Day #17: Say NO to Frantic Fridays

Your perception of how much time you actually have might just be warped. The good news is, you can un-warp it.

Nov 17, 2023

How did everything snowball into the frantic mess of everything having to be done by EOD Friday?

If you exercised even 1 of the tools you learned this month, you may have found yourself with more time than usual to tackle the big tasks on your to-do list (which I hope by now you've burned in a fire.)

Today, I need you to look back on your week.

Take a minute to step away from your emails, put your phone face-down in a drawer and really sit with it for a minute, and ask yourself, “Where did this week go?”

1. Be honest with yourself.

Every Friday morning, I do a Time Audit. You can do this just by looking at your calendar, or you can use a free app like RescueTime you can track precisely where your time went this week. How much did you actually get done, and how much of your time was robbed by inconsequential, time-wasting distractions, or tasks that led to your Frantic Friday.

Time is a strange thing. We invented it to track life, but it is something we all have a different conception of. Someone who just got given a terminal diagnosis sees a week differently than a kid who just got back to school after their summer break.

You need to learn to see time as clearly as possible. Measure an hour the way you measure a foot, an inch, (or a metre if you're not in the US).

2. Sit with your Time Audit and pick out areas you can improve on.

What are the repeating culprits of time suck that you see that can say NO to?

Bonus Points:

There is one hack that can be uncomfortable, but very informative— the Sent Folder Audit: Remember what we did on Day #16: take a look at your Sent folder in your email app and see just how many emails you sent on each day this week. Did you have to send all of them? Did everyone one of them serve you or your time? How much time did each one take out of your day? Be honest with yourself.

“Be ruthless about what you ignore. Time, energy, and resources are so precious. You have to be ferocious about cutting your priorities—more than you realize and certainly more than is comfortable.

You can only deeply commit to a few things. One or two? Maybe three?
Every pretty good, sorta nice, kinda fun thing you abandon is like shedding a weighted vest that lets you move at top speed. You were so busy focusing on how much you could carry, you never realized you could run this fast.”

— James Clear

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