Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. Oh, boy. Today, you and I are talking about how to take control of your free time. And look, I know what you're thinking. Free time? Mel, I have no free time. I mean, I have no time to think about getting a better job because I spend all my time working in my current job. I have no time to exercise because I got to spend time taking care of these kids and my parents. I got no time for fun with friends. I got to get to the grocery store. I got to get through this to-do list. If you feel like you have no time or you have no idea, where does the time go? Well, you're not alone, and I have good news. Laura Vandercam, she's a New York Times bestselling author and time management researcher and expert whose work in time management has changed my life. She is here to change your life. And don't worry, this is not a conversation about productivity because you're already doing so much. You don't need to be more productive. You need to understand the value of your time and how to take control of it.
Laura will help you understand where your time is really going and how to find pockets of free time that are already in your busy schedule today. Her simple research-back strategies will give you a good life right now, no matter how busy you are. Laura is an expert gets it. She's married, and they've got five school-age kids, and just like you, a really busy life. She's done the research, and she is here to share it with you today so that you can not only take control of your time, you'll actually take control of your life. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Mel Robbins podcast. It is always such an honor to be together and to spend this time with you. If you're a new listener or you're here because somebody shared this conversation with you, I just want to personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family. Today, you and I are sitting down with Laura Vandercam, who is here to help you regain your time. She's practical, she's sharp, and she's about to blow up everything you think you know about time. Laura is one of the world's leading experts on time management.
She is the author of nine best-selling books, including 168 Hours, Off the Clock, and her latest bestseller, Tranquiliti by Tuesday. She has conducted three major research projects on the topic of time. Her work has been featured everywhere, from the New York Times to the Today Show and her TED Talk, How to Gain Control of your Free Time, has over 15 million views. She's a busy mother of five, and she doesn't just write research time. She's built a massive data set on how people like you and me spend our days. She where you're wasting time, where you're spending way too much time. More importantly, she has nine strategies that you're going to learn today based on the research that are going to help you look at time completely differently and find pockets of free time in your busy schedule as it exists right now. So please help me welcome Laura Vandercam to the Mel Robbins podcast. Laura Vandercam, welcome.
Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Here's how I want to start. I would love to have you speak directly to person who's with us right now, somebody who doesn't have a lot of time, but they have made the time to learn from you. What could you tell them is going to be different about their life if they take everything to heart that you're about to share based on your research and your expertise about time?
I am so happy you are here today. Anyone listening to this show, I know you are a productive person. You are getting a lot done. People depend on you. You are doing the things you have to do. I want you to make time for the things you want to do. I want everyone listening to this to wake up in the morning knowing there's something exciting and wonderful waiting for you in the day. That is what time management is about. It's not about squeezing more in that you have to do. It's about making space for the good stuff.
Laura, already my mouth is on the floor. You said something It's being so simple, and I want to make sure that you got it as you were listening to Laura or watching this right now. There's a big difference between the things you have to do and the things that you want to do. For so much of my life, whether it was because I had a really stressful job, and jobs always have a lot of have-tos, or taking care of kids, or taking care of aging parents, I felt like my entire life were things I have to do. You're going to teach us that there is time available to do things we want to do, even though there's a lot we have to do?
I promise you, even if you have a lot you have to do, and I know everyone does these days, there is space for the things you want to do. And not only that, you deserve to have space for the things you want to do. You are doing so much for everyone. I promise there's time for yourself as well.
Oh, my God. Well, I can't wait to find these little pockets of free time because- I can't wait to find them for people. Well, it doesn't feel like you have any free time. I mean, is that a common thing that you found when you're researching these topics that people feel like they have no free time?
A lot of people will say, yes, I have no free time whatsoever. I can promise you, I have studied thousands of people's schedules. Everybody has some discretionary time. Now, it may not be as much time as you want. I totally believe that. But there's a big difference between not as much as I want and none. When people say, I have no free time whatsoever, they mean, I don't have as much free time as I want. But when we approach this question from, I have some free time, it's just not as much as I want, well, that suggests some good questions right there. How can I scale up my free time in the long run? How can I make good choices in the limited time I do have so I feel most rejuvenated?
Okay, so that's the second takeaway that I want to make sure that you got, because I just had a light bulb moment there, to quote Oprah, where it is easy to fall into that trap where you're burnt out or you feel overwhelmed or you have a never to-do list and you start to say to yourself, I have no free time. I have no time. One takeaway already is, I don't have enough free time. And simply that change acknowledges that there is some discretionary time, to use your words, that we can reclaim for ourselves. That feels doable. I'm glad we're starting there. Laura, based on your research, what do you think the most surprising thing that the person who is with us right now needs to know about time management?
