LAURA VANDERKAM: How to gain control of your free time
如何管理自己的自由时间
难度级别：★★★★★
燕山大学 刘立军 宋葳 编写
◆INTRODUCTION
There are 168 hours in each week. How do we find time for what matters most? Time management expert Laura Vanderkam studies how busy people spend their lives, and she's discovered that many of us drastically overestimate our commitments each week, while underestimating the time we have to ourselves. She offers a few practical strategies to help find more time for what matters to us, so we can "build the lives we want in the time we've got."
◆BEFORE VIEWING
TASK 1: VOCABULARY PREVIEW
1. tardy adj. tardy (in doing sth.) (formal) slow to act, move or happen; late in happening or arriving 行动缓慢的；拖拉的；迟缓的；迟到的。例如：
○(North Amercian English)to be tardy for school上学迟到
○The law is often tardy in reacting to changing attitudes. 法律对变化中的观念常常反应迟缓。
○people who are tardy in paying their bills拖延付账的人
2. errand n. a job that you do for sb. that involves going somewhere to take a message, to buy sth., deliver goods, etc. 差使；差事。例如：
○He often runs errands for his grandmother. 他经常给他的祖母跑腿儿。
○Her boss sent her on an errand into town. 老板派她进城办事去了。
3. judicious adj. (formal, approving) careful and sensible; showing good judgement 审慎而明智的；明断的；有见地的
4. sopping adj. (informal) very wet 湿透的
5. aftermath n. the situation that exists as a result of an important (and usually unpleasant) event, especially a war, an accident, etc.（战争、事故、不快事情的）后果，创伤。例如：
○A lot of rebuilding took place in the aftermath of the war. 战后进行了大量的重建工作。
○the assassination of the Prime Minister and its immediate aftermath暗杀首相及其直接后果
6. payroll n. a list of people employed by a company showing the amount of money to be paid to each of them （公司员工的）工资名单。例如：We have 500 people on the payroll. 我们在编员工有500人。
7. scintillating adj. very clever, amusing and interesting 才情洋溢的；妙趣横生的。例如：
○a scintillating performance精彩的演出
○Statistics on unemployment levels hardly make for scintillating reading. 失业统计数据读来不大会有趣味。
8. hustle n. busy noisy activity of a lot of people in one place 忙碌喧嚣。例如：We escaped from the hustle and bustle of the city for the weekend. 我们周末时躲开了城市的拥挤喧嚣。
9. putter around: move around aimlessly 闲荡
TASK 2: TOPIC PREVIEW
Work in pairs and discuss the following question.
Try to think some ways that you could save time.
◆VIEWING
TASK 3:
Read the statements. Then watch the video and check (√) the true or (×) false statements.
1. The speaker was once late to her own speaking event.
2. The speaker's main strategy is to save little pieces of time throughout the day.
3. The speaker studied the lives of 1,000 women with a lot of free time.
4. The broken water heater story was an example of how time is flexible.
5. The “has it all” woman story was an example of time being a choice.
6. The speaker's first strategy for figuring out our priorities is to figure out what they are.
7. The speaker seems to thoroughly enjoy reading family holiday letters.
8. The speaker recommends we write a holiday card one year early.
9. The speaker suggests we can use our bits of time for bits of joy.
10. The speaker argued that it's impossible for us to build the lives we want in the time we've got although we focus on what matters.
◆AFTER VIEWING
TASK 4:
Work in group and discuss the following question.
How to stop wasting time?
SUGGESTED ANSWERS
◆BEFORE VIEWING
TASK 2
We all wish we had just a bit more time. Just think what you could do with an extra hour or two each day: you could finally stick to an exercise routine, or spring-clean the house, or write your novel, or learn the guitar and so on.
I can't magically make all your days 25 hours long. But I can help you find more hours in your day for the things that really matter.
○Get Out of Bed Earlier
If you normally get up at 7: 30 a.m., try getting up at 7:00 a.m. That half-hour might not sound like much, but it could be time that you use to exercise, to read that book you've been meaning to finish. Or simply to get your day off to a calm and organized start.
○Do the Important Tasks First
Once you get to work, get the important ones done first, not the easy ones, or even the urgent ones. You can afford to spend at least an hour working on big, important tasks rather than on all those little urgent ones.
