When someone asks me “What do you do?”, here’s how I respond…
I do a few things. I work 4 days a week at a start-up called The Portfolio Collective, where we help professionals build portfolio careers so they can earn via many sources of income. I have one of those portfolio careers.
Which means I also write a newsletter on navigating the future of work, facilitate a community of 25+ multipotentialites and coach, consult and speak about organisational design. All while training 15+ hours a week for Ironman races like the 70.3 World Championships this Sunday.
What usually follows is “How you do have the time?”
To which my reply is… You make the time.
I now realise that’s not a super helpful response. So, in this post I want to explain exactly how you create time for what’s important to you.
Break Your Distraction Impulse
In the modern world we’re wired for distraction.
We continuously reward ourselves with comfort without realising we’ve clocked up a full-time job’s worth of screen time each week.
Unlocking more hours means respecting your little moments. The 20 minutes between meetings. The hour before bed. And the afternoon on a Sunday.
You can’t do this when you spend every chance you get scrolling your Instagram feed or binging your Netflix series.
To make time you need to break your distraction impulse.
Make Your Phone Boring
Your biggest attention enemy is the handhold device in your pocket which screams at you with irrelevant information every minute of the day.
Silence it. Turn off the notifications. And remove the addictive apps.
Make it boring. Then it won’t be so addictive.
Cancel Your Entertainment
Let go of finishing the never-ending TV series. Realise that conversation about them is pointless. And decide to spend your time on other things.
Yes, switching off is important.
But, it doesn’t have to look like lying in-front of the couch for 30 episodes a week. It could be hitting the gym with your friends instead.
Get Comfortable With Silence
Distraction is medication for those uncomfortable with their thoughts. Overcome it’s allure by practising staying present with the moment.
Turn off your headphones. Try meditating.
And give life your full attention.
Simplify The Controllables
We all have basic needs that must be met.
Enough food. Enough sleep. Enough intimacy.
And if we neglect any of them we’ll fail to function as a healthy happy human being and it’ll be all too easy to seek a solution in the comfort of distraction.
But, we don’t need to waste countless hours on each.
Some can be streamlined, blended or repurposed.
Streamline the Necessary
Some things simply aren’t important enough to spend our finite decision making power on. Discover what they are and make them simple.
With so much training on all the time, food for me is fuel. Taste and variety aren’t important. And so, I eat the same breakfast and lunch everyday, while meal-prepping the a handful of dinners for the week ahead.
Find your version. Then eliminate your decision fatigue.
Blend the Social Life
Friends aren’t just friends.
They can be your training partners, your writing collaborators or even your business partners and work colleagues.
Work with your friends on interests that are important to you. Then watch as you socialise and habit build while utilising the same hour in the day.
Repurpose the Travel
If you’re like most of us you spend over an hour travelling each day.
To the office. To the meeting. To the airport. Each one is an opportunity ripe for the repurposing of your time.
Play a podcast in the car. Take a book on the train. Or bring a MacBook Air on the plane. Each time you do you’re replacing doom-scrolling with learning.
Be Ruthless With Your Time
Time is our most precious resource.
Yet we spend it more frivolously than the cash in our bank by believing we ought to use our weekdays, weekends and holidays in a certain way.
Only once we realise that each of these words are made up and that Monday through Sunday doesn’t exist can we fully appreciate the value of every single one of the 365 days in each lap of the sun.
Then, and only then, can we align ourselves to what’s important.
Choose Activities You Enjoy
Let go of what you “should” be doing.
And embrace the activities in your life that make you feel alive, engross you in a state of flow and align with your purpose. If you’re unsure what they are, then go out and find them.
With each you find you’ll be creating a convincing alternative for how to spend your time that feels great both in the short-term and the long-term.
Say “No” More Often
Protect your boundaries at all costs.
Reject the work you don’t want to do, the people you don’t want to see and the places you don’t want to visit. Your energy is finite.
And there’s no-one you owe it to more than yourself.
Hold Yourself Accountable
Resist the temptation to slip back into distraction.
Commit your word only to actions you will follow through on. Book the time in your diary and never delete it - only move it.
And if you want to take it a step further: share your intentions with others. Have them rely on you for the activity you enjoy.
Then watch as you do it even on the hardest of days.
Summary
While we all have 24 hours in the day, we don’t all have the same 24 hours in the day. Some us have commitments we can’t change or responsibilities we can’t relinquish. These are fixed in our lives, and that’s okay. But, if we look hard enough, each us will find at least a couple of hours we can claw back.
From breaking our obsession with distraction, simplifying the controllables and being ruthless with our time you will find the minutes you need.
You just have to want to change enough.
I do most of these things, so I appreciate them. Moving away from mindless screen time is essential