunrise yet.
You arrive at work and there is someone who seems flat. You’ve got the chance to make a new connection and help them know they’re valued.
You’ve got a list of tasks to complete, but through deep work periods, you know you can get them done in 60% of the workday. That leaves you so much time to work on other things that will help you move up in your organization, or develop your own side income.
The way you frame things matters. When you’re viewing everything as something to just ‘get through’, you’re losing out on the satisfaction of working on something that creates value. And if it isn’t creating value and you feel its a waste of your time, find a way to get it done quickly so that you can show why you shouldn’t be doing such medial tasks.
Planning
The best way to know you’re making a valuable stride towards your goal is to make sure you are planning your time ahead of schedule. There’s nothing quite like the distractions of the modern-day way of living to pull you in every direction, except for the one which matters.
By planning your time — and sticking to your plan — you are more deliberate with the direction you’re traveling. It allows you to say, “No, I can’t make that meeting” or “Sorry, I don’t have time for coffee today”, so you can work on the things that matter.
I plan my days in rough blocks, every week. At the end of every Friday, I set aside an hour to do a review of the previous week (more on this in the next section), and plan for the next week.
I set aside times for deep work, exercise, relaxation, and social commitments.
When it comes time for those specific blocks of work — I let my goals guide me. What is the most valuable thing I could be doing with the next two hours? Then I put my head down, phone off, and get to it.
Planning helps you be more deliberate, so you’re not stumbling your way through your day. You should definitely be doing it.
Deliberate With Your Time
One of the most useful tools I’m (constantly) developing is the ability to concentrate deeply.
Without bragging, I have always had a talent for this. I used to require about half the amount of study time as most of my friends during school and university. They were often convinced I was cheating. The difference was that when I worked, it was with such intense concentration that it was worth double what (most of) everyone else was doing.
This is a tool Theodore Roosevelt used in order to maintain his vast array of extra-curricular activities — as reported in his diary. At Harvard, he would spend “no more than a quarter of the typical day studying,” and spend the rest pursuing his own interests.
Right now, I’m in the middle of a concentration block which I have planned out. My phone is completely switched off, and in another room, I have disabled my internet, and I have another 29 minutes left until the block is over. I have until that timer hits 0 to finish this article.
Everyone has their own methods of going deep or getting into their ‘flow’. One thing is certain, for it to be effective, you need to remove all distractions that could pry your attention for the task at hand.
Acknowledging
Once you have planned your day and executed on your plan using deliberate attention, the last thing to do is to make sure you acknowledge the growth you’ve achieved.
One of the biggest mistakes driven people make is constantly moving the finish line. You set out to complete a task, sometimes get waylaid along the way, and then eventually get around to finishing your original task. Because you’ve stumbled upon this new thing that needs your attention, you don’t acknowledge that you’ve completed what you set out to do.
This is the fastest way to demotivation and eventually burnout.
The truth is simple: by acknowledging that you’ve finished a task you set out to do, your brain rewards you in the form of pleasurable hormone — dopamine. Not only does it make us feel happy, but it also increases our focus and memory.
This is the mechanism games use to keep you hooked and playing for longer. It’s the basis for game-theory and gamification techniques employed in modern software which eases the user down a path of constant interaction.
The acknowledgment comes in two forms. First, is the pat on the back after you’ve completed the task. I like to physically tick something off, so I use a task list and a notebook. Second, is the long term recognition of how that task has contributed to the end goal. I use progress trackers that have little bars that load towards completion. It’s a form of a Gantt Chart.
Using these two measures of my progress, I am able to know that my days are being used productively, and what seems insignificant at the time is another small step on the path towards completing the big project.
Remember, your days are an opportunity to make a difference in the world. Treat each one as an exciting journey rich with experience and wonder.
Buy planning in time in advance, being deliberate with that time at the moment, and then reflecting on your achievements after — you can rest your head on the pillow at the end of the day knowing you’ve done your absolute best, and tomorrow you have the chance to do it all again.
PS: Just snuck in with 2 minutes to go on my timer.
I hope you enjoyed this piece as much as I thoroughly enjoyed writing it. As always, I would love your thoughts and feedback. Comment, or email me.