Well, here's a number for you. There are 168 hours in a week.
With total? Total. Okay, so that includes sleeping?
Well, people say 24/7 all the time. Nobody ever multiplies it through. Okay. So if you multiply 24 times 7, there are 168 hours in a week. Okay. And I think this is an important number for people to know for a couple of reasons. I mean, one, a week is the cycle of life as we actually live it. I mean, if I look at you on a Tuesday, I look at you on a Tuesday, I look at you on a Saturday. These days often look a little bit different from people, but a week encompasses both, and both are representative of our lives. We want to make sure we are looking at all of them. When we start with the number 168 hours, just a few numbers to think about with this. If you work 40 hours, so standard full-time job, if you sleep eight hours a night, so eight times 7 is 56 hours per week. If you subtract 40 and 56 from 168, we get 72 hours for other things. Now, that doesn't mean that those 72 hours are free and clear. Most of us have families we are taking care of. We have community responsibilities.
We have housework. We have all sorts of things we need to deal with in those 72 hours. But 72 hours is still a lot of time. And so when people are looking at that, we say, Well, could I find three hours to read in the course of the week? I find 2 hours to get together with friends in the course of 72 hours? That starts to seem a little bit more doable than if we're just looking at a crunched Tuesday. I think a lot of us are walking around with this story that we are incredibly busy. We have no time for anything. I'm not denying that anyone is busy, but I would question the narrative of having no time for anything. I think sometimes looking from the perspective of 168 hours can help us see that a little bit better.
It is a little eye-opening because you're right. I often, when I think about, Okay, do I have any time? Or, How much time do I have? Or, What am I doing with my time? I'll open up my calendar and be like, and then I'll look at my to-do list, and then I don't see any time. And then I panic about the time. But what you're going to teach us is let's just start with the basics that after a full-time job and getting eight hours of sleep, there's 72 hours. And when you look at the fact that there's 72 hours, we're going to start to ask ourselves, could I possibly find some pockets of time in there where I could be more intentional about how I'm using it? That feels accessible to me because one of the things that I was concerned about, even though I'm very familiar with your work, is time management can be a very bro thing. Block your time, set the Timer, get in these time, all this stuff.
Well, we all do have 168 hours in a week, but You are correct. I mean, I'm in the weeds, too. I work. I have young kids still at home.
You have five children and a puppy and a spouse.
I have all those things. But even with all those things, we can still make choices. Now, will somebody who has five kids and a job have as much discretionary time as one of these, perhaps, productivity bros, if we want to talk about them that way? No. But that doesn't mean we have to completely admit defeat. We just need to be intentional about our time and recognize that we can still make some choices.
I love that because you're meeting us where we are and your research in particular, the nine rules of time management that you're going to walk us through, help us even in those moments to reclaim time. Let's turn to the nine rules that you write in your amazing best-selling book Tranquiliti by Tuesday. The first rule of productivity, I love this one, is give yourself a bedtime. Why is giving yourself a bedtime a rule for productivity?
Well, I know you are a big fan of bedtimes, correct? Can you give yourself a bedtime?
Yes, I do. I do, actually.
Yeah. I think this is important for everyone else because here's a paradox I have noticed with sleep. From studying thousands of people's schedules, many people are getting enough sleep sleep from a quantitative perspective when you look over the course of the week. So I do these time diary projects. Sleep experts tell us adults need, let's say, seven to eight hours of sleep a day. And I'd look at people's time logs, and they were generally getting somewhere between 49 and 56 hours of sleep over the course of the week. So that would put us in the seven to eight hours per day category. And yet people feel really tired. And so it's like, well, why is everyone claiming to be so tired when they seem to be getting enough sleep from a quantitative perspective? So I'm puzzling this for a while. And then I look at how much sleep people are getting day to day. And so there can be a vast difference in how much sleep people are getting day to day. I'm not just talking Tuesday versus Saturday. I'm talking even Tuesday versus Wednesday. In one of my time diary projects, I looked at how much sleep people were getting on Tuesday versus Wednesday.
