How We Can Help Each Other Take Back Time

Time. A precious resource. Just 1,440 minutes a day. All in which we are supposed to find time to sleep, eat, work, check our social media feeds, make a quick call to check on our parents, exercise/meditate, go to our kids' sporting events/activities, and of course, relax while catching up on our favorite Netflix/HBO/Showtime series.

That's a lot.

Interestingly, other than work/sleep, many of these activities take an hour or far less. So, what if we could give each other five hours more a week to do..."whatever"- you fill in the blank. And, let's agree that finding those five hours by sleeping less isn't recommended by anyone with a medical degree. So how about work.  Here’s my take on a few opportunities to take back time.

The magic of the 15 minute meeting. Who decided that the world operates in 30 minute chunks of time? Maybe we should blame television (which is really 21 minute chunks, but I digress). Anyway, I've started to turn "short" conversations into 15 minute scheduled discussions and longer/complex ones into 45 minutes. Amazingly, 90% of them stay within the shortened window and 100% accomplish the same outcomes as their longer predecessors. Suddenly, 15 minute chunks of freedom begin to appear on the schedule and productivity skyrockets (not to mention, much more likely to have everyone in attendance at the start of the next scheduled meeting as opposed to the perpetual “three minutes late”). 

PowerPoint beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I don’t dislike PowerPoint. I know we often need data, frameworks, summary tables, etc. to help facilitate discussions. I just think there is a tendency to go overboard and sacrifice “discussion points” or “storytelling” for unlimited images/icons/logos/emojis, all at a loss of time.  If we prioritize the content of the conversation and recognize the opportunity for the right balance of data and graphic design elements to supplement, we will have more meaningful conversations and get to solutions faster. 

It’s like giving a gift – it’s really the thought that counts. My wife and I are starting a small landscaping project in our backyard. After an initial meeting, we got together with the landscape designer again about a week later. He showed us a VERY rough visual sketch of his ideas, but accompanied it with rich commentary that showed us he had been spending a lot of time thinking about/assessing our requirements. We were extremely impressed. And it confirmed for me that the effort is in the thought process that leads to our collective goals.  And that can be accomplished (and was) by a thoughtful discussion that began with a sketch and did not suffer for the lack of a 3D drawing of an ash tree.

It’s time to evaluate "Newsletter ROI." Remember when cable talk/news shows were a novelty? The first to use the medium commanded large audiences and were pioneers in the way that news, interviews, and commentary intersected. Fast forward 15 years, and we have proliferation. Hard to turn on a television at any time of day and not find a dozen programs trying to do basically the same thing...and therefore hard to distinguish between the high-quality, high-impact content and everything else. Are internal newsletters inherently bad? Of course not. But are we actually evaluating whether they are accomplishing their intended purpose- presumably to drive lots of readers and generate lots of dialogue about the content. If we do this evaluation and the answer is "absolutely"...by all means keep it those newsletters going; but if the answer is "I have no clue" or "actually, no"...then instead, find a different communication mechanism and save your organization a bunch of hours every month.

Dial back on meeting/conference call attendance. We've all been there. Dial-into a call a few minutes late and the automated voice declares "There are 15 people on the call". Wow- that's a lot. Was that the best use of time for all 15 or might a few have been more productive spending that time elsewhere? Obviously, plenty of good reasons to get a bunch of voices/minds together (including people who we are inviting to join so they can listen for their own professional development)...but maybe we could give a few of the invitees some time back.

Those are just a few quick examples- no doubt there are countless more.

Imagine what you could do with those “reclaimed” five hours. Maybe they are reinvested in yourself and your passions- sending your happiness quotient skyrocketing. Take some of your time back. Give others some time back. Try it for a week and add up what you’ve saved. It may surprise you.