If you work like this, you'll usually save time. The urgent tasks will still get done, and you won't miss the important ones.
○Reduce Interruptions
If colleagues have a habit of hanging around your desk to chat, or if the phone is constantly ringing, you might find that it takes you half the day to finish a simple task like writing a letter. Constant interruptions don't just eat up time, they also break your concentration.
When you've got a big task to focus on, let your calls go to voicemail. If you have an office door, close it. Wearing headphones makes it less likely that people will try to strike up a conversation.
○Stay Focused on Your Work
A few minutes chatting, browsing the web, and so on, can easily turn into hours of wasted over the course of a day. When you're working, just work. If your concentration is slipping, take a proper break: go and get a glass of water, or stretch your legs a bit. And if you're facing a difficult task, try breaking it into small steps or stages so that it's easier to deal with.
◆VIEWING
TASK 3
√1. The speaker was once late to her own speaking event.
×2. The speaker's main strategy is to save little pieces of time throughout the day.
(Notes: Anyway, the idea is we'll save bits of time here and there, add it up, we will finally get to everything we want to do. But after studying how successful people spend their time and looking at their schedules hour by hour, I think this idea has it completely backward. We don't build the lives we want by saving time. We build the lives we want, and then time saves itself.)
×3. The speaker studied the lives of 1,000 women with a lot of free time.
(Notes: I recently did a time diary project looking at 1,001 days in the lives of extremely busy women.)
√4. The broken water heater story was an example of how time is flexible.
√5. The “has it all” woman story was an example of time being a choice.
√6. The speaker's first strategy for figuring out our priorities is to figure out what they are.
√7. The speaker seems to thoroughly enjoy reading family holiday letters.
√8. The speaker recommends we write a holiday card one year early.
√9. The speaker suggests we can use our bits of time for bits of joy.
×10. The speaker argued that it's impossible for us to build the lives we want in the time we've got although we focus on what matters.
(Notes: And when we focus on what matters, we can build the lives we want in the time we've got.)
◆AFTER VIEWING
TASK 4
Are you always staring out the window for countless minutes, even though you have work to do? Do you research useless information or play games on the Internet when you know you have more important, pressing tasks? It might be time to admit that you have a tendency to procrastinate. The key to managing your time more effectively is to minimize distractions, focus on the most important tasks you need to complete, and to find a reliable way of gauging your productivity. To get more information about how to stop wasting time, please see attachment 2, or visit http://www.wikihow.com/Stop-Wasting-Time.
ATTACHMENT 1: LAURA VANDERKAM: How to gain control of your free time
ATTACHMENT 2: How to Stop Wasting Time
ATTACHMENT 1:
LAURA VANDERKAM: How to gain control of your free time
00:12
When people find out I write about time management, they assume two things. One is that I'm always on time, and I'm not. I have four small children, and I would like to blame them for my occasional tardiness, but sometimes it's just not their fault. I was once late to my own speech on time management.
00:34
(Laughter)
00:36
We all had to just take a moment together and savor that irony.
00:40
The second thing they assume is that I have lots of tips and tricks for saving bits of time here and there. Sometimes I'll hear from magazines that are doing a story along these lines, generally on how to help their readers find an extra hour in the day. And the idea is that we'll shave bits of time off everyday activities, add it up, and we'll have time for the good stuff. I question the entire premise of this piece, but I'm always interested in hearing what they've come up with before they call me. Some of my favorites: doing errands where you only have to make right-hand turns.
01:10
(Laughter)
01:11
Being extremely judicious in microwave usage: it says three to three-and-a-half minutes on the package, we're totally getting in on the bottom side of that. And my personal favorite, which makes sense on some level, is to DVR your favorite shows so you can fast-forward through the commercials. That way, you save eight minutes every half hour, so in the course of two hours of watching TV, you find 32 minutes to exercise.
01:31
(Laughter)
01:32
Which is true? You know another way to find 32 minutes to exercise? Don't watch two hours of TV a day, right?
01:39
(Laughter)
01:40
Anyway, the idea is we'll save bits of time here and there, add it up, we will finally get to everything we want to do. But after studying how successful people spend their time and looking at their schedules hour by hour, I think this idea has it completely backward. We don't build the lives we want by saving time. We build the lives we want, and then time saves itself.