And about a quarter of people had a 90-minute gap between how much sleep they got on Tuesday and how much they got on Wednesday. And you can see how this plays out. People are up late on one night. They have to be up at the crack of dawn for something. And so it's been a short night. And then your body forces you to make it up. So they are crashing on the couch while watching TV, or they're sitting with their four-year-old who's going to bed and they are falling asleep on the floor there, or they're hitting snooze four times in the morning. That planned workout in the morning isn't happening morning. They're getting up two minutes before they need to be out the door. So which night was typical? Well, they both happened, again, but it's disorderly sleep. So most adults need to wake up at set times in the morning for work or family responsibility. People have been setting alarm clocks since they're 12 years old. Since that is the case, in order to get the same amount of sleep every night, we just feel so much better. We don't want to be on this drop tower carnival ride where you're going up and down and up and down.
We need to figure out what time we need to go to bed in order to get the same amount of sleep every night.
Got it.
So this is just math. If you need eight hours of sleep, if you need to wake up at 6: 00 AM, then you need to be asleep at 10: 00 PM. If you need seven and a half hours of sleep and you need to wake up at 6: 30 AM, you need to be in bed, trying to go to sleep at 11: 00 PM, right? Yeah. Nothing to do with what person you are. Just a math question. So everyone needs a bedtime. And the real pro tip, of course, and you know this, is you need to set some alarm for a little bit before. Before the bedtime. And that gives you a chance to wind down, shut the house, brush your teeth, say good night, get into bed, feel all cozy. When people did this, so people followed this rule.
And the rule is just simply- Give yourself a bedtime. Give yourself a bedtime.
Yeah. The proportion of people who said they were getting enough sleep to handle their responsibilities rose 25% over the course of the study.
Really? Yeah.
I would tell you people weren't really getting more sleep. I'm not saying you have to devote more hours of your life to sleep. It's just that it's more orderly. You're not crashing one night and making it up the next. You're getting the same amount of sleep every night, and that gives you so much more energy.
Well, and also you feel in control. And is that part of it, too, that you're choosing how to spend the time so it gives you this sense that you're in control of it?
Absolutely. Every one of these rules has an obvious benefit, like go to bed on time, you get enough sleep. That sounds great. But there's a deeper reason for it, too. I mean, most of us understand that a day has a beginning, but we're a little fuzzier on this notion that each day has an end.
Okay, say that again. Because this is actually really important because you're right. It does start at a certain time, and you don't often think about how important it is to be intentional about, Well, when am I actually ending today? Yes.
Having a time that you know the day is ending allows you to make more rational choices. And when people do this, they often realize sometimes the evening can be quite long. If your bedtime is 10: 30 or 11: 00 PM and you get off work at 5: 30, well, we've got five hours to do our various things. I mean, to be with our family, do our chores, but maybe have some discretionary time, too. But then we have the sense of, Okay, here are the five hours I can work with, as opposed to there is some vague ending to the day that I have no idea what it is.
It's so true. Well, the vague ending of the day is whenever I get the to-do list, which is irrationally long, and most of it is not critically important to me anyway or going to make me happy. I can see how not having an end to the day that you're intentional around creates this nebulous thing around time. Wow, that's pretty easy. Just pick a bedtime. If you already pick a bedtime, because this is one of those areas of my life that when my life is working, I actually get to bed very early. I'm the person that my rule is, if I want 8 hours of sleep, I need to be in that bed around 9 hours, that give or take. The math is pretty easy. It gives me an end time. If you're somebody like me who already has a consistent bedtime, how do you take this rule a step further?
I'd love for people to develop a good morning routine. Now, I will caveat this, that morning routine sometimes get a bad reputation because if we're talking about all the productivity bros, they have these three-hour morning routines. Because they don't have children or pets. They don't have children or even a normal job that I can tell. They're getting up and doing a 90-minute workout in some cold plunge and kale juice and 30 minutes of meditation. That's great for them.
Great for them. But- For those of us with a normal life, keep going.
For those of us with a normal life, we can have more of a bite-sized morning routine because mornings still are a great time for getting stuff done. Often, this is when people can have time for themselves before everybody else wants a piece of you. So this is a great time for things that life has a way of crowding out. But again, it may not be a ton of time. So if you can even just get 20 minutes for yourself in the morning, you can ask, Well, what would I like to do with it? And here's a real insight for people that maybe they haven't considered. It doesn't actually have to be the same thing every day. So maybe three mornings, you write in a journal. Three mornings, you get up and do some strength workout. The seventh day, you rest. But now you have a morning routine, and it's something that feels like you have taken time for yourself at the beginning of the day, and that victory can propel you through to the rest of the day.
