Latest / Deep Dive Ortho — Orthopaedic Surgery, AI & Digital Health Podcast. / Master Your 168 Hours

Transcript

Master Your 168 Hours · Deep Dive Ortho — Orthopaedic Surgery, AI & Digital Health Podcast.

• 0:00
  Have you ever felt that relentless squeeze? You
• 0:03
  know, that feeling that there just aren't enough
• 0:05
  hours in the day. It's something that seems to
• 0:07
  get, well, more intense the further we get in
• 0:10
  our careers. I think particularly for mid -senior
• 0:12
  professionals, you're juggling, demanding work,
• 0:16
  family life, maybe trying to squeeze in some
• 0:18
  personal goals too. Does that resonate, that
• 0:20
  constant sprint? Oh, absolutely. It's almost
• 0:23
  a universal lament, isn't it? The feeling of
• 0:25
  being perpetually short on time. Well, today
• 0:27
  we're going to challenge that very idea. That
• 0:29
  pervasive myth. The core premise we're going
• 0:31
  to dissect is this. Every single one of us, whatever
• 0:35
  our commitments, has precisely 168 hours in a
• 0:38
  week, full stop. That's the inescapable number.
• 0:41
  Exactly. And the real challenge we're about to
• 0:43
  discover isn't actually a lack of time, but maybe.
• 0:46
  just maybe, a lack of clarity and, crucially,
• 0:50
  intentionality in how we perceive and use those
• 0:53
  hours. We are incredibly fortunate to have an
• 0:55
  expert guide with us today, brilliant at synthesizing
• 0:58
  complex information and connecting dots in, well,
• 1:00
  quite surprising ways. It's a pleasure to be
• 1:02
  here. Now, this idea of having more time than
• 1:06
  we think, it feels almost counterintuitive for
• 1:10
  so many people, especially when daily life feels
• 1:12
  like such a constant sprint. What's your initial
• 1:14
  take on that widespread feeling? Well, it is
• 1:17
  fascinating, isn't it, how our perceptions of
• 1:19
  time can diverge so dramatically from the reality
• 1:22
  of how we actually spend it. We tend to operate
• 1:24
  under this pervasive cultural narrative of perpetual
• 1:28
  time scarcity, that constant time crunch. Right.
• 1:31
  Yet the evidence, when you actually move beyond
• 1:33
  those anecdotal feelings and look at the hard
• 1:35
  data, the real world examples, it often tells
• 1:38
  a remarkably different story. It challenges the
• 1:40
  very foundation of that common belief. And that's
• 1:43
  precisely our mission for this deep dive. We
• 1:45
  want to extract... actionable insights, hopefully
• 1:47
  transform how you view and use your 168 hours,
• 1:50
  the goal is to help you shift from just, you
• 1:52
  know, reacting to demand. Firefighting, essentially.
• 1:55
  To intentionally aligning your time with what
• 1:57
  truly matters to you, your real priorities, your
• 2:00
  aspirations, ultimately leading to a life that
• 2:03
  feels more fulfilling, not just more busy. So
• 2:06
  let's jump in and unpack this revelation, starting
• 2:09
  with that unwavering truth. 168 hours. A great
• 2:12
  equalizer. It's a fixed quantity, isn't it? A
• 2:15
  constant. Doesn't matter who you are, what you
• 2:17
  do, how much you run. 168 hours. That's it. Exactly.
• 2:22
  Personal experience of this constant how stretched
• 2:25
  or free we feel within it that varies wildly
• 2:27
  from person to person It's quite remarkable how
• 2:30
  subjective it feels almost as if I some people
• 2:33
  genuinely have more time than others indeed And
• 2:35
  this is precisely we're looking at authoritative
• 2:37
  data becomes so crucial It helps debunk some
• 2:40
  really widespread assumptions about how we use
• 2:42
  our time for instance in the US the Federal Bureau
• 2:44
  of Labor Statistics Runs a very robust study
• 2:47
  called the American Time Use Survey or ATS ATS
• 2:50
  right? Yes, and that along with other similar
• 2:53
  time diary studies conducted over the past four
• 2:55
  decades or so, is really considered the gold
• 2:58
  standard for sociological time research. And
• 3:00
  how do they actually gather that data? It sounds
• 3:02
  intensive. It is meticulous. They get thousands
• 3:05
  of people to report their activities literally
• 3:08
  minute by minute over 24 hour periods. Sometimes
• 3:11
  a researcher is even on the phone, you know,
• 3:13
  actively prompting for accuracy, perhaps gently
• 3:17
  reminding participants about the actual physics
• 3:19
  of time if they try to claim they somehow squeezed
• 3:22
  28 hours of activity into a single day. Happens
• 3:24
  more often than you think, I imagine. Perhaps.
• 3:27
  But it's a rigorous approach designed to capture
• 3:30
  reality, not just perception. And the findings,
• 3:33
  well, they often challenge some deeply ingrained
• 3:36
  beliefs. OK, like what? Give us an example. Well,
• 3:38
  take sleep. Time diary studies consistently show
• 3:41
  that Americans average about eight hours of sleep
• 3:43
  per night. Eight hours? Really? Yes, about eight
• 3:45
  hours. And what's particularly striking is that
• 3:48
  this figure has remained largely unchanged over
• 3:50
  the past 40 years. 40 years. Despite everything,
• 3:54
  mobiles, the internet. Exactly. And this isn't
• 3:58
  skewed by, say, retirees or students sleeping
• 4:01
  in. Even married mothers who work full -time
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  with children under six, a group you'd assume
• 4:07
  is highly sleep deprived, they manage an average
• 4:09
  of 8 .31 hours of sleep. Fathers in that situation
• 4:13
  get 8 .06 hours. That's genuinely surprising.
• 4:16
  It is. And even married full -time working mothers
• 4:18
  with older school -aged children still get a
• 4:21
  very respectable 8 .09 hours. So, while individual
• 4:26
  nights obviously vary, the narrative of widespread
• 4:30
  chronic sleep deprivation across the working
• 4:31
  population might not be quite as universal as
• 4:34
  we often assume from, you know, just talking
• 4:36
  to people. Okay, so sleep might be better than
• 4:38
  we think overall. What else is the data challenge?
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  Well, then there's the perception around work
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  hours. That cultural narrative of the pervasive
• 4:44
  60 -hour -plus work week, for the vast majority,
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  it seems to be largely a misconception. You hear
• 4:49
  it all the time, though. You do. But the data
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  suggests that only about 1 % of the US workforce
• 4:55
  actually logs these kinds of hours consistently.
• 4:58
  And even that estimate, because it's often self
• 5:01
  -reported rather than meticulously time logged,
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  might actually be too high. Most people seem
• 5:06
  to be working significantly less than they perceive,
• 5:08
  or certainly less than the popular narrative
• 5:11
  suggests. Fascinating. And housework. That must
• 5:13
  have changed. Oh, dramatically. Time spent on
• 5:16
  household chores has fallen. quite precipitously
• 5:18
  almost halved over the past 40 years. Halved?
• 5:22
  Wow. Yes. To give you some concrete figures,
• 5:25
  back in 1965, stay -at -home mothers spent an
• 5:27
  astonishing 37 .4 hours per week just on cleaning.
• 5:31
  37 hours, just cleaning. Just cleaning. Today,
• 5:35
  married mothers who work full time spend about
• 5:37
  13 .5 hours per week on all housework combined.
• 5:41
  And it's not just mothers. Even dads whose wives
• 5:43
  don't work full time are contributing over an
• 5:46
  hour a day to household tasks now. Standards
• 5:48
  have clearly changed. Yeah. And that's had a
• 5:50
  huge impact on time allocation. Ray, you mentioned
• 5:52
  those old magazine tips, vacuuming ceilings and
• 5:55
  polishing shoes. Exactly. Things people simply
• 5:57
  don't prioritize anymore. OK, one more television.
• 6:00
  How does that fit in? Ah, television. Self -reported
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  viewing often exceeds the results from time diary
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  studies. Nielsen might report, say, 28 hours
• 6:09
  per week on average. But the time diaries, which
• 6:12
  track what people are doing as their primary
• 6:14
  activity, show something closer to 18, 23 hours
• 6:18
  per week. So discrepancy there, too. What does
• 6:20
  that suggest? It suggests people don't fully
• 6:22
  track how much time the TV is merely on. in the
• 6:25
  background, versus when they are actively engaged,
• 6:28
  truly watching. It points to a significant chunk
• 6:31
  of, well, unaccounted for time that could potentially
• 6:35
  be reevaluated or used differently. OK, this
• 6:37
  is really interesting. So if the data suggests
• 6:39
  we're largely getting enough sleep, maybe not
• 6:41
  working quite as much as we perceive, and spending
• 6:44
  significantly less time on housework than, say,
• 6:46
  our parents or grandparents did. Then why? Why
• 6:50
  do so many of us still feel perpetually busy
• 6:52
  and under -rested? There's a real disconnect
• 6:54
  here between the objective data and our subjective
• 6:57
  experience. That is the core problem. And it
• 7:00
  really boils down to awareness, or rather, a
• 7:03
  lack thereof. The fundamental issue seems to
• 7:06
  be that most individuals have frankly, absolutely
• 7:09
  no idea how we spend our 168 hours. We just don't
• 7:13
  track it. Precisely. And this unawareness leads
• 7:16
  to spending massive amounts of time on activities
• 7:18
  that offer only, perhaps, slight pleasure or
• 7:21
  feeling of accomplishment, but contribute very
• 7:24
  little to our careers, our families. or our personal
• 7:28
  growth. What kind of activities are we talking
• 7:29
  about? Those hours lost to excessive television,
• 7:32
  aimless web surfing, reactive housework that
• 7:35
  isn't truly necessary, just tidying things that
• 7:38
  will get messy again soon, and countless errands
• 7:41
  that could perhaps be... minimized or outsourced.
• 7:43
  The busy work. Exactly. The busy work. And conversely,
• 7:46
  insufficient time gets allocated to the high
• 7:48
  impact activities that really do matter and require
• 7:51
  more thought or initiative. We're talking about
• 7:53
  things like properly nurturing our children in
• 7:55
  meaningful ways, engaging in regular purposeful
• 7:57
  exercise, or the deliberate practice of our professional
• 8:00
  crafts, the things that genuinely advance us
• 8:02
  towards our goals. So we fill the time with low
• 8:05
  value stuff, feel exhausted, and don't do the
• 8:08
  important things. That seems to be the pattern.
• 8:10
  Consequently, we feel overworked and under rested,
• 8:13
  and then we tend to believe stories or narratives
• 8:15
  that confirm this view, creating a sort of self
• 8:18
  -fulfilling prophecy. The transformative paradigm
• 8:22
  shift, the real opportunity here, lies in approaching
• 8:25
  time differently. It means starting with a blank
• 8:27
  slate and viewing every minute as a choice. Every
• 8:31
  minute as a choice. That's a powerful reframe.
• 8:34
  And to really bring this concept to life, you
• 8:36
  found some truly compelling examples of individuals
• 8:39
  who seem to embody this intentional time management.
• 8:43
  People who seemingly defy that time crunch that
• 8:46
  the data suggests might be partly illusion. Yes,
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  there are some remarkable stories. Tell us about
• 8:50
  Teresa Daitner. Right, Teresa Daitner. She's
• 8:52
  a mother of six children, including eight -year
• 8:54
  -old twins at the time this research was done.
