Reading time: About 4 minutes
Do you allow enough writing time for yourself? Or does it get squeezed out of your schedule?
If you think money is your most precious resource, think again, my friend.
I’m not saying this to suggest we should forgo pay for the work we do. Trust me, I’m not advocating a return to the barter system.
Money lets us buy food and rent, or a mortgage. It gives us the ability to travel, to have fun (movies, shows and concerts) and to relax.
But I’m saying money is definitely not the most precious resource, because TIME is the ultimate heavyweight — the champion in the ring of life.
Think about it: If your bank account were to empty tomorrow, you could probably replace that money — at least some of it. Sure, it might involve ramen noodles and questionable side hustles, but it’s doable.
But hardworking as you may be, you can never recover yesterday.
Once you’ve spent your time, it’s gone. As gone as a five-year-old’s bag of candy. As gone as your motivation to exercise after watching just one more episode of your favourite streaming show.
The trouble is, most of us put little effort into thinking about how we spend our professional time, so we end up frittering it away. We’re like time billionaires who somehow end up broke.
We try to get to inbox zero. We answer the phone. We deal with crises and we write reports. We basically become professional plate-spinners — except the plates are on fire and multiplying.
Sure, you can live your life that way, but I suggest you take a page from the book of Nir Eyal, author of Indistractable.
He describes four types of work most of us need to do:
- Managing
- Creating
- Consuming
- Idea-making
While these terms might sound a little pointy-headed, they’re actually really easy to understand. And don’t worry — you don’t need an MBA to decode them.
Managing time makes us feel busy and productive
Typical management activities include:
- Meetings
- Calls
- Presentations
- Email processing (that somehow multiples like digital rabbits)
- Team and people management
The interesting thing about managing time is that many of us spend most of our working lives stuck in it. It feels urgent, and we typically act as though every other task we want to do must sit in the corner like a neglected houseplant until we get this work done.
Often, we feel busy and highly productive when we’re doing this type of work, but, in fact, much of it is distracting and not the least bit meaningful. It’s the workplace equivalent of running on a hamster wheel — lots of motion but zero progress.
Creating time is what we fit in during gaps
Typical creating activities include:
- Writing
- Building
- Preparing
- Coding
Creating time is what most of us scramble to squeeze in when we have a few gaps in our management time.
But very few businesses help their employees protect creating time. (And many self-employed people don’t manage their own schedules for it either.)
A mind-blowing 2021 Zapier survey found that although most employees (90 percent) spend five hours a day on messaging apps, about 18 percent spend less than an hour a day on their core responsibilities. Let that sink in — we’re spending more time talking about work than actually doing it. And 81 percent allocate fewer than three hours for creative work.
Consuming time is a vastly underrated superpower
Typical consumption activities include:
- Reading books, not just social media posts
- Listening to articles or podcasts
- Studying
- Attending classes, workshops or conferences
While many people believe they don’t have enough time for reading, they seldom do anything about it apart from squeezing in a bit on weekends and perhaps five minutes before going to sleep.
Yet, many of the greatest leaders and thinkers in history have vigorously protected their consumption time. For example, Benjamin Franklin had a one-hour block every morning to consume and learn something new. And in contemporary times, Warren Buffett spends five to six hours a day (or 80% of his time) reading. The man literally got rich by reading!
More importantly, he reads for understanding, not speed. Buffett doesn’t skim. He reads deeply and analytically, focusing on long-term value and learning how companies work. His business partner, Charlie Munger, called him a “learning machine.”
Almost no one allows enough idea-making time
Typical idea-making activities include:
- Brainstorming/mindmapping
- Journaling
- Walking
- Thinking/reflecting
Incredibly, most of us allow absolutely zero time for these important activities in our working lives. This is ironic, because it’s the only time when we can cultivate new ideas for creation and growth. It’s like trying to grow a garden but never planting any seeds.
Balancing your workday isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing more of what matters.
Here are Nir Eyal’s five suggestions:
1-Evaluate how you currently spend your time (prepare to be horrified)
You can’t deal with any problem until you know how extensive it is. Start by looking at last week’s calendar and colour-coding your various tasks. You can use red for managing tasks; green for creating time; blue for consuming time; and yellow for idea-making time. See which colours dominate. Spoiler alert: it’s probably going to be a sea of red with tiny specks of other colours. Also consider whether the colour blocks are thin or thick — showing whether you’re giving each type of time the attention it deserves.
2-Batch (limit) your managing time
Most of us could spend all day every day on management tasks. In part, this is because managing always expands to fill available time. So, limit your availability for this type of work. Schedule chunks of time each day for handling email and calls or meetings. (Your ability to do this will depend, in part, on your seniority, but even the most junior person has at least some sway with this type of planning. Get your boss’s permission if necessary.)
3-Increase your creating time
One of the best ways to increase your creating time is to do it first — before you allow yourself to do any management activities. For example, you should always write before opening email. If email is the first thing you do every day, as is typical for many, start instead with five to 30 minutes of writing. Then, do your email directly after that. Email will still be there, probably with three more messages that could have waited until tomorrow.
4-Increase your consuming time
You may not even consider this to be part of your job, but it should be! How can you create or manage if you don’t know what others in your field are thinking or doing? You can’t wing it forever on charm and caffeine. Make sure you allow at least some time during your working day for reading and learning.
5-Increase your idea-making time
Here’s another task you’ve probably ignored until now. But thinking and giving yourself the time and space for new ideas are also important to your success. If your time is tight, figure out how you could schedule at least 30 minutes a week for such work. It will truly pay off for you.
Your brain needs time to wander — it’s not laziness; it’s strategic thinking.
Play with time like a productivity wizard
Most of us think we don’t have enough time in our days. But everyone gets the same 24 hours, and some people can stretch it to make remarkable accomplishments. The ones who do the stretching aren’t super-human. They haven’t discovered a secret 25th hour.
They’re just ensuring they have enough time in their schedules to do the important tasks that the rest of us usually undervalue.
If you liked this post, you’ll also like Maker vs manager — which gets your vote?
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Need some help developing a better, more sustainable writing or editing routine? Learn about my three-month accountability program called Get It Done. There is turn-over each month, and priority will go to those who have applied first. You can go directly to the application form and you’ll hear back from me within 24 hours.
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My video podcast last week addressed whether you can make a living as a writer. You can watch the video or read the transcript, and you can also subscribe to my YouTube channel.
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How do you protect your writing time? We can all learn from each other, so please, share your thoughts with my readers and me in the comments section, below. If you comment on today’s post (or any others) by July 31/25, I’ll put you in a draw for a digital copy of my first book, 8 1/2 Steps to Writing Faster, Better. To enter, please scroll down to the comments, directly underneath the related posts links, below. You don’t have to join Disqus to post! Read my tutorial to learn how to post as a guest. (It’s easy!)