One of the things that you write about in your best-selling book, Tranquiliti by Tuesday, is the fact that bedtime is the adult version of sleeping in as a kid, this luxury that we can give to ourselves.
We get more energy when we get regular sleep. And one of the reasons people stay up late is because they feel like they didn't get enough free time during the day. Yes. That's classic revenge, bedtime procrastination. I did everything for everyone else today. I didn't have any time for me. Now the house is quiet. Now my boss isn't pinging me. I can do what I want. Yes. Right?
So I'm going to sit here and scroll and look at this nonsense. I'm going to sit here and scroll for three hours.
I want everyone to have free time elsewhere in your schedule. And I promise you it is possible. And When you start making time for yourself elsewhere during the day, when you have time for your hobbies, when you have time for your friends, when you have downtime, you don't feel quite that same need to procrastinate bedtime in order to claim just a little bit of time for yourself. Instead, you can view it as a gift to yourself that you are giving your body the sleep you need.
Let me just make sure I understand this because I think this is really important. You're saying that if we can find pockets of time during the day where we can insert a sense of control or find 30 minutes to relax or to take a walk or do something that brings you a little bit of joy, you find that, you insert it during the day. When you get to that moment at night where the house is quiet, you're not going to have that sense that you had no time to yourself today. So you're going to be less likely to waste three hours doing nothing.
Absolutely.
Oh, I love this. So you conducted a time use study to get to these nine rules of time management. Can you tell me about the time use? What does time use study mean? What is that, Laura?
Yeah, well, a time use study is when you look at how people spend their time. I've done a lot of projects looking at people's time over the years. I found you can't just ask people how they spend their time. I mean, one of the first problems is people don't know there are 168 hours in a week. If you don't even know what the denominator is on the fraction, you're just guessing at the numerator for different things. I mean, what proportion of my time do I spend in the car? What proportion of my time do I spend working? What proportion of my time do I spend on housework or on leisure activities? I don't know. If you don't know what the denominator is in the fraction, you are just guessing. People will tell you all sorts of stories about where their time goes, and they are almost always inaccurate. You need to actually have people keep track of their time in a little bit more grand way. I've done a lot of these over the years, but the nine rules that I am talking about today came out of the recognition from doing many of these time diary studies and talking with people about their time and people would ask for advice, and yet I seem to be telling people the same things over and over again.
I honed these down into a list of nine rules that seemed to be universally applicable. But you don't want to just tell somebody, This is what I think you should do. If I'm going to give somebody advice, I want to have at least some sense that it actually works. So I recruited about 150 people to try out these nine rules. Over the course of nine weeks. They would learn a rule every week. I would measure them on various dimensions at the start of the week, at the end of the week, at the start of the nine weeks, at the end of the nine weeks. See how it went.
So nine weeks, nine rules, 150 people all applying, and what happened?
The good is they felt better about their time. Their general time satisfaction scores rose 16% over the course of nine weeks. Their satisfaction with how they spent time yesterday rose 17% over the course of the nine weeks. Maybe that doesn't sound like a lot, but if somebody offered me like, Hey, Laura, you're going to feel 16% better. That sounds good to me. It's not nothing.
Well, and also it builds on itself. Let's move on to rule number 2. Rule number 2 is... I love this one. Plan on Fridays? What do you mean plan on Fridays?
The rule to plan on Fridays is really two rules. And the first and most important is to plan.
Plan what? What am I planning?
Everybody needs a designated weekly planning time where they look forward to the next week and ask both what needs to happen, but also what they want to see happen. What is most important to you, professionally and personally, over the next week? When roughly Can it happen? What logistical challenges need to be worked out for all this to take place?
Everyone needs to do that. I want to make sure I'm following this. Just so I know what I'm doing, because I know the person listening is somebody who's like, Okay, tell me what to do. Tell me what to do. I am planning the week, so I'm looking ahead at the next week, and I'm asking myself two questions, what needs to happen and what do I want to have happen?
Absolutely. You can ask yourself, Looking forward to the next week, what is most important to me? I recommend people look in three categories.
Okay, what are they?
Career, relationships, and self. You can make yourself a three-category list of your priorities for the upcoming week. Now, I know everyone listening to this is like, Well, work to do's. I know what those are over the next week. I've got my head around that idea. Probably, you roughly know what's important for you to do in your work over the next week. Maybe. Maybe. But people are like, Relationships? Self? What is this? But we are people with complex lives. We have a lot going on. So we also need to ask what is most important to us for relationships with family and friends. What do I need to do over the next week? What do I want to do over the next week in that category? And then self. What is most important or meaningful to have happen over the next week for your own personal, spiritual, mental, emotional, physical health? And making a three-category list as you're planning your week us something really good, which is that it is very hard to make a three-category list and leave one of the categories blank. Our brains don't work that way. We're like, I have to put something in each of these categories.