• 8:56
  And she successfully runs a seven -figure construction
• 8:59
  company, DCG, overseeing projects ranging from
• 9:02
  $10 million up to $75 million. Wow. Six kids
• 9:07
  and a major construction company. Exactly. And
• 9:10
  despite this immense responsibility, she manages
• 9:12
  to sleep at least seven hours a night. She also
• 9:15
  coaches soccer, she's cheering at her children's
• 9:18
  games on weekends, and she was happily planning
• 9:20
  her 21 -year -old daughter's wedding, all while
• 9:23
  her business continued to grow. She even takes
• 9:25
  days off for family outings, like seeing the
• 9:28
  cherry blossoms in Washington. It sounds almost
• 9:30
  impossible. It does. Which is why, apparently
• 9:33
  when Barack Obama himself met her, he reportedly
• 9:35
  asked her, when do you sleep? It perfectly captures
• 9:38
  that disbelief people often have when faced with
• 9:41
  someone managing such a seemingly packed yet
• 9:44
  balanced life. Incredible. And then there's Michael
• 9:46
  Shidlowski. Yes, Michael Shidlowski, a software
• 9:49
  engineer at Google. His schedule is, well, equally
• 9:52
  astounding. He teaches graduate level computer
• 9:54
  science at NYU for six hours a week. He trains
• 9:57
  for Ironman triathlons. The full Ironman. Swim,
• 10:00
  bike, run. The full Monty. 2 .4 mile swim, 112
• 10:03
  mile bike, 26 .2 mile run. He dedicates 15 hours
• 10:07
  a week just to training for that. He also coaches
• 10:09
  other athletes for about three hours a week.
• 10:11
  On top of a Google job. On top of a solid 40
• 10:14
  hour week at Google. He manages to sleep a full
• 10:17
  56 hours per week. That's eight hours a night.
• 10:19
  And after all that... He still finds he has about
• 10:22
  28 .5 hours of free time left over each week.
• 10:25
  28 hours free after all that. His key insight
• 10:29
  after he tallied it all up. Despite everything
• 10:32
  I do, I still have more free time than I thought
• 10:34
  I do. He describes feeling pretty free and always
• 10:37
  having a pretty good day. It really is a testament
• 10:39
  to the power of intentionality. Their lives sound,
• 10:42
  as you said, pretty sweet. They do. And it's
• 10:45
  crucial to understand it's not because they possess
• 10:47
  more hours than anyone else. They don't have
• 10:48
  the secret time machine. It's because they approach
• 10:51
  their 168 hours with profound purpose and clarity.
• 10:55
  They're not simply reacting to demands. They're
• 10:57
  making deliberate intentional choices about where
• 11:00
  their time goes. This isn't about superhuman
• 11:02
  capability or necessarily extreme privilege.
• 11:04
  It's about treating each hour as a deliberate
• 11:06
  choice and aligning it with what truly matters
• 11:09
  to them. That idea of strategic investment of
• 11:12
  time brings us really neatly to our next concept.
• 11:16
  It's clearly not just about tracking where time
• 11:18
  goes, important as that is, but what we do with
• 11:21
  that time, what we choose to focus on. And this
• 11:23
  leads us to a strategic concept usually reserved
• 11:26
  for corporate boardrooms, the idea of core competencies.
• 11:30
  How does that apply to us as individuals? That's
• 11:32
  an excellent connection. The concept of core
• 11:33
  competencies was, uh... first really powerfully
• 11:37
  articulated by management gurus Gary Hamill and
• 11:39
  C .K. Prelod in a very influential Harvard Business
• 11:42
  Review article back in 1990. Right. I think I
• 11:45
  remember that. Historically, the corporate model
• 11:47
  often saw companies as these sort of behemoths
• 11:50
  of strategic business units, often quite unrelated,
• 11:53
  but hopefully profitable. Think of U .S. Steel
• 11:57
  buying Marathon Oil, or a company like GE acquiring
• 12:00
  investment banks or television networks. The
• 12:03
  thinking was, if it makes money, a big corporation
• 12:05
  should probably be involved in it. Diversification
• 12:07
  above all else. In a way, yes. But Ham and Braha
• 12:10
  contrasted this with the critical shift they
• 12:12
  saw coming. They argued that in a more competitive,
• 12:16
  globalized era, companies would need to focus
• 12:19
  intensely on what they did best. They realize
• 12:21
  that top talent is actually a scarcer resource
• 12:23
  than raw materials or even capital. Interesting
• 12:26
  point. And there's a significant opportunity
• 12:28
  cost and clarity of strategic intent when energy
• 12:32
  and resources are devoted to things that others
• 12:34
  can do just as well or even better. It dilutes
• 12:37
  focus and effort. So they defined a core competence
• 12:40
  for businesses using three key criteria. Okay,
• 12:43
  what are they? Firstly, it has to provide potential
• 12:46
  access to a wide variety of markets. Secondly,
• 12:49
  it must make a significant contribution to the
• 12:51
  perceived customer benefits of the end product.
• 12:53
  And thirdly, crucially, it must be difficult
• 12:56
  for competitors to imitate, often because it's
• 12:58
  a complex harmonization of individual technologies
• 13:01
  and production skills. Hard to copy. Exactly.
• 13:03
  And they noted that few companies truly achieve
• 13:05
  world leadership in more than, say, five or six
• 13:08
  such core competencies. So the conclusion was
• 13:10
  clear. Modern successful companies focus relentlessly
• 13:14
  on these core strengths and consciously minimize,
• 13:17
  outsource, or simply ignore everything else.
• 13:19
  It's what Thomas Friedman later sort of encapsulated
• 13:22
  with the idea that the world is flat. Specialization
• 13:25
  and focus become absolutely key to competitive
• 13:27
  advantage. So how does this powerful business
• 13:30
  framework originally designed for giant corporations
• 13:33
  genuinely translate to us as individuals? We're
• 13:35
  not global enterprises, obviously. But we certainly
• 13:37
  have our own unique skills, our own value proposition,
• 13:40
  don't we? How can we apply this very strategic
• 13:43
  thinking to our own lives and our own 168 hours?
• 13:46
  That's the critical question, and the translation
• 13:48
  is remarkably direct and I think very powerful.
• 13:52
  Individuals just like companies absolutely can
• 13:55
  and should identify their core competencies.
• 13:58
  The same three -part definition applies quite
• 14:00
  well. These are abilities that you can leverage
• 14:03
  across multiple spheres of your life. They are
• 14:06
  important and meaningful to you. And crucially,
• 14:09
  they are things you do best that others cannot
• 14:11
  do nearly as well. OK. Can you give us an example
• 14:13
  of that in practice? Let's look at a truly remarkable
• 14:16
  case study. Roald Hoffman, born in 1937, a Jewish
• 14:20
  Nobel Prize winning chemist. He survived the
• 14:22
  Second World War, hiding in a schoolhouse attic
• 14:25
  in Poland for over a year. incredible survival
• 14:28
  story. Absolutely. And during that terrifying
• 14:30
  period, he became, in his own words, a keen observer,
• 14:33
  a watcher. He'd recorded the changing light the
• 14:36
  seasons. He watched other children playing outside
• 14:38
  from his hiding place This intense observational
• 14:41
  capacity became his foundational core competency
• 14:43
  shaped by extreme circumstances profoundly Despite
• 14:47
  immense pressure later to become a doctor. He
• 14:50
  pursued chemistry Applying these observational
• 14:52
  skills to truly groundbreaking work He co -developed
• 14:56
  the Woodward Hoffman rules, which earned him
• 14:58
  a share of the 1981 Nobel Prize in chemistry
• 15:00
  Amazing. But what's perhaps even more fascinating
• 15:03
  is that after receiving the Nobel Prize, he began
• 15:06
  writing poetry in earnest. He applied that same
• 15:09
  core watching ability to poetry, endowing his
• 15:12
  observations with emotional currency, as he put
• 15:14
  it. He studies other poets, edits himself rigorously,
• 15:18
  attends retreats. He acknowledges it's not easy
• 15:20
  and requires many more drafts than my science
• 15:23
  articles. So he leveraged that one core skill
• 15:25
  across science and art. Exactly. Hoffman exemplifies
• 15:28
  knowing what he is good at. and what he can do
• 15:31
  better than almost anyone else, and leveraging
• 15:33
  this core ability across incredibly diverse fields,
• 15:36
  from wartime survival to chemistry and poetry.
• 15:39
  That's a powerful illustration. Any other examples?
• 15:42
  Yes. Consider Elizabeth Cambord. Her journey
• 15:45
  began as an overweight former smoker working
• 15:47
  as a nonprofit fundraiser. She initially struggled
• 15:50
  with exercise, but then discovered she actually
• 15:53
  loved working out, particularly group fitness
• 15:55
  classes. Found her niche. She did. This passion
• 15:59
  led her to get certified, and she found she excelled
• 16:02
  at teaching, at choreographing routines, and
• 16:04
  crucially, at creating an accepting environment
• 16:07
  for different body types. She herself ultimately
• 16:10
  lost over 70 pounds. She then made the bold decision
• 16:13
  to leave her fundraising job and open her own
• 16:15
  place, Sante Fitness Studio. Taking the leap!
• 16:18
  And she made a very specific strategic point
• 16:20
  of focusing only on group fitness, encouraging
• 16:23
  all body shapes, and explicitly avoiding personal
• 16:26
  training because Quite simply, she hated it and
• 16:29
  felt it pulled her from other things she was
• 16:31
  better at and enjoyed more. Focusing on her strength.
• 16:34
  Precisely. She even strategically aligned her
• 16:37
  volunteer work. Things like leading warmups for
• 16:40
  charity walks or hosting community dances to
• 16:42
  fund school P .E. programs in ways that also
• 16:46
  benefited her business. In her family life, she
• 16:49
  focused on group fitness. like hiking together
• 16:52
  and nurturing her daughters, while acknowledging
• 16:55
  what she hated to do, like watching her daughter's
• 16:57
  softball games wasn't her thing and figuring
• 17:00
  out how to make it go away without neglecting
• 17:02
  her child. Both Hoffman and Cambord show this
• 17:06
  profound clarity on what they truly excel at
• 17:08
  and enjoy and focusing their energy there. It
• 17:11
  strikes me though that these aren't always obvious
• 17:13
  skills or predetermined paths. It really sounds
• 17:16
  like it takes a process of self -discovery, maybe
• 17:18
  even quite a bit of experimentation, to uncover
• 17:21
  these unique competencies. It's not about just
• 17:23
  fitting yourself into a predefined box, is it?
• 17:25
  You've hit on a crucial point there. Identifying
• 17:27
  your core competencies is absolutely an ongoing
• 17:30
  journey. It's not a one -off exercise. You just
• 17:32
  have to keep trying things, paying attention
• 17:33
  to your reaction, noticing what makes you, as
• 17:36
  Elizabeth Cambord put it, almost insatiable to
• 17:38
  learn more about it. That sense of deep curiosity.
• 17:41
  Exactly. Like a successful modern corporation,
• 17:44
  individuals typically have no more than, say,
• 17:46
  half a dozen true core competencies. Ideally,
• 17:51
  the actual substance of your paid work should
• 17:53
  be a core competency, something you genuinely
• 17:55
  excel at and derive energy from doing. That makes
• 17:58
  sense. Nurturing your key relationships, your
• 18:01
  family members, your close friends. That's arguably
• 18:04
  a non -negotiable core competency for everyone.
