I have spent just shy of 20 years in law enforcement and countless hours away from home while on the job. I have served in a variety of time-consuming roles at church and stretched myself way too thin in lots of ways. I have a tendency to over-commit and over-serve people and places and things that are good in and of themselves — but in moderation and in balance. Because I have been severely out of balance I carry some regret around with me like an ever-growing bag of rocks.
With age and error comes wisdom if we let it. At least, that’s what my fortune cookie told me.
What We Both Know
If you’re a police officer, you know your work is demanding. You might be the low man on the totem pole so you constantly get forced to work overtime, or maybe you are behind on your bills so you keep picking up overtime to finance your lifestyle. If you’re a member of a church you know they always need more help and so you’re always willing to volunteer. If your kids play sports, you know they always need coaches, chauffeurs, and helpers. Your kids are on the team so you’re a natural fit. Because you’re such a great person who works hard, never says no, and who’s always available, you’re exhausted at the end of every day and just want to unwind. I mean, you deserve it. So, you unlock your phone and get right down to doom-scrolling or bingeing on your favorite show. It’s not healthy. I know it and you know it.
But just knowing isn’t enough. Someone once said that if all we needed was information then we’d all be billionaires with six-pack abs. In other words, we have to actually do something about it — our abs won’t harden and rise to the surface on their own. We have to take what we know and put it into action.
Oh, The Irony
The irony that I’m writing about this topic is astounding to me. I’m pretty sure I’m the last person on earth qualified to even have an opinion about it, and yet, here we are. It is the quintessential pot calling out the kettle or the guy who lives in a glass house who also enjoys throwing rocks in his spare time. Ya, pretty dumb. Maybe God wants me to talk about it because I need it most.
There are two things that we can’t get more of, that need to be managed, and must be prioritized. They are our two most valuable resources and they are the top two things that corporations spend billions of dollars trying to take for themselves. They are so good at it that we don’t even know it’s happening. In fact, we don’t even fight them for it, we just give it all away. Their one job is to steal our two most precious resources: our time and our attention.
In the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, Google’s former design ethicist and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, said, “If you’re not paying for the product then you are the product.”
You are the product — think about that for a second. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be anybody’s commodity.
Where It Went
Over the last few years and even more so in the last few months, I have become sort of a lunatic about my time. It could be the old age setting in, the fact that I’m on the back half of my life expectancy, or maybe that I’m finally listening to those who have gone before me and accepted the fact that I’m not the exception to the rule. I’m starting to guard my time with a fierceness rivaled only by a half-starved fat guy in a buffet line — get in my way and prepare to be destroyed.
Look, time is finite. Like money, you spend it, but unlike money, you can’t make more of it. There’s no taking it back once it’s gone. There are no refunds or exchanges.
When we’re young and dumb we live in the stupor of denial, distraction, or both. We spend too much of our time getting money and too little of our money buying time. And worst of all, we give our time away to too many things that don’t even matter, like social media feeds and viral videos. Minutes turn into hours, hours into days, and days aggregate into weeks. Then we get old and wonder where the time went.
Balance Shmalance
The average work-life balance conversation usually hinges on the idea of spending equal amounts of time on an equal number of things. When you stop and think about it you’ll realize that doesn’t make any sense. There are only 24 hours in a day, as often pointed out by Captain Obvious, so it would be impossible to spread your time equally because there’d be no end to it. Every time you added on a new commitment or new responsibility it would require an equal and opposite activity for an equal amount of time. That would require prolonging the day by slowing down the earth’s rotation, which has only ever been done once, and it was by Superman in 1978. Well, technically he reversed the earth’s rotation to turn back time, but it’s the same idea, and also fiction.
True balance comes from doing the right things at the right time and in the right season. It means saying no to a lot of things. It means pre-deciding what is important to you and putting those things on your calendar and taking everything else off (off your calendar, that is, please remain clothed). When your kids are small or you’re in a new job or have a new marriage your priorities will likely be different than when your kids are grown and you’re getting ready to retire. Look at where you are along the timeline of your life and decide what’s important to you in this season. Once you decide what’s important it will become a lot easier to decide where and how you’re going to spend your time. The tricky part here is you then have to actually do it.
Laser Focus
Attention is focus. Divided attention is not. That’s why we test drunk people with divided attention tests, because attention divided against itself cannot stand, and neither can drunk people. (That was sort of a throwaway pun but also so incredibly and yet accidentally wise). Divided attention is like your desk lamp. It broadly covers a little bit of everything allowing you to function at a basic level. But take rays of light and focus it into a laser beam and it can cut steel or remove unwanted body hair. Now that’s amazing. The same goes for your attention when it’s undivided.
Guard your attention like you ought to guard your time. Focus your attention like a laser on what’s important and you’ll achieve greater things in shorter amounts of time. When you are at work, focus on your work. When you’re with your wife, or your children, or people that are important to you, focus your attention on where you are and who you are with. Dividing your attention between them and your news feed is not being present with your kids and not really grasping what’s going on in the world. When you try to do both neither is being accomplished.
Remember, we spend time and we pay attention. Both cost us something but the rewards are long-term and will compound.
Like me, you might be struggling with work-life balance, with managing your time, with saying no, or with wasting time on your phone. If you are, here a couple of simple things I’m working on that you can do to understand where you are and to get you where you want to go:
Do A Time Audit
This sounds nerdy and dumb, but facts don’t lie. If you don’t know where you are spending your time, then you have no idea where to even start. The most obvious place is with your phone — it keeps records of everything. iPhones have a thing called Screen Time. (I don’t know what Android phones have because I’m not a loser, but they might have something similar). Look at your average screen time per day, multiply those hours (yes, HOURS) by 365, then divide by 24. That will tell you how many DAYS you are wasting per year.
If you are really brave, you can do the same thing for Netflix, Amazon Prime, and the rest of your streaming subscriptions. It adds up fast and it’s gross.
After your done being sick, delete apps, turn off notifications, and set screen time limits and you’ll be well on your way to getting a ton of your time and your life back.
Do A Bank Audit
Go full IRS on yourself. Look at your bank account and see where you are spending your money and you’ll quickly learn where your priorities are. It could be that you are overspending which is causing you to have to overwork in order to fund your disorganization or your lack of self-control. This is a vicious cycle. It’s probably time to do your first budget and then stick to it. Reducing your financial pressure can give you the freedom to work less hours or to look for a better position or better job.
Do An Attention Audit
This is a tough one for me. Ask my wife and she will tell you I’m all over the place. The hardest part is recognizing yourself when your mind wanders off to things other than who or what is in front of you. It takes effort. You’re going to burn mental calories just trying to pay attention to when you are doing it. I find myself having to ask the question inside my own head, “What is in front of me right now?”
For me, what distracts me the most are things I’m working on, some harebrained idea I have, a blog I have to write, or some chore I have to do that is constantly stealing my attention away from the people I love. (Honey, if you’re reading this, I am trying…). If you have trouble pinpointing what it is that distracts you, ask your spouse, and if you’re really brave, ask your kids, they’ll tell you. When you become self-aware you can work on reigning yourself back in. The hope is that it will get easier with practice. Fingers crossed.
Best Life
I want you to have the best life possible, one that is meaningful and impactful. I don’t want you living with the regret of having given your precious time away to things that don’t matter or wonder why you never did the things you always say you don’t have time to do. If you and I get intentional about our time and attention we can start moving toward the life we want.
__________________________
- Where are you wasting the most time?
- What keeps stealing your attention?
- Do your bank account and your calendar align with what you say is important?
- How can you increase your accountability?
__________________________
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