There's a category. I have to fill it in. And so that right there is going to nudge you to have a more balanced life, right? That you are going to set a priority for your relationships. You will set a priority for your own personal self. And the sheer exercise of doing that over time can make life feel better.
So if I'm looking ahead at the week and I'm asking myself, what is important to me in career relationships and self that I want to make time for? What if you see a schedule and you're like, I have no time. We're not doing that yet. We're just asking ourselves what is actually important in these three categories, correct?
And there might be something that's already on the calendar that is important to you. Sometimes it's recasting something, right? It's that you look forward to the week and you are seeing that you are meeting with someone at work who is a new hire that you would like to mentor. You think she's a really awesome person. You're excited about it. You can see great things happening for her. When you see that meeting coming up, that can be a priority for you. You'll be like, Oh, I really want to focus during this meeting and not just get through the Jones proposal of all we're talking together. We're going to talk about what she sees herself doing and any ideas I have for her for doing that. That right there can elevate this random meeting to something important, and you approach it with an entirely different perspective.
I love that. Okay, so I get the planning. That's easy. But now what day am I doing? You said Friday. Friday. Why Friday?
If you already have a weekly planning time that is working for you, and it is not Friday, don't let Laura tell you to do anything differently. I want people to do what works for them. I know a lot of people plan on Sundays. Some people plan on Monday mornings. If it's working for you, that is great. But if If you don't have a designated weekly planning time or you've noticed some trouble with the time that you do have, here's the case for Fridays.
Okay. Make it because I do it on Sunday, and I'm starting to realize maybe it's amping anxiety.
Well, Mel, you're- Maybe it's amping anxiety. I don't know. You're a productive person, so probably it's working for you. But here's the upside of Friday.
I don't know. I think I might want to move to Friday's.
Especially Friday afternoon, most people are not doing anything of consequence.
What are you saying to me right now?
You are sliding into the weekend. I am. It's three o'clock, Laura. It's three o'clock, Laura.
Why are we even at- Why are we even here, right?
Nice. If you are just wasting that time, counting the minutes until you can clock out, you may as well repurpose some of this time for planning. You can take what might have been wasted time and turn it into some of your most productive minutes of the week. Planning on Friday means you can start Monday morning knowing what you need to do. People have a burst of energy at the start of things versus at the end of things, so you'll be able to use all of Monday.
I love that.
If you find out in the course of your planning, that you need to make an appointment somewhere or you need to set up a meeting with someone, you are much more likely to get them on Friday afternoon versus Sunday, which maybe people will take your calls on Sunday, Mel, but a lot of people don't have that.
No, you know what I end up doing, Laura, is I make a to-do list. Now I have to remember to do something that I could have done Friday afternoon while I was planning instead of pretending to work from 3: 00 to 5: 00. Absolutely. You're a genius.
Here's one last reason, though. I think this is even more important. Okay. Even people who love their jobs, Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening, start feeling a little bit of trepidation. The Sunday scurries.
Why do we have that?
You know there is all this stuff waiting for you on Monday morning, but you don't know how you're going to deal with it. And so in the back of your brain, you are working through all the scenarios, working through your to-do list, thinking about, What am I going to do when I get there? If you end work on Friday afternoon with a plan for the next week, you can actually relax and enjoy your weekend.
You just made the case for planning on Friday afternoons at 3: 00 PM. I am sold. I am moving from Sundays to Fridays immediately. I love this. It makes so much sense. I especially love the fact that you can knock things off the to-do list by making calls and appointments. Then, well, you can reach people. That is so smart. Then you know the simple things that you could do over the weekend that set you up because you're not panicking on Sunday because you're leaving it to there. Oh, my God. This is genius.
Wonderful. Hope it works for you. You'll have to let me know.