• 18:07
  as no one else can fulfill that role quite as
• 18:09
  you can. And importantly, your leisure activities,
• 18:12
  too, should ideally be based around these core
• 18:15
  competencies, things you do best, and are willing
• 18:17
  to devote time and effort toward to make them
• 18:19
  truly meaningful and enriching, not just time
• 18:22
  fillers. So work, family, leisure, all connected
• 18:26
  by these core strengths? Ideally, yes. The sobering
• 18:29
  experience for many, though, comes when they
• 18:30
  actually look at their time logs, as we discussed
• 18:32
  earlier. Those logs often reveal that vast chunks
• 18:35
  of the 168 hours are spent on activities that
• 18:38
  are not core competencies, both at work and at
• 18:40
  home. Like what specifically? Things like errands,
• 18:43
  excessive housework, endless television watching,
• 18:46
  aimless shopping. These often consume huge amounts
• 18:48
  of time, yet when people reflect, These activities
• 18:51
  are rarely classified as particularly meaningful
• 18:53
  or important. Understanding this disconnect between
• 18:56
  where time actually goes and what truly matters
• 18:59
  is the first vital step to reclaiming your 168
• 19:03
  hours and focusing on what counts. That's a powerful
• 19:06
  insight. And it leads us directly to think about
• 19:08
  work, doesn't it? So much of our 168 hours are
• 19:11
  dedicated to our jobs. If that time isn't deeply
• 19:14
  aligned with our core competencies, it can become
• 19:17
  a significant drain on our overall energy and
• 19:19
  satisfaction, can it? It's clearly not just about
• 19:22
  the hours logged, but the quality and alignment
• 19:25
  of those hours. Precisely. Being in the right
• 19:28
  job, a job that genuinely leverages your core
• 19:30
  competencies and aligns with your values, can
• 19:32
  imbue you with amazing energy for the entirety
• 19:34
  of your 168 hours. It's truly profound, the impact
• 19:37
  it can have. More energy overall. Yes, you'll
• 19:40
  possess more zeal, more stamina, more enthusiasm
• 19:43
  for all other aspects of your life, including
• 19:45
  your family. This might sound counterintuitive,
• 19:49
  but working, say, 50 hours a week in a job you
• 19:51
  genuinely love and feel energized by can actually
• 19:54
  provide you with more positive energy for your
• 19:56
  children than working just 30 hours in a job
• 19:59
  you detest and that drains you. The intrinsic
• 20:02
  motivation transforms your capacity and overall
• 20:05
  well -being. This is a really important point.
• 20:07
  The quality matters more than the quantity. Absolutely.
• 20:10
  Consider the renowned marine biologist and explorer
• 20:12
  in residence at the National Geographic Society
• 20:15
  Sylvia Earle. Back in 1998, when she was 62,
• 20:19
  which is actually the average U .S. retirement
• 20:20
  age, her voice apparently just brimmed with joy
• 20:23
  when she discussed her work, while speaking from
• 20:25
  60 feet underwater in an underwater base called
• 20:27
  Aquarius. 62 and working underwater with joy.
• 20:30
  Exactly. And fast forward to 2009, when she was
• 20:33
  73, she was still embarking on trips to the Yucatan
• 20:35
  Peninsula and Australia to study whale sharks
• 20:38
  and reefs, finishing books, collaborating with
• 20:41
  Google to add oceans to Google Earth, campaigning
• 20:43
  globally for marine sanctuaries. relentless energy.
• 20:47
  Still going strong. She perceives each hour logged
• 20:50
  doing this work, not as a chore, but as a source
• 20:53
  of joy, even after accumulating over 7 ,000 underwater
• 20:58
  hours throughout her long career. And this passion
• 21:01
  even spilled into her family life. She often
• 21:04
  involved her three children in things like making
• 21:06
  slides from seaweed specimens she'd collected.
• 21:09
  Her work wasn't a drain. It was clearly a wellspring
• 21:12
  of energy that fueled her entire life. It's incredible
• 21:15
  how that passion fuels everything. Now, thinking
• 21:18
  about our modern career landscape, many people
• 21:20
  seem to be chasing the idea of the four -hour
• 21:22
  work week or simply dream of working less. But
• 21:26
  does the research truly support this as the ultimate
• 21:28
  path to fulfillment? Or is there something deeper
• 21:31
  at play, as Sylvia Earle's life seems to suggest?
• 21:33
  It's an excellent question, and it allows us
• 21:35
  to challenge that popular four -hour workweek
• 21:37
  prescription, drawing on some solid sociological
• 21:40
  research. While an older survey from 2006 by
• 21:43
  CareerBuilder .com found that 84 % of full -time
• 21:45
  workers said they weren't in their absolute dream
• 21:48
  jobs. Which sounds quite high. It does. But contrast
• 21:52
  that with the 2002 General Social Survey, GSS,
• 21:56
  a very respected study, which revealed a rather
• 21:58
  surprising finding. 89 % of adults working more
• 22:02
  than 10 hours per week reported being either
• 22:04
  very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their
• 22:08
  jobs. 89 % satisfied. That's much higher than
• 22:11
  you'd expect. It suggests that most people find
• 22:13
  a workable level of contentment in their employment,
• 22:15
  even if it's not their ultimate fantasy job.
• 22:18
  Furthermore, despite the popularity of TV shows
• 22:21
  portraying a life of pure leisure, that same
• 22:24
  2002 GSS also showed that most people would actually
• 22:27
  continue to work in some fashion even if they
• 22:29
  didn't financially need to. Why do you think
• 22:31
  that is? Well, the truth seems to be that all
• 22:34
  play and no work makes Jack as dull a boy as
• 22:37
  the other way around. There is significant happiness
• 22:39
  and fulfillment derived from engaging in meaningful
• 22:41
  professional pursuits. Indeed, research published
• 22:44
  in 2008 Journal of Career Assessment even suggests
• 22:47
  that happiness can actually be an important precursor
• 22:50
  and determinant of career success, not merely
• 22:52
  a byproduct of it. So happiness drives success,
• 22:55
  not just the other way around. That's what the
• 22:57
  evidence suggests. The satisfaction isn't just
• 23:00
  a reward for success. It actively fuels it. Okay,
• 23:03
  so if the four -hour work week isn't the ultimate
• 23:06
  answer for most, what does define the right job?
• 23:09
  What are the characteristics we should be looking
• 23:11
  for based on research? Research on happiness
• 23:14
  and creativity points towards four key characteristics.
• 23:18
  Firstly, intrinsic motivation. The right job
• 23:21
  taps into activities you loved, perhaps as a
• 23:24
  child, or things you would willingly do for free
• 23:26
  just because you enjoy them. Like my writing
• 23:28
  example. Exactly! Like your childhood desire
• 23:31
  to write stories, not doodle equations. Or take
• 23:34
  Elon Crew, an aeronautics professor. As a child,
• 23:38
  he was fascinated by flight, apparently trying
• 23:40
  to figure out how to fly without engines. This
• 23:43
  later led to him inventing the foot -launched
• 23:45
  sailplane. It's about that deep internal drive.
• 23:48
  Makes sense. What's number two? Secondly, autonomy.
• 23:51
  You need to be given a reasonable amount of freedom
• 23:53
  and control in determining how to carry out your
• 23:55
  work. Nobody thrives being micromanaged. It's
• 23:58
  pretty straightforward. Trust and flexibility
• 24:00
  are key. Agreed. Number three. Thirdly, challenge.
• 24:05
  The work needs to be optimally challenging. This
• 24:08
  means it calls upon your best skills and helps
• 24:10
  you develop new ones, but without being completely
• 24:12
  overwhelming or beyond your current skill level.
• 24:15
  This ideal state is what the psychologist Mahali
• 24:17
  Sixcent Mahali famously termed flow. Flow state.
• 24:21
  Yes. He discovered this through a fascinating
• 24:23
  experiment where thousands of people recorded
• 24:26
  their activities and feelings via pagers over
• 24:28
  time. He found people were happiest when they
• 24:31
  were so completely absorbed in a difficult but
• 24:33
  doable activity that hours pass by in minutes.
• 24:37
  This deep absorption is a hallmark of truly engaging
• 24:40
  work. and the final characteristic. And finally,
• 24:43
  number four is organizational support. The work
• 24:46
  environment itself, the organization, your colleagues,
• 24:49
  needs to actively encourage your best work. This
• 24:52
  means providing sufficient resources, fostering
• 24:54
  a genuinely supportive team, ensuring good communication,
• 24:57
  and cultivating an environment where creativity
• 24:59
  and contribution are genuinely valued and encouraged.
• 25:03
  All these elements combined create the fertile
• 25:05
  ground for a truly right job. So it's the task
• 25:08
  itself, the freedom, the challenge, and the environment.
• 25:11
  Precisely. And building on this there's the crucial
• 25:14
  concept of deliberate practice. popularized by
• 25:17
  Kay Anderson's research. This is the idea that
• 25:20
  achieving truly expert performance, whether you're
• 25:23
  playing the violin or mastering a surgical technique
• 25:25
  or writing code, requires at least 10 ,000 hours
• 25:29
  of focused intentional practice. The 10 ,000
• 25:32
  hour rule. That's the one. It's difficult to
• 25:34
  push yourself beyond the basic job requirements
• 25:37
  if you don't fundamentally enjoy or feel engaged
• 25:39
  by what you do. You're likely just do what's
• 25:42
  explicitly required or rewarded and then seek
• 25:44
  escape. There was even a University of Maryland
• 25:47
  study that found unhappy people watched about
• 25:49
  20 % more television than happy ones, suggesting
• 25:52
  they tend towards escape rather than actively
• 25:54
  engaging with and solving problems. The right
• 25:57
  job encourages that engagement and problem solving.
• 26:00
  It really sounds like we can't just sit back
• 26:02
  and wait for the perfect job to land in our laps.
• 26:04
  It feels much more like something we have to
• 26:05
  actively build or shape for ourselves. Is that
• 26:08
  right? What are the practical pathways to cultivating
• 26:11
  this right job, given the realities of today's
• 26:13
  economy? You're absolutely right. It is very
• 26:15
  much something you actively build or create.
• 26:18
  Research suggests two primary pathways. The first
• 26:22
  is creating the right job within an existing
• 26:24
  organization. This involves finding an organization
• 26:27
  that is reasonably flexible and open to leveraging
• 26:30
  your unique talents. And then, as the saying
• 26:32
  sometimes goes, concocting your dream job within
• 26:35
  its structure. Often it might be easier to ask
• 26:38
  for forgiveness than permission. You demonstrate
• 26:40
  your value in a certain area, prove its worth,
• 26:43
  and then work to formalize that expanded or reshaped
• 26:45
  role. Carving out your space. Exactly. The second
• 26:49
  path, which is increasingly common in the modern
• 26:50
  economy, is self -employment. In New York City,
• 26:53
  for example, self -employment was actually the
• 26:55
  biggest single source of job creation between
• 26:57
  1981 and 2006, adding nearly half a million jobs.
• 27:01
  By 2009, something like 26 % of the entire U
• 27:04
  .S. workforce identified as free agents. A quarter
• 27:07
  of the workforce. Indeed. Now while some of these
• 27:11
  are undoubtedly forced moves due to redundancy
• 27:13
  or lack of traditional employment, for many,
• 27:16
  it's a deliberate choice. driven by push factors
• 27:19
  like frustration with bureaucracy and pull factors
• 27:22
  like the desire for autonomy and the drive to
• 27:24
  fully leverage their core competencies. Can you
• 27:27
  give us an example of that self -employment path?
• 27:29
  Certainly. Let's consider Mark Matsumoto. He
• 27:33
  was a former finance professional who, after
• 27:35
  what he described as a forced career change,
• 27:38
  decided to transform his lifelong love for cooking
• 27:40
  into a dream job as a food personality writing,
• 27:44
  blogging, creating recipes. He now apparently
• 27:47
  spends his weekdays exploring farmers markets,
• 27:50
  cooking interesting dishes, and using his business
• 27:52
  background and marketing skills to attract over
• 27:54
  100 ,000 unique visitors to his website each
• 27:57
  month. He initially viewed the change as a forced
• 27:59
  move, but now he wonders why it didn't do it
• 28:01
  sooner. His passion became his profession, offering
• 28:04
  that crucial autonomy and alignment. Found his
• 28:07
  calling through adversity. In a way, yes. Then
• 28:10
  there are Julie Pickens and Mindy Donnie, the
• 28:12
  creators of Boogie Wipes, those saline -infused
• 28:14
  tissues for kids. Oh yes, I know those. Right.
