Indistractable Page 6

  The one thing we control is the time we put into a task.

  Whether I’m able to fall asleep at any given moment or whether a breakthrough idea for my next book comes to me when I sit down at my desk isn’t entirely up to me, but one thing is for certain: I won’t do what I want to do if I’m not in the right place at the right time, whether that’s in bed when I want to sleep or at my desk when I want to do good work. Not showing up guarantees failure.

  We tend to think we can solve our distraction problems by trying to get more done each minute, but more often the real problem is not giving ourselves time to do what we say we will. By timeboxing “you” time and faithfully following through, we keep the promises we make to ourselves.

  REMEMBER THIS

  •Schedule time for yourself first. You are at the center of the three life domains. Without allocating time for yourself, the other two domains suffer.

  •Show up when you say you will. You can’t always control what you get out of time you spend, but you can control how much time you put into a task.

  •Input is much more certain than outcome. When it comes to living the life you want, making sure you allocate time to living your values is the only thing you should focus on.

  2The Kindle e-reader is less harmful to sleep than other devices. Anne-Marie Chang, Daniel Aeschbach, Jeanne F. Duffy, and Charles A. Czeisler, “Evening Use of Light-Emitting EReaders Negatively Affects Sleep, Circadian Timing, and Next-Morning Alertness,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112, no. 4 (January 27, 2015): 1232, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1418490112.

  Chapter 11

  Schedule Important Relationships

  Family and friends help us live our values of connection, loyalty, and responsibility. They need you and you need them, so they are clearly far more important than a mere “residual beneficiary,” a term I first heard in an Economics 101 class. In business, a residual beneficiary is the chump who gets whatever is left over when a company is liquidated—typically, not much. In life, our loved ones deserve better, and yet, if we’re not careful with how we plan our time, residual beneficiaries are exactly what they become.

  One of my most important values is to be a caring, involved, and fun dad. While I aspire to live out this value, being a fully present dad is not always “convenient.” An email from a client informs me that my website is down; the plumber texts to tell me that his train is stalled and he needs to reschedule; my bank notifies me of an unexpected charge on my card. Meanwhile, my daughter sits there, waiting for me to play my next card in our game of gin rummy.

  To combat this problem, I’ve intentionally scheduled time with my daughter every week. Much like I schedule time for a business meeting or time for myself, I block out time on my schedule to be with her. To make sure we always have something fun to do, we spent one afternoon writing down over a hundred things to do together in town, each one on a separate little strip of paper. Then, we rolled up all the little strips and placed them inside our “fun jar.” Now, every Friday afternoon, we simply pull an activity from the fun jar and do it. Sometimes we’ll visit a museum, while other times we’ll play in the park or visit a highly rated ice cream parlor across town. That time is reserved just for us.

  Truth be told, the fun jar idea doesn’t always work as smoothly as I’d like. It’s hard for me to muster up the energy to head to the playground when New York’s temperatures fall below freezing. On those days, a cup of hot cocoa and a couple of chapters of Harry Potter sound way more inviting for us both. What’s important, though, is that I’ve made it a priority in my weekly schedule to live up to my values. Having this time in my schedule allows me to be the dad that I envision myself to be.

  Similarly, my wife, Julie, and I make sure we have time scheduled for each other. Twice a month, we plan a special date. Sometimes we see a live show or indulge in an exotic meal. But mostly, we just walk and talk for hours. Regardless of what we do, we know that this time is cemented in our schedules and will not be compromised. In the absence of this scheduled time together, it’s too easy to fill our days with other errands, like running to the grocery store or cleaning the house. My scheduled time with Julie allows me to live out my value of intimacy. There’s no one else I can open up to the way I can with her, but this can only happen if we make the time.

  Equality is another value in my marriage. I always thought I behaved in a way that upheld that value. I was wrong. Before my wife and I had a clear schedule in place, we found ourselves bickering about why certain tasks weren’t getting done around the house. Several studies show that among heterosexual couples, husbands don’t do their fair share of the housework, and I was, I’m sad to admit, one of them. Darcy Lockman, a psychologist in New York City, wrote in the Washington Post, “Employed women partnered with employed men carry 65 percent of the family’s child-care responsibilities, a figure that has held steady since the turn of the century.”

  But like many men Lockman interviewed in her research, I was somehow oblivious to the tasks my wife handled. As one mother told Lockman,

  He’s on his phone or computer while I’m running around like a crazy person getting the kids’ stuff, doing the laundry. He has his coffee in the morning reading his phone while I’m packing lunches, getting our daughter’s clothes out, helping our son with his homework. He just sits there. He doesn’t do it on purpose. He has no awareness of what’s happening around him. I ask him about it and he gets defensive.