I'm certain it's going to work for me. I don't even need to let you know. I'm going to tell you right now, it's already working, Laura. I'm doing it. Excellent. That is so eye-opening. Laura, I just love your research and the way that you just flip everything on its head. We're obviously talking about time, and this feels like the right time for me take a quick pause so we can hear a word from our sponsors. While you're listening, I want you to share this episode with somebody who's constantly saying, I'm so busy. Oh, I can't hang out with you. I got so much going on. You know who I'm talking about? Could be your best friend, your partner, your coworker, your young adult who's got their job in their 20s, who's drowning in so much that they have to do. They need Laura because Laura is giving you not only the tools, but the research that will turn it all around. And so they need the gift this episode, too. Be generous, share the wisdom, and when you're done, don't go anywhere. We'll be back with more from the brilliant Laura Vandercam, and I'll be waiting for you after this short break.
Stay with me. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. Today, you and I are here with the very wise, very practical, and very real Laura Vandercam, and we're learning how to take control of our free time. So I have a couple of questions because as you were talking about the fact that you have people basically write down how they're spending their time, I thought to myself, you're right, I have no idea how I spend my time? If I were to try to explain that to you, I would imagine that I would get it completely wrong. If I thought about, well, how much time do I spend on my phone? I'm always shocked when I look at how much time I've actually spent. How much time did you spend working? How much? I don't even know. What are some of the most surprising things that you learned as a researcher looking at people's documenting of their time? What's the disconnect between what we think we're doing and what people are actually doing?
Well, the good news is people's lives tend not to look as bad as they might think they do. We have a tendency to overestimate things we don't want to do, and we underestimate things we do want to do.
So give me an example.
So many people overestimate how many hours they are working. Really? Yeah. And obviously, if you're getting paid by the hour, you know how many hours you are working. But if you are not getting paid by the hour, there's a little bit of a tendency to one up everyone else over just how many hours you are working. Perhaps you've heard some of these conversations, particularly in people in intense industries. Everyone's talking about their 80-hour work weeks. Very, very few people actually work 80 hours a week. It's usually quite a bit less. People tend to sleep more than they actually think they do. Because we have a tendency to view our worst nights as typical. We're always looking at that crunched Tuesday, as opposed to adding in the sleep that might happen over the weekend or over a holiday or something like that. And so people sleep over the course of a week tends to be more than the mental picture.
Well, that's true because you think about what just happened yesterday. And if you're time starved or crunched or overwhelmed or stressed out like I am because I didn't get through the to-do list, which was completely unrealistic. And then I overestimated how much I'm working because I'm always thinking about work, but I might not actually be working. What else did you find in these studies that might be bad news?
Well, people have trouble estimating time in general. The problem with that is either you try and cram too much into a day, and it doesn't happen because the rules of time are strictly enforced. No one gets more than 24 hours in a day, as you might wish to have more. And biologically, we can't be awake for all those 24 hours either. So time estimation is hard in general, and that's one of the reasons people feel like they are constantly behind is because they're over estimating what they can get done in a day. I mean, the good news, though, is we tend to underestimate what we can do in the long haul. So that's good. But here's a positive thing. Okay. People often tell themselves stories about their lives because we have narratives about our time. So one story I hear a lot, particularly from women who work full-time, is that I never see my family. I'm working full-time, therefore, I'm never seeing my family. It's right there in the name, full-time. But there's 168 hours in a week. If you're working 40, if you're working a little more than 40, there are still quite a few hours left over.
People track their time, and they are amazed at how much time they are spending with their families. I had one woman tell me, I used to feel guilt. I don't feel guilt anymore. I'm like, That's a good reason to track your time.
Did you have any takeaway when you did these time studies with everybody in terms of how much free time or pockets of time there actually was as a general rule that most people were like, Oh, wow. I've found on average three hours every week or something like that. Was there an insight around the amount of time that people found?
I believe most people can find about an hour a day.
An hour a day? An hour a day?
An hour a day.
If you think about it- In a compact hour or like pieces of time?
No, often it is not. But some of them might be longer chunks than others. There often are at least, let's say, 30 minutes before you go to bed at night. If you've organized your life that you can read for 30 minutes before you go to bed. Maybe it's that you use 15 minutes on a lunch break for something that is enjoyable to you and 15 minutes to eat. Maybe it is a pocket of 15 minutes somewhere else. The kids are distracted while at the house, and you can seize that time for doing something you'd enjoy instead of just scrolling around on your phone. These little bits of time do add up. When people start using these chunks of time for things that they enjoy, sometimes it lights a fire under them to go find bigger chunks of time. You start reading a really good book in 20 minutes, you don't want to stop. In 20 minutes, you're like, Well, let me go see. Can I find an hour somewhere? It's a good hunt. It might be a challenging hunt depending on what time of life you are in, but I think we can make it work.