• 28:17
  Two mothers who, apparently between other business
• 28:20
  ventures, had an epiphany while dealing with
• 28:22
  their snotty children. Why not put saline in
• 28:25
  the wipe? They launched their company, Little
• 28:27
  Busybodies, Inc., in 2007. Now, they probably
• 28:31
  didn't dream of tissues as children, but running
• 28:34
  their own business gave them that incredible
• 28:36
  autonomy and challenge we talked about. They
• 28:39
  hashed out product details during playdates.
• 28:41
  One worked flexible hours from an office with
• 28:43
  a playroom. The other worked from home with an
• 28:45
  infant. They gave their dozen employees similar
• 28:48
  flexibility. They found themselves energized
• 28:50
  by the challenge of problems like figuring out
• 28:53
  how to get their product into major retailers
• 28:54
  like Walmart. And that drive led to over $5 million
• 28:58
  in sales in less than two years. Wow, so the
• 29:01
  passion came from the process, the autonomy.
• 29:04
  It seems so. Their journey shows that the passion
• 29:06
  for the work itself, the problem solving, the
• 29:09
  building something, can sometimes be developed
• 29:10
  through the autonomy and challenge of entrepreneurship,
• 29:13
  rather than necessarily being a pre -existing
• 29:15
  love of the specific product or service. It's
• 29:18
  inspiring to see how these individuals really
• 29:20
  created their own versions of the right job.
• 29:22
  Ultimately, though, how do we gauge if we're
• 29:24
  on the right trajectory in our own careers? If
• 29:27
  we're genuinely heading toward a right job rather
• 29:30
  than just settling for a job, is there a kind
• 29:33
  of litmus test we can use for ourselves? There
• 29:36
  is a rather insightful, if hypothetical, test
• 29:38
  you can apply. Ask yourself this. Would you take
• 29:42
  400 million to walk away? 400 million pounds.
• 29:46
  Yes. If someone offered you 400 million to walk
• 29:48
  away from your current job and never do the stuff
• 29:50
  of it again, never engage in the core activities
• 29:53
  that define it, you have to stop and think about
• 29:56
  it. Would you feel a genuine sense of grieving,
• 29:59
  a loss, despite the immense riches being offered?
• 30:03
  Hmm. That's a tough question. If the answer involves
• 30:06
  hesitation, if you'd feel that sense of loss
• 30:08
  for the work itself, it strongly suggests you're
• 30:11
  on the right track. It implies you found work
• 30:13
  that holds intrinsic value for you, something
• 30:15
  beyond mere remuneration. It's about whether
• 30:18
  the work itself holds a deep meaning that even
• 30:20
  vast wealth couldn't easily replace. That's a
• 30:23
  fantastic thought experiment. It really shifts
• 30:26
  the focus beyond just compensation and onto the
• 30:29
  intrinsic value, the meaning of the work itself.
• 30:32
  Now, even if we're fortunate enough to be in
• 30:34
  or building towards the right job, our calendars
• 30:38
  can still get clogged up with activities that
• 30:39
  aren't truly real work, things that look busy
• 30:42
  but aren't genuinely productive. How do we cut
• 30:45
  through that noise and identify what truly moves
• 30:48
  the needle for us, professionally speaking? This
• 30:50
  is such a critical distinction, isn't it? We
• 30:52
  absolutely must differentiate between things
• 30:55
  that look like work and actual work. And by actual
• 30:58
  work, I mean activities that are advancing you
• 31:01
  toward the purpose of your existence, or at least
• 31:02
  towards your key professional goals. So separating
• 31:05
  activity from impact. Precisely. So many common
• 31:09
  workplace activities think of long, aimless meetings
• 31:12
  where you're not essential. or obsessively checking
• 31:15
  and responding to every single email instantly
• 31:17
  can give a false sense of productivity. They
• 31:20
  make you feel busy, but ultimately, they waste
• 31:22
  time, and frankly, they waste lives. Consider
• 31:25
  someone like Bill Gates. He reportedly attends
• 31:27
  meetings only when he plays a critical part,
• 31:30
  and others plan rigorously beforehand to avoid
• 31:32
  wasting his time. There's no inherent nobility
• 31:35
  in just sitting in an endless meeting if you're
• 31:37
  not contributing or gaining anything vital. It's
• 31:39
  like that example you used of the police officer.
• 31:41
  Yes. The officer running herself ragged responding
• 31:44
  to 300 individual 911 calls on a single problematic
• 31:48
  street corner versus taking the time to figure
• 31:50
  out and actually solve the root cause of the
• 31:52
  problem there. One is constant activity. The
• 31:55
  other is strategic impact. Makes sense. Can you
• 31:57
  illustrate this focus on real work with another
• 31:59
  example? Certainly. Let's look at Carol Fassbender
• 32:03
  -Orth. She's a rising young scientist and professor
• 32:05
  at Creighton University and also a mother of
• 32:08
  two young children. Her upbringing was quite
• 32:11
  unusual. She grew up on an apiary, a bee farm,
• 32:15
  where she experienced countless bee stings. Ouch.
• 32:18
  Indeed. But this apparently developed in her
• 32:20
  a certain unflappability. a calmness under pressure,
• 32:25
  they gave her a refreshingly pragmatic perspective
• 32:27
  on academic work. She fundamentally understands
• 32:29
  that academic scientists are ultimately judged
• 32:31
  on the quality of their results in their publications
• 32:33
  in significant journals, not merely on the number
• 32:36
  of hours they spend physically present in the
• 32:38
  lab or the number of committees they sit on.
• 32:40
  Focusing on the outcome, not just the process.
• 32:43
  Exactly. So her strategy is to focus intensely
• 32:45
  on the metrics that truly matter for achieving
• 32:48
  tenure in her field. Typically something like
• 32:51
  three to five high -impact publications in major
• 32:53
  journals, securing significant external grant
• 32:56
  funding and maintaining reasonable teaching and
• 32:58
  advising loads. She consciously minimizes time
• 33:02
  spent on activities she deems a waste of time,
• 33:05
  such as pursuing experiments that show limited
• 33:07
  promise of success or getting bogged down in
• 33:09
  internal academic politics. She's known to apparently
• 33:12
  politely extract herself from meetings if they
• 33:15
  become irrelevant to her core research goals.
• 33:17
  It takes courage to do that. It does. She typically
• 33:19
  works a focused eight or nine hour day, prioritizes
• 33:22
  being home for time with her kids in the evening,
• 33:25
  and then might do more focused work, like writing
• 33:28
  or planning experiments, after they're in bed.
• 33:31
  She plans her experiments carefully to avoid
• 33:33
  frequent unnecessary late -night visits to the
• 33:35
  lab. And her unflappability extends to handling
• 33:39
  unexpected crises. There's a story of her getting
• 33:42
  trapped in an elevator with her young children
• 33:44
  at the lab late one Friday evening, a situation
• 33:47
  she apparently took completely in stride. She
• 33:49
  exemplifies focusing her energy on what truly
• 33:51
  matters for her professional advancement and
• 33:54
  filtering out the noise. Unflappability, I like
• 33:56
  that. So if identifying the real work, the stuff
• 33:59
  that truly matters like Carol did, is the first
• 34:02
  crucial step, how do we then systematically eliminate
• 34:05
  or at least significantly reduce all the other
• 34:07
  stuff, the noise? You've discussed a powerful
• 34:10
  three -part strategy for tackling this non -core
• 34:12
  competency work. Can you walk us through it?
• 34:14
  Yes, it's a comprehensive three -part strategy
• 34:16
  and the elements are Quite straightforward. Ignore
• 34:19
  it, minimize it, or outsource it. Ignore, minimize,
• 34:23
  outsource. OK, let's start with ignore it. Right.
• 34:25
  Ignore Ed Edirana. It is the most direct approach.
• 34:29
  It means actively quitting projects, giving up
• 34:32
  responsibilities that are just leeching time
• 34:35
  without significant return, or simply declining
• 34:38
  to take them on in the first place. Now, this
• 34:41
  can feel frankly, scary as hell for many people.
• 34:44
  Whether you're employed or self -employed, people
• 34:46
  worry about burning bridges, damaging relationships,
• 34:50
  or seeing their income plummet. There are real
• 34:52
  risks involved. There can be. You shared a personal
• 34:55
  example yourself, didn't you, about deciding
• 34:57
  to stop writing that regular section for Reader's
• 35:00
  Digest? Yes, that's right. As a new mom and freelance
• 35:03
  writer, I stopped writing the non -bylined, only
• 35:05
  in America section. It provided over half my
• 35:08
  income at the time and was flexible, only about
• 35:10
  20 hours a week. But I found it took up too much
• 35:12
  mental energy, energy I wanted to put towards
• 35:14
  my bigger goal of writing books and longer, more
• 35:16
  serious articles. My income did drop by half
• 35:19
  initially, which was stressful, but it eventually
• 35:21
  recovered from higher value projects. And well,
• 35:24
  as it turned out, the Reader's Digest Association
• 35:26
  later filed for bankruptcy, so it was probably
• 35:28
  a wise move long -term anyway. A perfect example.
• 35:32
  This tactic often relies on negotiating from
• 35:34
  a position of strength, ideally, by being exceptionally
• 35:38
  good at your core work, making you valuable,
• 35:41
  or perhaps by having a financial cushion or other
• 35:44
  job offers waiting. As the saying goes, people
• 35:47
  perform better when they don't desperately need
• 35:49
  their jobs, as it fosters a willingness to take
• 35:52
  calculated risks and push back against non -essential
• 35:54
  tasks that don't serve their primary goals. Okay,
• 35:57
  so ignoring it is about strategic quitting or
• 36:00
  declining. What about the second part? Minimize
• 36:02
  it. Minimize. It involves setting a reasonable
• 36:05
  limit on your total work hours, perhaps aiming
• 36:07
  for somewhere between 30 and 50 hours a week,
• 36:10
  or 60 at the absolute maximum for sustainable
• 36:12
  high performance. Then, the key is to commit
• 36:15
  to filling large portions of that limited time
• 36:18
  with genuinely high value work. This means actually
• 36:21
  blocking off time in your calendar for strategic
• 36:23
  thinking or deep work on key projects and treating
• 36:26
  those blocks as absolutely unavailable to others,
• 36:29
  just like an important client meeting. Protecting
• 36:31
  your focus time. Precisely. A great example here
• 36:34
  is Trista Harris, who we mentioned earlier, the
• 36:36
  executive director of the Headwaters Foundation
• 36:38
  for Justice. She implemented regular, short,
• 36:41
  one -on -one meetings with each of her direct
• 36:44
  reports, always with clear agendas sent in advance.
• 36:47
  This proactive approach allowed her staff to
• 36:50
  hold their big, pressing questions for these
• 36:53
  designated times, which significantly minimized
• 36:55
  random interruptions throughout the week. Think
• 36:57
  about it. Two 15 -minute focus meetings per week
• 37:00
  per report might only amount to less than four
• 37:03
  hours total, but the impact on everyone's ability
• 37:06
  to concentrate during the rest of the week could
• 37:07
  be huge. That sounds very efficient. It is. Her
• 37:10
  organization also transitioned to what's called
• 37:12
  a Results -Only Work Environment, or ROE. This
• 37:16
  allows employees to work wherever and whenever
• 37:19
  they choose, as long as the required work gets
• 37:21
  done effectively. This inherently minimizes wasted
• 37:24
  time that can come from rigid schedules or unclear
• 37:27
  directives. Harris herself blocks off chunks
• 37:30
  of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, specifically
• 37:33
  for strategic thinking time. She closes her door,
• 37:36
  avoids email, and focuses purely on high -level
• 37:39
  issues like fundraising strategies or emerging
• 37:41
  philanthropic trends. And to manage the influx
• 37:44
  of mentoring requests she received, she created
• 37:46
  a helpful handout with resources for young women
• 37:48
  and people of color interested in philanthropy.