02:07
Here's what I mean. I recently did a time diary project looking at 1,001 days in the lives of extremely busy women. They had demanding jobs, sometimes their own businesses, kids to care for, maybe parents to care for, community commitments - busy, busy people. I had them keep track of their time for a week so I could add up how much they worked and slept, and I interviewed them about their strategies, for my book.
02:30
One of the women whose time log I studied goes out on a Wednesday night for something. She comes home to find that her water heater has broken, and there is now water all over her basement. If you've ever had anything like this happen to you, you know it is a hugely damaging, frightening, sopping mess. So she's dealing with the immediate aftermath that night, next day she's got plumbers coming in, day after that, professional cleaning crew dealing with the ruined carpet. All this is being recorded on her time log. Winds up taking seven hours of her week. Seven hours. That's like finding an extra hour in the day.
03:04
But I'm sure if you had asked her at the start of the week, "Could you find seven hours to train for a triathlon?" "Could you find seven hours to mentor seven worthy people?" I'm sure she would've said what most of us would've said, which is, "No! Can't you see how busy I am?" Yet when she had to find seven hours because there is water all over her basement, she found seven hours. And what this shows us is that time is highly elastic. We cannot make more time, but time will stretch to accommodate what we choose to put into it.
03:42
And so the key to time management is treating our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater. To get at this, I like to use language from one of the busiest people I ever interviewed. By busy, I mean she was running a small business with 12 people on the payroll, she had six children in her spare time. I was getting in touch with her to set up an interview on how she "had it all" - that phrase. I remember it was a Thursday morning, and she was not available to speak with me. Of course, right?
04:12
But the reason she was unavailable to speak with me is that she was out for a hike, because it was a beautiful spring morning, and she wanted to go for a hike. So of course this makes me even more intrigued, and when I finally do catch up with her, she explains it like this. She says, "Listen Laura, everything I do, every minute I spend, is my choice." And rather than say, "I don't have time to do x, y or z," she'd say, "I don't do x, y or z because it's not a priority." "I don't have time," often means "It's not a priority." If you think about it, that's really more accurate language. I could tell you I don't have time to dust my blinds, but that's not true. If you offered to pay me $100,000 to dust my blinds, I would get to it pretty quickly.
04:59
(Laughter)
05:00
Since that is not going to happen, I can acknowledge this is not a matter of lacking time; it's that I don't want to do it. Using this language reminds us that time is a choice. And granted, there may be horrible consequences for making different choices, I will give you that. But we are smart people, and certainly over the long run, we have the power to fill our lives with the things that deserve to be there.
05:25
So how do we do that? How do we treat our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater?
05:31
Well, first we need to figure out what they are. I want to give you two strategies for thinking about this. The first, on the professional side: I'm sure many people coming up to the end of the year are giving or getting annual performance reviews. You look back over your successes over the year, your "opportunities for growth." And this serves its purpose, but I find it's more effective to do this looking forward. So I want you to pretend it's the end of next year. You're giving yourself a performance review, and it has been an absolutely amazing year for you professionally. What three to five things did you do that made it so amazing? So you can write next year's performance review now.
06:14
And you can do this for your personal life, too. I'm sure many of you, like me, come December, get cards that contain these folded up sheets of colored paper, on which is written what is known as the family holiday letter.
06:28
(Laughter)
06:29
Bit of a wretched genre of literature, really, going on about how amazing everyone in the household is, or even more scintillating, how busy everyone in the household is. But these letters serve a purpose, which is that they tell your friends and family what you did in your personal life that mattered to you over the year. So this year's kind of done, but I want you to pretend it's the end of next year, and it has been an absolutely amazing year for you and the people you care about. What three to five things did you do that made it so amazing? So you can write next year's family holiday letter now. Don't send it.
07:08
(Laughter)
07:09
Please, don't send it. But you can write it. And now, between the performance review and the family holiday letter, we have a list of six to ten goals we can work on in the next year.
07:21
And now we need to break these down into doable steps. So maybe you want to write a family history. First, you can read some other family histories, get a sense for the style. Then maybe think about the questions you want to ask your relatives, set up appointments to interview them. Or maybe you want to run a 5K. So you need to find a race and sign up, figure out a training plan, and dig those shoes out of the back of the closet. And then - this is key - we treat our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater, by putting them into our schedules first. We do this by thinking through our weeks before we are in them.