Well, what I love about it is you're starting to wake up to the importance of how you spend your time. And once you start protecting it and you start filling it with things that you enjoy, you mention a good book, and we've all had that experience where you're reading a great book and you just want to get back to it. You can see how that starts to build the positive things that you're adding in make you want to find more pockets of time to add in.
So you might try that. If you're telling yourself the story that I have no control over my time whatsoever, no discretionary time, pick up some got to find out what happens book, start reading it, and you might start to see that there are a few more minutes that you can decide what to do with.
If you're listening and watching right now and you have a recommendation for a page turner, please put it in the comments below so that we all have a running list that we've crowdsourced those books that you just can't put down, because that is the perfect example of how when it matters to you and you're present to it, you will find the time.
Oh, absolutely. I recall, it was something like 20 years ago now, but I was reading The Da Vinci Code, which is well known for being a page turner. And somehow I found whatever it takes, 10 hours to read this book over the course of three days. Where did I have 10 hours of free time? Somehow I had 10 hours of free time.
Your point, though, that you're challenging us to really confront ourselves is you probably have 10 hours of free time in the next three days if you got serious about finding it. Absolutely. And that's the point. The point is not about the fact that you don't have a lot of demands in your life. You're acknowledging the challenge of living in the modern world and the fact that the person that's listening, myself, we have big, productive lives. We want to feel engaged in our lives, and we feel like we no time. You're here saying, Actually, you do. I want you to hunt for it.
Yes.
What I'm gathering for myself as I listen to you, even though I'm very familiar with your research, is my narrative about my life and time is about the things I have to do, which, of course, sets you up to feel like you have no power. When you flip it and start to go, Okay, there are things I have to do, but what is it that I would also want to be doing this week? How can I find some time in this week in order to fit some of it in? You start to feel more empowered. Yes. This is so good, Laura. So good.
The good news is it doesn't even have to be a lot of time. I've seen people's lives transformed by finding an hour to do something that they enjoy in the course of the week. And suddenly this becomes something they are looking forward to, and it changes their narrative. My life is no longer out of my control, at the mercy to everyone else, I am the person who makes space for things that are fun for me. And that's just a much more empowering narrative.
I love that. It's true, because if you have nothing to look forward to and you're constantly telling yourself that you have no time and things are out of control and you're pushing off the little things that actually bring you a little bit of joy, it would make a big difference to flip this. And that's where these nine rules come in. So rule number three is move by 3: 00 PM. What does that mean?
So physical activity is a known energy booster, mood booster. Okay. And one of my favorite studies ever, this wasn't one of mine, but somebody else did. They had people rate their energy in the course of the day on a 1-10 point scale. And when people were down at a three, so they were really dragging, they had them go do a short burst of physical activity. So I think running up and down the stairs in your office building for five or so.
Does it have to be cardio? Could we take a brisk walk?
You could take a brisk walk. Okay, thank you. Absolutely. I'm a big fan of a brisk walk.
I'm anti-curdio. I'm just literally for those of us that are anti-curdio.
Well, you're still moving your body in some way. That will get you a little bit of activity there. Anyway, these people were running up and down the stairs for five minutes.
I'm not doing that because my face is going to be like a tomato.
We're going to get you outside walking around for five minutes. Thank you. I'll take that. And had them rate their energy afterwards. Basically, they were around a nine.
Wait, so you can go from a three on energy to a nine in just five minutes?
What? You think this is crazy because you just ran up and down the stairs, right? Shouldn't you be exhausted? But it turns out that physical activity, short bursts of at least before we have time to completely be exhausted like a marathon, makes us have more energy. And even an hour later, people were still rating their energy level as around a six. So short bursts of physical activity boost your mood, give you more energy. You think about how much time and effort and money people spend to make themselves feel happier and more energetic, short bursts of physical activity can do it for free, right? And why 3: 00 PM? Well, if you do track your energy during the day, many people, in the morning, 8: 00 AM, they've had that first cup of coffee, they can conquer the world. After lunch, you're not conquering the world anymore. You're taking a nap at that point.
I'm pretending to work.
You're pretending to work. 3: 00 PM is when people reach a in terms of their measured energy levels during the work day. If you haven't moved by 3: 00 PM, that is a very good time to get up, go take that brisk walk outside, you will come back actually able to focus for the rest of the day and hopefully get more done. Now, that's the obvious reason to do this rule is because physical activity is good. Taking short breaks is good.