• 37:50
  She asks potential mentees to review it first
• 37:53
  and then send specific questions beforehand,
• 37:55
  ensuring those high -value interactions remain
• 37:57
  focused and productive. It's all about structuring
• 38:00
  time to minimize waste. Really smart ways to
• 38:02
  manage interactions and focus. Okay, and the
• 38:04
  third strategy, outsource it. Yes, outsource
• 38:07
  it. This is about delegating tasks that don't
• 38:10
  require your specific expertise or attention
• 38:13
  to others, perhaps dedicated assistance, shared
• 38:16
  administrative support, or external freelancers
• 38:18
  and services. This is where the classic economic
• 38:21
  law of comparative advantage comes into play.
• 38:24
  Even if you could technically do a task slightly
• 38:26
  better or faster than someone else, if your time
• 38:29
  is more valuable spent on your core competencies,
• 38:32
  it still makes economic sense to delegate the
• 38:34
  less critical task. You free up your most valuable
• 38:36
  resource, your focused attention for the activities,
• 38:39
  where only you can deliver the highest value.
• 38:41
  It's about opportunity cost again. Exactly. Continuing
• 38:44
  with Trista Harris as an example, Beyond managing
• 38:47
  her internal staff effectively, she actively
• 38:50
  outsourced tasks. She hired someone through the
• 38:52
  online platform Elance to design her New Voices
• 38:56
  of Philanthropy blog. She used a virtual assistant
• 38:58
  for specific research projects. And interestingly,
• 39:01
  when she's invited to speak at conferences or
• 39:03
  panels where she feels she isn't perhaps the
• 39:05
  most appropriate or knowledgeable speaker, she
• 39:07
  proactively suggests other talented individuals
• 39:10
  from her broad, professional network. This builds
• 39:13
  goodwill, helps others, and frees up her own
• 39:15
  time for engagements where her unique expertise
• 39:17
  is truly essential. That's a clever way to handle
• 39:20
  requests. And she applies these lessons at home,
• 39:22
  too. There's a story about when her 10 -year
• 39:25
  -old daughter forgot her homework. Instead of
• 39:28
  automatically dropping everything and driving
• 39:29
  45 minutes back to school to retrieve it, Harris
• 39:32
  leveraged her core competency as a mother, which
• 39:35
  includes teaching responsibility to counsel her
• 39:37
  daughter on how to approach the teacher, explain
• 39:40
  the situation, and figure out how to solve the
• 39:42
  problem herself. She taught a life lesson rather
• 39:45
  than just playing fetch. It's about applying
• 39:47
  the principle of leveraging the right skills
• 39:49
  for the right tasks, regardless of who performs
• 39:52
  them, across all domains of life. So what really
• 39:55
  stands out across ignore, minimize, and outsource
• 39:58
  is this overarching principle of intentionality.
• 40:01
  It requires a really ruthless focus on what truly
• 40:03
  moves the needle for you, professionally speaking.
• 40:06
  It's fundamentally about working smarter, not
• 40:08
  just longer hours, and actively reclaiming agency
• 40:11
  over how your professional time is spent. Absolutely.
• 40:14
  And perhaps one final crucial point on optimizing
• 40:17
  professional life. Boosting your efficiency in
• 40:20
  the long run also means actively getting better
• 40:23
  at your core professional craft. This isn't just
• 40:26
  about passively putting in the hours. It's about
• 40:29
  engaging in that focused, deliberate practice
• 40:31
  we mentioned earlier. It means actively studying
• 40:34
  the work of others you admire, critically analyzing
• 40:36
  your own work to identify weak spots, proactively
• 40:39
  seeking constructive feedback, and continually
• 40:42
  laboring to refine your skills. For instance,
• 40:45
  you've mentioned that after years of dedicated
• 40:47
  writing practice, if you're assigned the 1 ,000
• 40:49
  word piece now, your first draft consistently
• 40:51
  comes out somewhere between 900 and 1 ,100 words.
• 40:54
  Yes, usually pretty close now. That reflects
• 40:56
  an efficiency and precision gained through years
• 40:58
  of intentional practice. It's a true mastery
• 41:01
  of your professional craft that not only improves
• 41:03
  quality, but also frees up valuable time and
• 41:05
  mental energy for other pursuits. Continuous
• 41:08
  improvement is part of working smarter. That's
• 41:10
  a great point. Okay, so once we've started streamlining
• 41:13
  our professional hours using these strategies,
• 41:16
  the next significant area of time investment
• 41:18
  and often perceived time drain is our home lives.
• 41:22
  Many of us, especially those mid -career professionals
• 41:24
  we mentioned, feel that the domestic burden is
• 41:27
  precisely where the time crunch truly bites hard.
• 41:30
  How has this changed historically? And more importantly,
• 41:33
  what can we do about it now? It's true. That
• 41:35
  feeling of the domestic burden is very real for
• 41:38
  many people. But the fascinating reality is that
• 41:40
  home economics, in the broadest sense, have undergone
• 41:43
  drastic changes over the past few decades. The
• 41:46
  single most significant shift is that the amount
• 41:47
  of time devoted purely to housework has fallen
• 41:50
  precipitously almost in half over 40 years. Halfed
• 41:52
  again. Just like work hours perception. Indeed.
• 41:56
  One major factor, of course, is simply smaller
• 41:58
  family sizes. You mentioned Mrs. Meyer earlier,
• 42:02
  the person whose family inspired the well -known
• 42:04
  cleaning product brand. Apparently, she had nine
• 42:06
  children back in 1965. Her daughter, Monica Nasif,
• 42:10
  who later founded the actual Mrs. Meyer's Clean
• 42:12
  Day brand, has two. Fewer children naturally
• 42:15
  require less time for basic upkeep, like laundry,
• 42:18
  dishes, general tidying. Simple maths, really.
• 42:21
  It is. However, another absolutely crucial reason
• 42:23
  for this decline is the significant lowering
• 42:26
  of general housekeeping standards. Women today,
• 42:29
  and men for that matter, simply don't do many
• 42:31
  of the things women did 40 years ago. Think about
• 42:34
  it. Those old, good housekeeping magazines contain
• 42:36
  detailed instructions for things like cutting
• 42:38
  raisins precisely with kitchen shears, meticulously
• 42:41
  polishing children's footwear daily, ironing
• 42:43
  electric blankets, or even routinely vacuuming
• 42:46
  walls and ceilings. Vacuuming the ceiling? Seriously?
• 42:49
  Apparently so. While labor -saving devices like
• 42:51
  dishwashers and self -cleaning ovens certainly
• 42:54
  existed back in the 1950s and 60s, women still
• 42:57
  spent excessive hours on chores. This strongly
• 43:00
  suggests that the perceived necessity of certain
• 43:02
  tasks has changed much more significantly than
• 43:05
  just the availability of tools. Even today, a
• 43:09
  fair portion of the time spent by stay -at -home
• 43:11
  mothers on housework, which averages around 26
• 43:13
  hours per week, might not be strictly necessary
• 43:16
  by today's standards, but everyone benefits from
• 43:18
  these generally lowered societal expectations
• 43:21
  of what constitutes a clean enough home. So it
• 43:24
  sounds like the argument isn't necessarily to
• 43:26
  neglect our homes or our families, far from it,
• 43:29
  but rather to apply that core competency principle
• 43:31
  here too. To focus our precious home time on
• 43:34
  what truly nurtures relate and jumps in connection
• 43:36
  rather than on chores that are often low impact
• 43:39
  could potentially be done by someone else or
• 43:41
  maybe even eliminated entirely. Exactly. For
• 43:44
  most individuals, meticulous housework is not
• 43:47
  one of these core competencies. Let's be honest.
• 43:50
  Someone else can often do these tasks better,
• 43:52
  or at least enjoys them more, or perhaps just
• 43:54
  does them more efficiently because of their profession.
• 43:57
  The crucial point to grasp here is the immense
• 44:00
  opportunity cost involved in doing routine household
• 44:03
  chores yourself, especially if you don't enjoy
• 44:06
  them. Time spent scrubbing is time not spent
• 44:08
  elsewhere. Precisely. Time spent on tedious housework
• 44:11
  is time taken away from potentially much higher
• 44:14
  value activities. Genuinely nurturing your children,
• 44:17
  truly connecting with your spouse or partner,
• 44:19
  pursuing personal passions that recharge you,
• 44:21
  or even just resting properly. Therefore, making
• 44:24
  a monetary investment in outsourcing household
• 44:26
  tasks isn't merely an expense. It should be viewed
• 44:29
  as a strategic purchase of valuable, non -renewable
• 44:32
  personal time. Buying back your weekend. As that
• 44:34
  cleaning service, Aptly put it to a client. You're
• 44:38
  not buying a clean home. You're buying your weekend
• 44:40
  back It really reinforces the underlying philosophy
• 44:43
  that money like time is a choice and often a
• 44:47
  related choice It's interesting the fact that
• 44:49
  lawn care is one of the most highly outsourced
• 44:51
  household chores in the US Apparently 30 % of
• 44:55
  households hire services suggests that men perhaps
• 44:59
  traditionally responsible for that domain have
• 45:01
  Intuitively grasped this concept of buying back
• 45:04
  time for quite a while That's a provocative thought.
• 45:06
  Okay, so let's get practical. What are some comprehensive
• 45:09
  concrete outsourcing strategies for various household
• 45:12
  tasks that tend to eat up our time? Right, let's
• 45:15
  break it down. First, consider food chores. This
• 45:17
  is a really significant time -sink for many families.
• 45:20
  Data shows married dual -income parents, for
• 45:22
  example, spend a combined average of 9 .24 hours
• 45:25
  per week just on grocery shopping, food preparation,
• 45:28
  and the subsequent cleanup. Over nine hours!
• 45:30
  That's more than a full workday. It is. And compare
• 45:33
  that to the average time they spend actively
• 45:35
  playing with their children, which is only about
• 45:37
  three hours per week. Even stay -at -home mothers
• 45:39
  spend over three times as many minutes on food
• 45:41
  chores as they do on playing with their kids.
• 45:44
  This is clearly a major area where time could
• 45:47
  potentially be reallocated towards more meaningful
• 45:49
  connection. So what are the solutions here? Well,
• 45:53
  Sid Savara, the software developer in Honolulu
• 45:55
  we mentioned earlier, provides a good illustration.
• 45:57
  He was trying to avoid unhealthy takeout food,
• 46:00
  but found himself spending as much as 15 hours
• 46:03
  per week on all the related food tasks. Shopping,
• 46:06
  defrosting, cooking, washing dishes despite actively
• 46:10
  disliking it. His solution. He hired a personal
• 46:13
  chef via Craigslist for just $60 per week plus
• 46:16
  the cost of groceries. The chef prepares 12,
• 46:19
  15 basic healthy meals for him. This arrangement
• 46:22
  saves him an estimated 10 hours per week and
• 46:24
  has the added bonus of reducing impulsive grocery
• 46:26
  spending. A personal chef sounds quite luxurious
• 46:29
  though. It can sound that way, but compared to
• 46:31
  the cost of frequent takeaways or wasted groceries
• 46:34
  and valuing his time, it made sense for him.
• 46:37
  There are also commercial meal delivery services,
• 46:39
  companies like Jenny Craig, perhaps Zone Chefs
• 46:42
  or New Kitchen, that can deliver pre -prepared
• 46:44
  meals in bulk. Wendy Kagan and Michael Belfiore,
• 46:47
  another couple mentioned in the research, use
• 46:49
  a vegan meal delivery service after their daughter
• 46:52
  was born because, as they put it, cooking was
• 46:55
  at the bottom of the totem pole at that point.