  It was as if Lockman had interviewed my wife. But if my wife wanted help, why didn’t she just ask? I later came to realize that figuring out how I could be helpful was itself work. Julie couldn’t tell me how I could help because she already had a dozen things on her mind. She wanted me to take initiative, to jump in and start helping out. But I didn’t know how. I had no idea, so I’d either stand there confused or slink off to do something else. Too many evenings followed this script, ending in late dinners, hurt feelings, and sometimes tears.

  During one of our date days, we sat down and listed all the household tasks that each of us performed; making sure nothing was left out. Comparing Julie’s (seemingly endless) list to mine was a wake-up call that my value of equality in our marriage needed some help. We agreed to split the household jobs and, most important, timeboxed the tasks on our schedules, leaving no doubt about when they would get done.

  Working our way toward a more equitable split of the housework restored integrity to my value of equality in my marriage, which also improved the odds of having a long and happy relationship. Lockman’s research supports this benefit: “A growing body of research in family and clinical studies demonstrates that spousal equality promotes marital success and that inequality undermines it.”

  There’s no doubt scheduling time for family and ensuring they were no longer the residual beneficiary of my time greatly improved my relationship with my wife and daughter.

  The people we love most should not be content getting whatever time is left over. Everyone benefits when we hold time on our schedule to live up to our values and do our share.

  This domain extends beyond just family. Not scheduling time for the important relationships in our lives is more harmful than most people realize. Recent studies have shown that a dearth of social interaction not only leads to loneliness but is also linked to a range of harmful physical effects. In fact, a lack of close friendships may be hazardous to your health.

  Perhaps the most compelling evidence that friendships affect longevity comes from the ongoing Harvard Study of Adult Development. Since 1938, researchers have been following the physical health and social habits of 724 men. Robert Waldinger, the study’s current director, said in a TEDx talk, “The clearest message that we get from this seventy-five-year study is this: good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.” Socially disconnected people are, according to Waldinger, “less happy; their health declines earlier in midlife; their brain functioning declines sooner; [and] they live shorter lives than people who a
re not lonely.” Waldinger warned, “It’s not just the number of friends you have . . . It’s the quality of your close relationships that matters.”

  What makes for a quality friendship? William Rawlins, a professor of interpersonal communications at Ohio University who studies the way people interact over the course of their lives, told the Atlantic that satisfying friendships need three things: “somebody to talk to, someone to depend on, and someone to enjoy.” Finding someone to talk to, depend on, and enjoy often comes naturally when we’re young, but as we grow into adulthood, the model for how to maintain friendships is less clear. We graduate and go our separate ways, pursuing careers and starting new lives miles apart from our best friends.

  Suddenly work obligations and ambitions take priority over having beers with buddies. If children enter the picture, exhilarating nights on the town become exhausted nights on the couch. Unfortunately, the less time we invest in people, the easier it is to make do without them, until one day it is too awkward to reconnect.

  This is how friendships die—they starve to death.

  But as the research reveals, by allowing our friendships to starve, we’re also malnourishing our own bodies and minds. If the food of friendship is time together, how do we make the time to ensure we’re all fed?

  Despite our busy schedules and surfeit of children, my friends and I have developed a social routine that ensures regular get-togethers. We call it the “kibbutz,” which in Hebrew means “gathering.” For our gathering, four couples, my wife and me included, meet every two weeks to talk about one question over a picnic lunch. The question might range from a deep inquiry like, “What is one thing you are thankful your parents taught you?” to a more practical question like, “Should we push our kids to learn things they don’t want, like playing the piano?”

  Having a topic helps in two ways: first, it gets us past the small talk of sports and weather, giving us an opportunity to open up about stuff that really matters; second, it prevents the gender split that often happens when couples convene in groups—men in one corner, women in another. Having a question of the day gets us all talking together.

  The most important element of the gathering is its consistency; rain or shine, the kibbutz appears on our calendars every other week—same time, same place. There’s no back-and-forth emailing to hammer out logistics. To keep it even simpler, each couple brings their own food so there’s no prep or cleanup. If one couple can’t make it, no big deal; the kibbutz goes ahead as planned.

  The gathering lasts about two hours, and I always leave with new ideas and insights. Most important, I feel closer to my friends. Given the importance of close relationships, it’s essential we plan ahead. Knowing there is time set aside for the kibbutz ensures it happens.

  No matter what kind of activity fulfills your need for friendship, it’s essential to make time on your calendar for it. The time we spend with our friends isn’t just pleasurable—it’s an investment in our future health and well-being.

  REMEMBER THIS

  •The people you love deserve more than getting whatever time is left over. If someone is important to you, make regular time for them on your calendar.

  •Go beyond scheduling date days with your significant other. Put domestic chores on your calendar to ensure an equitable split.