07:56
I find a really good time to do this is Friday afternoons. Friday afternoon is what an economist might call a "low opportunity cost" time. Most of us are not sitting there on Friday afternoons saying, "I am excited to make progress toward my personal and professional priorities right now."
08:14
(Laughter)
08:15
But we are willing to think about what those should be. So take a little bit of time Friday afternoon, make yourself a three-category priority list: career, relationships, self. Making a three-category list reminds us that there should be something in all three categories. Career, we think about; relationships, self - not so much. But anyway, just a short list, two to three items in each. Then look out over the whole of the next week, and see where you can plan them in.
08:47
Where you plan them in is up to you. I know this is going to be more complicated for some people than others. I mean, some people's lives are just harder than others. It is not going to be easy to find time to take that poetry class if you are caring for multiple children on your own. I get that. And I don't want to minimize anyone's struggle. But I do think that the numbers I am about to tell you are empowering.
09:12
There are 168 hours in a week. Twenty-four times seven is 168 hours. That is a lot of time. If you are working a full-time job, so 40 hours a week, sleeping eight hours a night, so 56 hours a week - that leaves 72 hours for other things. That is a lot of time. You say you're working 50 hours a week, maybe a main job and a side hustle. Well, that leaves 62 hours for other things. You say you're working 60 hours. Well, that leaves 52 hours for other things. You say you're working more than 60 hours. Well, are you sure?
09:53
(Laughter)
09:54
There was once a study comparing people's estimated work weeks with time diaries. They found that people claiming 75-plus-hour work weeks were off by about 25 hours.
10:04
(Laughter)
10:05
You can guess in which direction, right? Anyway, in 168 hours a week, I think we can find time for what matters to you. If you want to spend more time with your kids, you want to study more for a test you're taking, you want to exercise for three hours and volunteer for two, you can. And that's even if you're working way more than full-time hours.
10:27
So we have plenty of time, which is great, because guess what? We don't even need that much time to do amazing things. But when most of us have bits of time, what do we do? Pull out the phone, right? Start deleting emails. Otherwise, we're puttering around the house or watching TV.
10:45
But small moments can have great power. You can use your bits of time for bits of joy. Maybe it's choosing to read something wonderful on the bus on the way to work. I know when I had a job that required two bus rides and a subway ride every morning, I used to go to the library on weekends to get stuff to read. It made the whole experience almost, almost, enjoyable. Breaks at work can be used for meditating or praying. If family dinner is out because of your crazy work schedule, maybe family breakfast could be a good substitute.
11:21
It's about looking at the whole of one's time and seeing where the good stuff can go. I truly believe this. There is time. Even if we are busy, we have time for what matters. And when we focus on what matters, we can build the lives we want in the time we've got.
11:46
Thank you.
11:47
(Applause)
ATTACHMENT 2:
How to Stop Wasting Time
Are you always staring out the window for countless minutes, even though you have work to do? Do you research useless information or play games on the Internet when you know you have more important, pressing tasks? It might be time to admit that you have a tendency to procrastinate. The key to managing your time more effectively is to minimize distractions, focus on the most important tasks you need to complete, and to find a reliable way of gauging your productivity.
Method 1 Avoiding Time-Wasting Habits
Step 1: Stay off the Internet.
With the Internet rarely more than a click or tap away, it's no wonder that we constantly battle the urge to check our various bookmarked sites. When you know you need to stop wasting time and work on something, avoiding the Internet is an easy way to avoid procrastinating.
○If your willpower alone can't keep you off the Internet—or worse if the work you need to get done involves using the Internet anyway—you can install site-blocking tools for various browsers. Simply turn on the application when you need to keep focused and let the program be your willpower for you.
Step 2: Keep your email inbox closed.
A survey of Microsoft employees showed that they spend an average of ten minutes responding to an email, and then a subsequent fifteen minutes refocusing on the tasks at hand. If you really need to focus on a specific task, set an auto reply on your email and refrain from checking it until you've finished the work.