• 46:56
  Practical survival mode. Exactly. But for most
• 47:00
  families, perhaps the most accessible and genius
• 47:03
  time saver is strategic online grocery shopping.
• 47:06
  It allows you to do your shopping late at night,
• 47:08
  after the kids are asleep, or during otherwise
• 47:11
  wasted time, like a commute if you're not driving.
• 47:14
  It completely eliminates travel time and those
• 47:16
  tedious checkout queues. The checkout queue alone?
• 47:19
  Right. Critically, online platforms allow you
• 47:21
  to quickly refill your basket from previous shopping
• 47:24
  lists, which automates buying your regular staples.
• 47:26
  And they offer a huge plethora of ready -made
• 47:29
  foods, things like pre -marinated meats, pre
• 47:31
  -chopped vegetable mixes, decent quality frozen
• 47:34
  meals. You've mentioned yourself being able to
• 47:36
  make genuinely good, healthy, home -cooked meals
• 47:39
  in about 15 minutes using these kinds of shortcuts.
• 47:42
  Yes, absolutely. Things like a pre -marinated
• 47:44
  pork tenderloin with a quick -cooked mushroom
• 47:47
  risotto, or salmon filets with a simple soy maple
• 47:51
  glaze served with pre -washed salad and microwavable
• 47:54
  rice. Minimal active cooking time, only a couple
• 47:57
  of pots. It's about leveraging that convenience
• 47:59
  intelligently. Precisely. Briefly on dining out,
• 48:03
  while Americans spend about half their food budget
• 48:05
  in restaurants, often it's on fairly mediocre
• 48:08
  convenient food rather than a special experience.
• 48:11
  The suggestion here is perhaps make those simple
• 48:13
  15 -minute meals at home most nights and save
• 48:16
  your money and anticipation for a real dinner
• 48:18
  out maybe with a babysitter once a week or every
• 48:21
  couple of weeks. Make dining out an intentional
• 48:23
  treat, not just a default for exhaustion. Makes
• 48:26
  sense. Okay, food chores covered. What about
• 48:29
  the bane of many households? Laundry. Laundry
• 48:33
  and wardrobe maintenance. Sid Sivara, again,
• 48:36
  provides an anecdote. He found his tiny apartment
• 48:39
  washing machine simply couldn't handle his king
• 48:41
  -sized duvet. It apparently sat dirty for four
• 48:44
  months because the hassle of taking it to a laundrette
• 48:46
  felt too great. His solution was outsourcing
• 48:49
  all his laundry for about $7 per load, receiving
• 48:52
  everything back clean, fresh, and folded within
• 48:55
  48 hours. Four months for a duvet. Outsourcing
• 48:58
  sounds like a win there. For him, it was. Sarah
• 49:01
  Wagner, another working mother mentioned, also
• 49:03
  outsources laundry. Her reasoning is simple and
• 49:06
  powerful. I don't want to spend less time with
• 49:08
  my children. I want to spend less time doing
• 49:10
  housework. She rightly notes that families rarely
• 49:14
  wax nostalgic about memories of sorting piles
• 49:16
  of laundry together. For those with a higher
• 49:18
  budget, services like personal shoppers or stylists,
• 49:21
  such as Lindsay Weiner who helps clients find
• 49:23
  clothes and build wardrobes, can save countless
• 49:25
  hours of shopping time and reduce decision fatigue
• 49:28
  around getting dressed. Okay, laundry. What about
• 49:30
  general housekeeping, the cleaning? Housekeeping.
• 49:33
  Professional cleaning services like Merry Maids
• 49:35
  or The Maids can offer regular weekly or perhaps
• 49:38
  bi -weekly cleaning. The cost might be around
• 49:40
  100 pounds per visit, maybe totaling about 2
• 49:43
  ,500 pounds annually for a bi -weekly service.
• 49:45
  Now that sounds like a lot, but compared to other
• 49:48
  common discretionary spending, average UK mobile
• 49:50
  phone bills might be around $876 a year, cable
• 49:53
  or satellite TV, perhaps 852 nows. Viewed as
• 49:57
  an investment in reclaiming your entire weekend
• 49:59
  every other week, the cost -benefit analysis
• 50:01
  might look quite different. Framing it as buying
• 50:03
  back time again. Exactly. But even without hiring
• 50:07
  a cleaning service, A key shortcut is simply
• 50:09
  decluttering. An uncluttered house inherently
• 50:12
  looks cleaner with much less effort. The absolute
• 50:15
  key is maintaining clear, horizontal surfaces.
• 50:18
  Kitchen counters, dining tables, desks. Ricondo
• 50:21
  built an empire on this principle. There's even
• 50:23
  a fun technique called the 27 Fling Boogie. You
• 50:27
  set a timer and race to find 27 items to throw
• 50:30
  out or donate in a short burst. Making it a game
• 50:32
  can help. And for those who genuinely struggle
• 50:35
  with chronic disorganization, hiring a professional
• 50:37
  organizer is now a recognized profession. Your
• 50:41
  own experience, I believe, with organizer Janine
• 50:43
  Sarna -Jones revealed that sometimes the issue
• 50:45
  isn't true disorganization, but perhaps just
• 50:48
  laziness, or maybe overwhelm a willingness to
• 50:51
  tolerate clutter because the activation energy
• 50:53
  required to deal with it feels too high. Yes,
• 50:55
  that was quite insightful. Bags of outgrown baby
• 50:58
  clothes sitting there for months. It wasn't that
• 51:00
  I didn't know where they should go, I just couldn't
• 51:02
  face doing it. A very common feeling. Finally,
• 51:04
  under home tasks, we have what the research calls
• 51:07
  the little things that kill you. Essentially
• 51:09
  all those miscellaneous errands and administrative
• 51:11
  tasks. Death by a thousand cuts. Precisely. It's
• 51:14
  the mental overhead of managing all those random,
• 51:17
  infrequent, but often surprisingly time consuming
• 51:20
  tasks. Scheduling the plumber, returning library
• 51:23
  books, booking MOTs or dentist appointments,
• 51:25
  dealing with insurance renewals. Ed Daley, a
• 51:28
  man who cleverly branded his errand running business,
• 51:30
  The Perfect Wife, essentially turned a period
• 51:33
  of career transition into a thriving business
• 51:36
  managing exactly these kinds of household details
• 51:39
  for busy clients charging around $35 ,500. an
• 51:41
  hour. His core competency, he says, is problem
• 51:45
  -solving, making his clients' lives feel more
• 51:47
  seamless. Outsourcing these small, often underestimated
• 51:51
  tasks can free up significant mental bandwidth
• 51:53
  as well as time. It really all points back to
• 51:56
  that core message, doesn't it? For home life,
• 51:59
  it's not about abdicating responsibility, but
• 52:00
  about consciously reallocating your precious
• 52:02
  time and energy towards the things that only
• 52:04
  you can do nurturing relationships, creating
• 52:07
  memories, and the things that bring true joy
• 52:09
  and connection within your home and family. It's
• 52:11
  a strategic investment in your overall well -being
• 52:13
  and happiness. Precisely put. It's about consciously
• 52:16
  building your home team, whether that team includes
• 52:19
  paid services, other family members sharing the
• 52:22
  load more effectively, or simply implementing
• 52:24
  intentional systems and routines all designed
• 52:27
  to support your core competencies and priorities
• 52:30
  in your personal life. It frees you up to truly
• 52:32
  focus on the relationships and activities that
• 52:34
  nourish you, rather than getting constantly bogged
• 52:37
  down by low -value, high -effort chores that
• 52:39
  drain your energy. So once we've started streamlining
• 52:42
  our professional hours and re -engineering our
• 52:45
  home lives, the next big question naturally turns
• 52:47
  to our personal time, our leisure. How do we
• 52:51
  ensure that this precious time isn't just the
• 52:52
  leftover bits, or filled by default with passive
• 52:55
  consumption, but becomes truly rejuvenating and
• 52:58
  fulfilling? It's got to be about more than just
• 53:00
  escaping the daily grind, hasn't it? Absolutely.
• 53:03
  The quality of our leisure time is profoundly
• 53:05
  important, yet often neglected. And again, the
• 53:09
  perception versus reality of leisure time is
• 53:11
  quite distorted. Self -reported surveys often
• 53:14
  indicate very little actual leisure time, maybe
• 53:16
  16 .5 hours per week on average for Americans
• 53:19
  for instance. Sounds about right for many people.
• 53:21
  It does. However, those rigorous time -vary studies
• 53:24
  we discussed earlier paint a very different picture.
• 53:27
  They consistently show significantly more leisure
• 53:31
  time than people perceive, but with a huge portion
• 53:34
  of it, often 20 to 30 hours per week, recorded
• 53:37
  as the primary activity dedicated simply to television
• 53:40
  watching. 20 to 30 hours a week watching TV.
• 53:43
  As the main thing they're doing, yes. And TV
• 53:45
  tends to dominate leisure time for understandable
• 53:48
  reasons. It's relatively cheap, it makes very
• 53:51
  few demands on the viewer, and it fits incredibly
• 53:53
  easily into any unplanned gaps in the schedule.
• 53:56
  The default state for many, perhaps without even
• 53:58
  realizing it, is to become world -class couch
• 54:01
  potatoes. A rather blunt assessment. Perhaps,
• 54:05
  but the data is stark. Critically, research consistently
• 54:08
  shows that these kinds of low -engagement, low
• 54:10
  -pleasure activities like excessive TV watching
• 54:13
  often crowd out potentially much higher pleasure,
• 54:16
  more restorative activities such as actively
• 54:18
  socializing with friends, engaging meaningfully
• 54:20
  with art or music, getting physical exercise,
• 54:23
  or losing yourself in a good book. That's the
• 54:24
  real danger, having free time that doesn't actually
• 54:27
  recreate or revitalize you in any meaningful
• 54:29
  way. That's such a crucial point. If we're not
• 54:32
  mindful and proactive about how we spend our
• 54:33
  leisure time, these precious hours can simply
• 54:36
  disappear into activities that don't genuinely
• 54:38
  recharge us, leaving us feeling strangely unfulfilled
• 54:41
  even when we technically have free time. So how
• 54:45
  do we make our leisure time truly purposeful
• 54:47
  and restorative? The key really lies in structuring
• 54:50
  our leisure time with the same kind of intentionality
• 54:53
  we're advocating for work and home life. It means
• 54:56
  choosing purposeful leisure. We could focus on
• 54:59
  three key areas. Firstly, and this is non -negotiable,
• 55:02
  the one rule is that exercise is non -negotiable.
• 55:05
  Non -negotiable. Strong words. I believe it's
• 55:08
  that important. Think of regular physical activity
• 55:10
  as a critical, non -outsourcable core competency
• 55:14
  for maintaining your health, energy, and overall
• 55:16
  well -being. The official guidelines, for instance,
• 55:19
  from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention
• 55:21
  in the U .S. recommend a minimum of 150 minutes.
• 55:24
  That's just 2 .5 hours of moderate activity per
• 55:27
  week. When you think about it, 2 .5 hours out
• 55:29
  of the full 168 really isn't that much time at
• 55:32
  all. Puts in perspective. It does. Triathlon
• 55:35
  coach Gordo Byrne puts it succinctly, doing three
• 55:38
  to five hours of exercise a week consistently
• 55:40
  will massively change your health. Byrne himself
• 55:42
  is an example he apparently transformed from
• 55:45
  a rather out of shape finance professional into
• 55:47
  an Ironman Canada finisher, demonstrating what
• 55:50
  consistent focused effort can achieve over time.