  •A lack of close friendships may be hazardous to your health. Ensure you maintain important relationships by scheduling time for regular get-togethers.

  Chapter 12

  Sync with Stakeholders at Work

  Unlike the other life domains, I don’t need to remind you to make time for work. You probably don’t have much of a choice when it comes to this area. Given that work likely takes up more of your waking hours than any of the other domains, it’s even more important to ensure the time spent there is consistent with your values.

  Work can help people live their values of being collaborative, industrious, and persistent. It also allows us to spend time on something meaningful when we labor for someone else’s benefit—like our customers or an important cause. Unfortunately, many of us find that our workday is a hectic mess, plagued by constant interruptions, pointless meetings, and a never-ending flow of emails.

  Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be this way. We can do more and live better by clarifying our values and expectations with each other at work. Clarification around how we spend our time at work fosters and reinforces the central quality of a positive working relationship: trust.

  Every company has its policies. However, when it comes to how employees manage their workloads, many managers have little idea how their colleagues spend their time. Similarly, perhaps the biggest unknown to the employee is how they should spend their time, both inside and outside of work. How responsive should employees be after hours? Are they required to attend happy hours or other events full of “mandatory fun”? Will managers and clients expect employees to fulfill last-minute deadlines? Should they let their spouses know to expect late-night outings when company execs drop into town?

  These questions are significant because they directly affect our schedules and, subsequently, the time we have for the other domains in life. A recent survey found 83 percent of working professionals check email after work. The same study notes that two-thirds of respondents take work-related devices, such as laptops or smartphones, with them on vacation. And about half the respondents said they’ve sent work-related emails during meals with family or friends.

  Staying late at work or feeling pressured to reply to work-related messages after hours means spending less time with our family and friends or doing something for ourselves. If these demands become more than the employee bargained for, trust and loyalty can erode, along with one’s health and relationships. The trouble is, we don’t typically know the answers to these questions until we are already in a role.

  There are also many unknowns from the employer’s perspective. When tasks and projects take longer than originally planned and expectations aren’t met, managers are left guessing why. Is the employee not capable? Is he not motivated? Is she looking for another job? How are they spending their time? In response to underperformance, managers often ask employees to do more and work longer hours. But this common knee-jerk reaction asks employees to give more than they expected, stressing the working relationship and prompting them to push back in subtle ways.

  What does this pushback look like? While often done unknowingly, we find ourselves doing low-priority work, slacking off at our desks, chitchatting too much with colleagues, and generally reducing productive output.

  Other times, we (perhaps unconsciously) sabotage our companies by doing pseudowork, tasks that look like work but aren’t in line with the company’s top priorities. (Think: spending time on pet projects, corporate politicking, sending more emails, or holding more meetings than necessary.) This sort of pushback seems to increase when people work more hours. In fact, studies have found that workers who spend more than fifty-five hours per week on the job have reduced productivity; this problem is further compounded by their making more mistakes and inflicting more useless work on their colleagues, resulting in more time spent to get even less done.

  What’s the solution to this madness?

  Using a detailed, timeboxed schedule helps clarify the central trust pact between employers and employees.

  Through regular review, the two parties can make informed decisions regarding whether the employee’s time is spent appropriately and help them allocate time to more important tasks.

  An advertising sales executive at a large tech company in Manhattan, April struggled with her schedule. The mounting pressure to sell more and do more in pursuit of a management role had embittered her friendly disposition. Those pressures infected April’s schedule in the form of more meetings, more unplanned conversations, and more emails. Those additional tasks crowded out the time she had to focus on her priorities: caring for her customers, closing more sales, and demonstrating greater results.

 
When I met with April in her office, she looked frazzled. She had two months left to close over a third of her annual sales quota of $15 million, and I could tell her mind was elsewhere. April feared she wouldn’t meet her goal and had concluded that she was the problem—she just wasn’t working hard enough and therefore had to do better. In her mind, better meant working even more hours.

  Striving to be more productive was making April miserable and was causing her to neglect the other domains of her life. But productivity itself wasn’t her problem; she was a productive person who could squeeze a lot out of a small amount of time. Rather, the problem was her lack of a timeboxed schedule, compounded by the self-limiting belief that she, and not her management of time, was the problem. “I’m too slow,” she told me over lunch one day. But there was nothing wrong with April. She wasn’t slow, but she was lacking the productivity tools for her new role.

  Though scheduling her time at work didn’t come naturally to her, April subdivided her workday to account for the most important tasks she wanted to accomplish. She carved out time for focused work first, aware that creating new client proposals could be done faster and better if she did it without interruption. Every diversion slowed her down and made it more difficult to get back to customizing the pitch. Then she reserved a block of time for client calls and meetings, followed by time in the afternoon for processing emails and messages. I encouraged April to share her work-related timeboxed schedule with her manager, David.