○The same basic principle works for text messages, instant messages, push notifications, mobile alerts, etc. These distractions help us procrastinate because they often feel more productive than other time wasters, but they rarely are. Turn off your phone completely when you can if the separation anxiety from the connection won't serve as its own distraction.
Step 3: Do all of your work on one device.
Switching between a laptop to work on a spreadsheet, your phone to check an email, and a tablet to pull up a presentation is a recipe for disaster. Each time you move between devices, you likely succumb to a distraction or two, and then have to refocus yourself. As often as possible, try to collect everything you'll need on one device during a prep period before you get started, so you can work from one device as you go.
Step 4: Write out a schedule.
Most people hate the idea of keeping a complete calendar, but not all scheduling has to be this complete. When you set out to complete a specific task, take five minutes to make a list, outline, or applicable timetable for the task. By giving yourself a manageable timeframe, you're also more likely to hold yourself to the work at hand.
○Using “time boxing,” or fixed time segments for specific tasks also breaks them down into more manageable pieces, making the wide open workday feel easier to engage with. This practice can work with everything from homework assignments to office jobs to home repairs.
Step 5: Go slower.
Sounds utterly counterproductive to time management, but trying to work too quickly or multitask on anything more than menial tasks can end up wasting time. Studies have shown that only 2% of people can multitask in truly effective, time saving ways.
○Going slower also gives you the opportunity to ensure that you complete each task fully and clearly, making it less likely that you have to go back and clarify or fix mistakes, which can end up taking more time.
Step 6: Stick to the task at hand.
It's no secret that many college students have sparkling apartments in the week before finals. We often procrastinate by taking on other important (albeit non-time sensitive) tasks instead of the most important task we need to complete. Spending time on less important activities is still a step backward and a time waster when you have other deadlines or due dates looming. Recognize when the task you're working on isn't the one that should be at the top of your list.
Step 7: Give yourself a stop time.
Working without a stop time in mind is a sure way to burn yourself out and get frustrated. Whether your stop time is the end of the workday, when you have a dinner scheduled, or something entirely different, having a finish time in mind will help stop you from overworking yourself, which will only lead to a decline in the quality of the work regardless.
○Even if you're in crunch mode with a term paper due the next day, schedule breaks that give you enough time to collect before getting back to it.
Method 2: Using the Repeat Test
Step 1: Create a form to manage your time for the day.
Now that you have a collection of steps to help you stay focused from Method 1, the repeat test is a great way to test how effectively you use them. Start by creating a spreadsheet or even simply drawing a form on a piece of paper or a whiteboard. Make one column with the hours in your day listed, and then make a wider column leaving space to the right of each hour.
Step 2: Stop what you're doing at the top of each hour.
This test requires you to take a minute or two at the top of each hour to evaluate how you used the preceding hour. Set a timer if you need to ensure that you stop long enough to fill in the form.
Step 3: Consider how you spent the hour.
During your evaluation period, consider what you completed over the previous hour. This can be anything from an exercise routine to studying for a test to spending the hour in front of the television. Be honest with yourself regarding how you spent the hour.
Step 4: Ask yourself if you'd repeat the hour.
This is the step from which the test draws its name. Once you've taken stock of the hour, simply ask yourself if you'd repeat it. The question essentially seeks to make you ask yourself if you believe you spent the hour in a productive manner. You're less likely to repeat the hour if the answer is no.
Step 5: Summarize the hour and write down your evaluation in the right hand column.
Keeping a written record of the day to see how many hours you would repeat and how many you wouldn't is also an effective motivational tool. Write a few words about what you did with the hour in the right hand column and as well as your repeatability evaluation.
Step 6: Acknowledge the parts of your day over which you have control.
One of the drawbacks to the repeat test is that you can quickly fall into the habit of judging every hour by its overall utility. A class where the instructor doesn't cover new material, an unproductive work meeting, and other parts of your day can start feeling like frustrating time wasters in themselves. Try to remember that you don't have complete control over every hour of your day sometimes and that meeting an obligation - such as being present for the unproductive meeting - can still count as a necessary portion of your day.
Sources and Citations
1.http://business.time.com/2013/09/15/how-to-stop-wasting-time/
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6.http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/4-critical-ways-you-can-stop-wasting-time-today.html
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Available at http://www.wikihow.com/Stop-Wasting-Time (Accessed on 2017/08/18)