• 55:52
  And you mentioned Paul Radcliffe inspiring your
• 55:55
  own running. Yes. Seeing photographs of the renowned
• 55:58
  marathon runner Paul Radcliffe continuing to
• 56:00
  run while six and even eight months pregnant
• 56:02
  was hugely inspiring. It motivated me to keep
• 56:05
  running through both of my pregnancies, and I
• 56:07
  personally felt significant benefits for the
• 56:09
  baby's health, according to my doctor, and even
• 56:12
  counter -intuitively increased speed afterwards
• 56:15
  due to what felt like training with a stowaway.
• 56:18
  It highlights that exercise really can be integrated
• 56:21
  even during demanding life phases. The key recommendation
• 56:24
  is simply to choose a physical activity you genuinely
• 56:27
  enjoy because research shows those who enjoy
• 56:29
  the process the most tend to achieve the best
• 56:32
  and most consistent results. Running is popular
• 56:34
  partly because it offers quick fitness results
• 56:36
  with minimal equipment and also because the physical
• 56:39
  impact means a normal person can realistically
• 56:41
  only run for about an hour a day maximum, making
• 56:44
  it quite an efficient use of exercise time. Okay,
• 56:46
  so exercise is rule number one. What's the second
• 56:49
  area for purposeful leisure? Secondly, pursue
• 56:52
  passions and hobbies. Beyond essential exercise,
• 56:56
  identify and actively commit to a small number
• 56:59
  of other activities, maybe just one, two, or
• 57:01
  at the very most, three that truly matter to
• 57:04
  you personally. These should be things you feel
• 57:06
  passionate about, things that are worth a significant
• 57:08
  investment of your energy to genuinely get better
• 57:10
  and get somewhere with them. If you have young
• 57:13
  children, sticking to just one or two is probably
• 57:15
  more realistic, but the key is that intentional
• 57:17
  engagement, aiming for progress or mastery. not
• 57:21
  just dabbling. Can you give an example of this?
• 57:23
  Consider Justin Honeman, a Coca -Cola executive.
• 57:26
  Despite a demanding job and presumably a packed
• 57:29
  schedule, he found his essential creative outlet
• 57:31
  in country music. He started taking lessons,
• 57:34
  began writing his own melodies during commutes,
• 57:37
  work breaks and weekends, becoming, in his words,
• 57:40
  a bit obsessed. He didn't just strum casually,
• 57:43
  he intentionally honed his craft, listening critically
• 57:46
  to popular country songs to understand their
• 57:48
  structure, working on refining his vocal technique.
• 57:51
  He then took it a step further, hiring a professional
• 57:54
  producer in Nashville to record his own album,
• 57:56
  Saturday in the South, which apparently even
• 57:58
  received some local airplay. He found that pursuing
• 58:01
  this hobby actively changed the way that I operate
• 58:04
  at work, providing a crucial creative component
• 58:07
  that energizes his entire life, not just his
• 58:09
  weekends. Country music from a Coke exec. Fascinating.
• 58:12
  Okay, exercise, passions. What's the third key
• 58:14
  area? Thirdly, and perhaps most vital for overall
• 58:18
  well -being, nurture friendships through alignment.
• 58:23
  The importance of strong social connections,
• 58:25
  of friendships for our physical and mental health
• 58:27
  is profound. Research consistently shows significant
• 58:30
  benefits from better survival rates for women
• 58:33
  undergoing treatment for breast cancer, to slower
• 58:35
  rates of brain deterioration in old age, even
• 58:38
  down to catching fewer common colds. Friends
• 58:40
  are good medicine. Literally. There's a famous
• 58:42
  hill experiment conducted at the University of
• 58:44
  Virginia that visually demonstrates this. Students
• 58:47
  were asked to estimate the steepness of a hill.
• 58:49
  They consistently perceived the hill as less
• 58:51
  steep when they were standing next to a friend,
• 58:53
  compared to when they were alone, and the effect
• 58:55
  was even stronger if it was a long -term close
• 58:57
  friend. Friendships literally seem to lighten
• 58:59
  our perceived burdens. That's amazing. But there's
• 59:02
  a paradox, isn't there? There is. Full, busy
• 59:05
  lives are often stressful. Friends help alleviate
• 59:08
  that stress. Yet finding the time to actually
• 59:11
  connect with those friends amidst our busy lives
• 59:13
  can also feel stressful. It's a real catch -22
• 59:15
  for many people. So what's the solution? The
• 59:18
  suggested solution is a concept called alignment.
• 59:22
  This is really a special form of multitasking,
• 59:24
  but one that works. It involves consciously combining
• 59:27
  activities that utilize different parts of your
• 59:30
  brain or body simultaneously, or pairing a desired
• 59:33
  activity like socializing with something you
• 59:35
  have to do anyway. This avoids the cognitive
• 59:38
  overload and reduced performance associated with
• 59:40
  traditional multitasking, like trying to write
• 59:43
  an email while on a conference call. Okay, give
• 59:45
  me some examples of alignment for friendships.
• 59:47
  Simple things, really. Sharing a meal together
• 59:50
  is a classic you have to eat anyway. Going for
• 59:53
  a run or a bike ride with a friend combines exercise
• 59:56
  and socializing. Turning necessary trips to the
• 59:59
  playground with your kids into planned play dates
• 1:00:01
  with other parents whose company you actually
• 1:00:03
  enjoy. Maybe volunteering together on a charity
• 1:00:06
  board or project with a friend or family member.
• 1:00:09
  Even just making those important phone calls
• 1:00:11
  to catch up with friends while you're doing mindless
• 1:00:13
  chores like washing dishes or folding laundry.
• 1:00:16
  It's about consciously weaving social connection
• 1:00:19
  into the existing fabric of your week, rather
• 1:00:21
  than seeing it as yet another separate thing
• 1:00:23
  to schedule. that makes a lot of sense piggybacking
• 1:00:26
  connection onto existing activities. So given
• 1:00:28
  all the demands on our time, work, home, exercise,
• 1:00:32
  passions, friendships, how do we practically
• 1:00:34
  carve out space for these vital leisure activities
• 1:00:38
  without feeling like we're just adding more items
• 1:00:41
  to an already overflowing to -do list? It sounds
• 1:00:44
  like it requires some strategic planning, which
• 1:00:46
  ironically, can feel like more work in itself.
• 1:00:49
  It absolutely does require planning, but think
• 1:00:51
  of it as high -leverage planning that ultimately
• 1:00:53
  creates more fulfilling time rather than just
• 1:00:56
  more tasks. The most effective approach seems
• 1:00:59
  to be block scheduling for leisure. Essentially,
• 1:01:02
  you advocate treating your meaningful leisure
• 1:01:04
  activities with the same seriousness you'd treat
• 1:01:06
  an important client meeting or a doctor's appointment.
• 1:01:09
  You plan them in advance, you schedule them for
• 1:01:12
  specific blocks of time in your calendar, and
• 1:01:13
  you prepare for them mentally so you can be fully
• 1:01:15
  present. Scheduling fun, doesn't that kill the
• 1:01:18
  spontaneity? It might seem that way initially,
• 1:01:21
  but the alternative for many busy people is that
• 1:01:23
  the fun simply never happens, because unstructured
• 1:01:27
  time gets swallowed by urgent demands or inertia.
• 1:01:30
  Scheduling ensures it gets prioritized. Consider
• 1:01:33
  using specific time slots. Morning blocks can
• 1:01:36
  be excellent. Waking up just a bit earlier, for
• 1:01:39
  example, Michelle Gier -Sole, a marketing consultant
• 1:01:42
  mentioned in the research, wakes at 5 a .m. six
• 1:01:44
  days a week for an hour -long walk on the beach
• 1:01:47
  or quiet reading time. She shifted that time
• 1:01:50
  from aimless late -night TV watching. Morning
• 1:01:53
  often provides more energy and, crucially, fewer
• 1:01:55
  potential distractions. Before the day's chaos
• 1:01:58
  begins. Exactly. For those working in an office
• 1:02:01
  environment, lunchtime blocks can be an ideal
• 1:02:03
  time for exercise. Even just eating lunch quickly
• 1:02:05
  at your desk two or three days a week can free
• 1:02:07
  up a significant chunk of time to hit the gym,
• 1:02:09
  go for a run, or take a walk when others might
• 1:02:12
  be queuing in the cafeteria. Using that midday
• 1:02:14
  lull productively. Yes. In the evenings, particularly
• 1:02:18
  for families with two parents, implementing a
• 1:02:21
  week -night -off system can be very effective.
• 1:02:24
  Each parent gets one designated evening per week,
• 1:02:27
  completely free for their own pursuits, hobbies,
• 1:02:30
  seeing friends, exercise class, while the other
• 1:02:32
  parent takes sole charge of the children and
• 1:02:34
  household duties for that evening. This requires
• 1:02:37
  clear communication and mutual commitment to
• 1:02:39
  avoid scorekeeping or resentment. but it guarantees
• 1:02:42
  dedicated personal time for both partners. That
• 1:02:45
  sounds like a fair system. And finally, weekend
• 1:02:48
  planning. Don't let your precious weekends just
• 1:02:51
  disappear into a haze of errands and chores.
• 1:02:53
  Spend just a few minutes sometime on Friday evening
• 1:02:56
  or Saturday morning. To intentionally plan one
• 1:02:58
  or two key activities that you want to do things
• 1:03:00
  that might require longer blocks of time than
• 1:03:02
  are available during the week. Aim for a healthy
• 1:03:05
  balance between some structured family activities
• 1:03:07
  or personal pursuits and also ensuring there's
• 1:03:09
  some genuinely unstructured downtime for relaxation
• 1:03:12
  and spontaneity too. The goal is simply to make
• 1:03:15
  those weekend hours count towards your fulfillment
• 1:03:17
  rather than letting them slip away by default.
• 1:03:19
  Ultimately then, what you're suggesting isn't
• 1:03:21
  about packing every single minute or creating
• 1:03:23
  some kind of rigid, joyless schedule. It's really
• 1:03:26
  about being mindful and intentional about how
• 1:03:29
  we use our non -work time. It's about ensuring
• 1:03:31
  our leisure time truly serves its fundamental
• 1:03:34
  purpose of recreation and rejuvenation, which
• 1:03:37
  in turn makes our entire 168 hours feel fuller,
• 1:03:41
  more balanced, and more purposeful. Precisely.
• 1:03:45
  Intentionality is the thread that runs through
• 1:03:46
  it all. We've covered so much ground today. We've
• 1:03:49
  journeyed through the surprising truth about
• 1:03:51
  our 168 hours, exploring how the perception often
• 1:03:54
  differs from reality. We've looked at how to
• 1:03:56
  unearth and leverage our unique core competencies,
• 1:03:59
  applying business strategy to our personal lives.
• 1:04:01
  We've discussed redefining and refining our professional
• 1:04:04
  lives to find or create the right job. And we've
• 1:04:07
  delved into strategically re -engineering our
• 1:04:09
  home and leisure time for greater fulfillment.
• 1:04:12
  It's certainly a lot to consider, but it all
• 1:04:13
  seems to point towards a really profound shift
• 1:04:16
  in mindset. doesn't it? A shift away from a feeling
• 1:04:18
  of scarcity toward the sense of possibility and
• 1:04:20
  agency. It truly does. And if we were to boil
• 1:04:23
  it down, the key actionable principles for anyone
• 1:04:26
  wanting to embark on their own personal time
• 1:04:28
  transformation really come down to these essential
• 1:04:31
  steps. Firstly, and most fundamentally, recognize
• 1:04:34
  you have a choice. Internalize that basic understanding
• 1:04:37
  that every minute presents a choice. It's not
• 1:04:39
  an inevitable obligation thrust upon you. You
• 1:04:41
  need to embrace this agency over your time. Secondly,
• 1:04:44
  you absolutely must know your time goes. You
• 1:04:47
  can't change what you don't measure. Start by
• 1:04:49
  keeping an accurate, honest time log for at least
• 1:04:51
  one full week, 168 consecutive hours. It can
• 1:04:55
  be, as one person who did it described it, a
• 1:04:57
  mortifying experience initiative. You can't imagine.
