Frightening numbers:
6 months spent at stoplights over an average lifetime
8 months spent opening junk mail
1.5 years spent looking for lost items
5 years spent standing in various lines
25 years spent sleeping
9 years spent on the phone
2 years spent in the bathroom
2.3 years spent in meetings over the average career
Though some of these are unavoidable, we should try like hell to mitigate as many of them as possible.
For example:
- Don’t open junk mail. Ever. Why would you? Throw it away immediately.
- Avoid lines whenever possible by organizing your shopping to limit the number of times you must enter a store. Also, order online whenever possible.
- Avoid losing items as much as possible by adopting Ben Franklin’s adage, “A place for everything and everything in its place.” If you become relentless in this pursuit, you really will know where almost everything is at all times.
- If you’re going to be on the phone, try to be productive by completing an essential but mindless task while speaking, such as folding laundry, cooking, or throwing away junk mail.
- Always bring something to a meeting that will allow you to be productive when it becomes (or starts out) meaningless and irrelevant. I wrote the first draft of an entire novel—based entirely on lists—during a year of useless meetings.
- Sleep well. This means doing all the things recommended by experts to fall asleep quickly, remain asleep throughout the night, and wake refreshed in the morning. So many people spend so much time in bed, unable to fall asleep or remain asleep, and they so often awaken in a way that starts the day off poorly in terms of mood and cognition. When you learn to sleep well and commit to treating sleep as precious, you often don’t need to sleep as much because the time you spend in bed is spent sleeping
Chapter 3 in my book “Someday Is Today” explains everything you need to know to sleep more efficiently and perhaps reduce the amount of time spent in bed.
Time is too precious not to try to limit its wasteful use whenever possible.