• 1:04:59
  Confronting reality. Exactly. But it's an absolutely
• 1:05:02
  essential, often incredibly enlightening first
• 1:05:04
  step to simply understand your current reality.
• 1:05:08
  Where does the time actually go? Thirdly, try
• 1:05:10
  to define your list of a hundred dreams. This
• 1:05:13
  is an exercise in articulating what you truly
• 1:05:16
  want out of your life, both personally and professionally.
• 1:05:19
  Think big, think small. These dreams become your
• 1:05:22
  guiding stars, your personal north star, helping
• 1:05:24
  you decide where you want to intentionally direct
• 1:05:26
  your time and energy. Fourthly, as we discussed
• 1:05:29
  at length, focus on your core competencies. Actively
• 1:05:32
  identify what you do best, what energizes you,
• 1:05:35
  and what only you can do effectively. These are
• 1:05:37
  the activities that bring you energy, meaning,
• 1:05:39
  and will likely have the maximum positive impact.
• 1:05:42
  This is where your primary investment of time
• 1:05:43
  should yield the greatest return. Fifthly, and
• 1:05:46
  this is the active pruning part, ignore, minimize,
• 1:05:49
  or outsource everything else. Systematically
• 1:05:51
  work to remove or significantly reduce all those
• 1:05:53
  activities that are not core competencies or
• 1:05:55
  that simply do not align with your defined dreams
• 1:05:57
  and priorities. Common culprits that consume
• 1:05:59
  vast? often unnoticed. Swathes of time include
• 1:06:03
  excessive television, unproductive housework
• 1:06:05
  beyond basic maintenance, random errands that
• 1:06:08
  could be batched or delegated, obsessive email
• 1:06:11
  checking, aimless puttering around the house
• 1:06:13
  like browsing catalogs with no intention to purchase,
• 1:06:16
  and even overly long personal care routines.
• 1:06:20
  Start with tackling these easy wins first. For
• 1:06:22
  example, if you realize you spend much time mindlessly
• 1:06:25
  scrolling social media, simply becoming aware
• 1:06:27
  of the pattern can help. One writer mentioned
• 1:06:30
  cutting her five plus daily Facebook and Twitter
• 1:06:32
  breaks down significantly just by noticing the
• 1:06:35
  time drain. And finally, number six, actively
• 1:06:38
  look for ways to fill bits of time with bits
• 1:06:40
  of joy. Make less of small activities that genuinely
• 1:06:43
  make you happy, feel meaningful or move you slightly
• 1:06:46
  towards one of your goals and that take 30 minutes
• 1:06:48
  or less or perhaps even less than 10 minutes.
• 1:06:51
  These are things you can slot into those inevitable
• 1:06:52
  small gaps in the day. For instance, Tathryn
• 1:06:55
  Murphy, a lawyer we'll mention shortly, decided
• 1:06:58
  to use her commute time to meditate on gratitude.
• 1:07:00
  Another individual redirected a habitual 50 -minute
• 1:07:03
  Facebook break towards spending that time on
• 1:07:05
  a French language learning website instead. It
• 1:07:08
  demonstrates how small, consistent efforts, applied
• 1:07:11
  intelligently to those little pockets of time,
• 1:07:14
  can add up to significant progress or increased
• 1:07:16
  well -being over the long run. These principles
• 1:07:18
  sound incredibly practical and empowering when
• 1:07:21
  laid out like that. And you've mentioned they've
• 1:07:23
  been put into practice by real people with real
• 1:07:25
  tangible results. Can you share some examples
• 1:07:28
  of these time makeovers? Yes. The research included
• 1:07:32
  several case studies of individuals who tracked
• 1:07:34
  their time and then worked on implementing these
• 1:07:36
  kinds of strategies. For example, Catherine Murphy.
• 1:07:39
  She was a first -year legal associate and also
• 1:07:41
  a new mom. She initially described feeling incredibly
• 1:07:44
  frustrated and in tears from a perceived total
• 1:07:48
  lack of time. A very relatable feeling for many
• 1:07:50
  new parents and demanding jobs. Absolutely. Her
• 1:07:53
  initial time log revealed a very busy life, as
• 1:07:56
  expected. Around 46 work hours, nearly 9 hours
• 1:07:59
  sleep per night on average, which is good, 7
• 1:08:01
  hours of exercise. But surprisingly, only about
• 1:08:04
  4 .5 hours per week spent in primary child care
• 1:08:07
  activity, although obviously much more time was
• 1:08:09
  spent around her daughter. So the focused interaction
• 1:08:12
  time was quite low. It seemed so. Some suggestions
• 1:08:15
  made for her included deliberately not fixing
• 1:08:18
  a broken television, which naturally led to more
• 1:08:20
  reading and exercise time, intentionally carving
• 1:08:23
  out some early morning mommy -and -me time before
• 1:08:25
  the workday rush, like getting up at 6 .15 a
• 1:08:28
  .m. to have nearly two focused hours with her
• 1:08:30
  daughter before heading to the office and exploring
• 1:08:33
  online grocery shopping to save time. The results.
• 1:08:37
  She reported successfully starting to cook proper
• 1:08:39
  home dinners twice a week, feeling she was prioritizing
• 1:08:42
  quality mother -daughter time better by being
• 1:08:44
  more present during the day, which included adopting
• 1:08:47
  that commute meditation practice, and generally
• 1:08:49
  feeling less frantic. It was about intentional
• 1:08:52
  presence and small strategic shifts, not finding
• 1:08:54
  huge extra blocks of time. Being present, that
• 1:08:57
  seems key. Another example. Then there's Brian
• 1:08:59
  Brandt. He was an executive pastor, also a coach,
• 1:09:02
  and a father of three children. He felt his demanding
• 1:09:05
  schedule left very little time for personal prayer
• 1:09:08
  and reflection and for nurturing his marriage
• 1:09:10
  Suggestions for Brian included making a conscious
• 1:09:13
  effort to focus during time with his wife Specifically
• 1:09:16
  turning off the TV and dedicating just 30 minutes
• 1:09:19
  to real conversation each evening Also making
• 1:09:22
  proactive short phone calls to her during travel
• 1:09:24
  time instead of just listening to the radio at
• 1:09:27
  work setting strict end times for meetings and
• 1:09:30
  actively blocking out time in his calendar for
• 1:09:32
  specific important projects. What were his results?
• 1:09:36
  He reported finding he was praying more by integrating
• 1:09:38
  it into daily routines like showering or mowing
• 1:09:40
  the lawn. He made more intentional calls to his
• 1:09:42
  wife. He saw a big difference in meeting efficiency
• 1:09:45
  at work without diluting the quality. And significantly,
• 1:09:49
  he finally found time to read books again by
• 1:09:51
  consciously shifting away from watching TV or
• 1:09:53
  checking emails late at night. Again, relatively
• 1:09:56
  small shifts in habit leading to noticeable improvements
• 1:09:58
  in areas he valued. Small shifts. Big impact.
• 1:10:01
  One more. Let's take Andrew Riley. He was the
• 1:10:04
  single father of three young boys running his
• 1:10:06
  own web company from home. He described feeling
• 1:10:09
  constantly stressed, always working on at least
• 1:10:12
  two things at once, which led to frequent interruptions
• 1:10:15
  from his children and frustration for everyone.
• 1:10:19
  The suggestions for Andrew focused on creating
• 1:10:21
  distinct concentrated blocks of quiet work time,
• 1:10:25
  perhaps utilizing after school programs for a
• 1:10:27
  couple of hours, or simply asking the children
• 1:10:29
  to play quietly in their rooms during specific
• 1:10:32
  afternoon periods and then Crucially, completely
• 1:10:35
  shutting down all work devices for dedicated,
• 1:10:38
  focused, undistracted time with his kids in the
• 1:10:40
  evenings or on weekends. Separating work and
• 1:10:42
  family time more clearly. Exactly. The results.
• 1:10:45
  By intentionally not multitasking during his
• 1:10:47
  dedicated family time, he reported experiencing
• 1:10:49
  significantly less stress himself and enjoying
• 1:10:52
  much more high quality positive interactions
• 1:10:54
  with his sons. It proved that focused Even if
• 1:10:57
  shorter blocks of time can be far more effective
• 1:10:59
  and rewarding, then longer periods where attention
• 1:11:02
  is constantly divided and blurred. Focus is powerful.
• 1:11:05
  These examples really bring it home. They do.
• 1:11:07
  And they also underscore that no one's schedule
• 1:11:09
  remains perfectly typical or optimized from one
• 1:11:12
  week to the next. Life happens. Managing your
• 1:11:15
  168 hours is an ongoing project. It requires
• 1:11:19
  continuous evaluation, adaptation, and that recurring
• 1:11:22
  theme of intentionality. The goal isn't to achieve
• 1:11:25
  some mythical state of perfect, rigid control,
• 1:11:28
  but rather to strive for continuous improvement
• 1:11:31
  and ever closer alignment between how you spend
• 1:11:33
  your time and what you truly value. It's about
• 1:11:36
  being flexible and responsive to life's inevitable
• 1:11:38
  shifting demands while still holding firm to
• 1:11:41
  your core priorities. That's a really important
• 1:11:43
  perspective. It's a dynamic process, not a static
• 1:11:46
  solution. I think perhaps the biggest takeaway
• 1:11:48
  from all of this for any professional listening,
• 1:11:50
  any parent, really any individual seeking more
• 1:11:53
  fulfillment from their days is the empowering
• 1:11:55
  message that you truly do have more time than
• 1:11:57
  you probably think. And the power to align your
• 1:11:59
  168 hours with your deepest values, your most
• 1:12:02
  important goals, your biggest aspirations, that
• 1:12:04
  power lies firmly within your grasp. It's a profound
• 1:12:07
  and hopefully motivating realization. It can't
• 1:12:10
  be truly liberating once you grasp it. So, we've
• 1:12:12
  explored the surprising reality of your 168 hours
• 1:12:15
  and hopefully provided a robust framework and
• 1:12:18
  practical strategies for harnessing them towards
• 1:12:20
  a life of genuine intentional living. This deep
• 1:12:23
  dive has aimed to offer a different lens for
• 1:12:25
  viewing your week not as a fixed burden to be
• 1:12:28
  endured, but as a rich canvas full of potential
• 1:12:31
  for achieving a life that truly reflects your
• 1:12:33
  priorities. Indeed. And perhaps a final, provocative
• 1:12:37
  thought for you, our listener, to carry forward
• 1:12:39
  and reflect upon this week. If you were to approach
• 1:12:42
  your next 168 hours as a completely blank slate
• 1:12:45
  armed with this newfound clarity, what would
• 1:12:48
  be the single most impactful core competency
• 1:12:51
  you would commit to dedicating significantly
• 1:12:53
  more time and energy towards? And conversely,
• 1:12:56
  what single non -core activity that currently
• 1:12:59
  drains your time or energy would you ruthlessly
• 1:13:01
  eliminate, minimize, or outsource starting today?
• 1:13:04
  A brilliant challenge to leave us with. Thank
• 1:13:06
  you so much for guiding us through this truly
• 1:13:08
  fascinating and incredibly actionable exploration
• 1:13:10
  of time and intentionality. Your insights have
• 1:13:13
  been absolutely invaluable. It's been my pleasure.
• 1:13:15
  It's a topic I'm passionate about. If you found
• 1:13:17
  this deep dive valuable, please do consider rating
• 1:13:20
  and sharing our show with colleagues or friends
• 1:13:22
  who might also benefit. Your support helps more
• 1:13:25
  people discover how to unlock the potential within
• 1:13:27
  their own 168 hours and truly live a life by
• 1:13:30
  design. Until next time.