Well, and energy is good. Energy is good. You also write in the book that, exercise doesn't take time, it makes time. What does that mean?
So the time you spend taking care of yourself and doing things like exercising, getting enough sleep within reason, this time will be paid back to you. How? In terms of more energy. Because when you have more energy, you can get more done. I'm sure we've all had the experience of a task taking us two hours instead of one because we were so lethargic. Whereas if you tackled it at a time of day when you had more energy, you get through it. The people who did that short burst of physical activity, if you think about it, they took five minutes to exercise. But I am guessing they got more done in 55 minutes where their energy was north of a six, then they would have gotten done in an hour where their energy was a three.
Well, not only that, here's what I also want to unpack that I'm realizing. Because so much of your work and the way that your research has you look at time and experience time differently, what I'm gathering from this, that exercise doesn't take time, it makes time, is that if you take it as fact, because it's true, most of us have the experience, that by three o'clock, basically the gas tank is at zero, When your energy is low, you don't feel like doing anything. So you leave work feeling low. Then you arrive home and you feel like drained from work because your energy is at a zero and you're still on empty, which makes it more likely for you to waste time on nonsense because you have no energy to do things for yourself that would actually make you feel better. Then you blame it on work, that work drained you. What you're basically saying is, No, no, no, no, no, no. If you understand that moving your body, yeah, it might take five minutes to take a walk around the block, but I always feel better after I do that in between interviews on the podcast, for example, and I I do feel more energized.
And it's not just that I'm more productive at work. I leave work feeling like work is done, and then I feel like I have a little bit more time. Is that also why this works?
Yes. When you can use the hours of 3: 00 to 5: 00 to actually get things done, you get more done. You don't have as much leftover work. When you are leaving work, you don't feel the need to work longer because you didn't get it done. It changes the whole feel of your day. But this is about being strategic about time. The deeper reason for this rule is not just because I think it's great for people to go walk around the block for 5: 00 to 10: 00 minutes in the middle of the afternoon, even though I think that will be a life-changing habit if you build it into your day. It's because many of us spend a lot of our days sitting and going from meeting to meeting or things like that, saying, Where can I put in a 5 to 10 minute break in my day? Requires you to look at your day. It requires you to think about when things are going to happen and when you can take control of a little bit of your time, it means you look forward to the day and see, Well, when is my energy going to be low?
When can I proactively plan in a break? You become more like the general surveying the battlefield, as opposed to just the soldier marching through it. You have more agency. That might seem silly for a 5 to 10-minute walk, but I promise that mindset is helpful for everything.
I don't think that's silly at all, because if you're somebody who's a teacher or you work in a hospital, or you're a first responder, or you have a retail job, or you run your own thing. I think a lot of us have this experience that the second that you look at the first work email or you walk into the office or you start your work day, all bets are off. You're in complete reaction mode. When you're in reaction mode, just answering emails and running from one thing to the next, you're not actually present to your time or in control of it. That's very draining. What you're basically saying is by simply saying, Okay, I'm going to find a 5 to 10 minutes slot in my workday to get outside or to do a couple squats or anything, take a break for crying out loud and get out of the chair and stand up and walk around the floor of the hospital for a minute, you're taking control of your time, and that gives you a sense that you're not just at the effect of everything around you. Is that what you're saying?
Yes. And I know some people's jobs are way more reactive than others. There are jobs where you don't have a lot of control over what you are doing minute for minute. But even if you're in the job where you get two 10-minute breaks a day when your manager tells you to go take your break, you can still think, Well, what could I do during those two 10-minute breaks that would be rejuvenating? Now, maybe if you've been standing on your feet, you're chopping lumber for a job or something like that, you probably don't need to go take a walk. But you can still think about, What would make me feel more energized? And maybe it's reading a really good book for 10 minutes or it's calling a friend for 10 minutes, as opposed to just picking up our phone and scrolling around.
I think that's the point, and this is your overall point. Because we're not present to the 168 hours that we have every week and how we're utilizing that time, we are not protecting these pockets of time for things that are important, and therefore we reflexively fill it with nonsense by looking at our phone or doing other things that we don't even remember.
When we think we have no time, we don't ask what we'd like to do with our time. But then when time does appear, we do whatever is easiest, which tends to be picking up the phone and scrolling around. Whereas when you have the story that I do have some time, I do have these small chunks of time that I can exercise discretion over, then you start to ask, Well, what would I like to do with it? What would make me feel happy? What would make me feel energized? What would make me feel rejuvenated? And that's just a much more powerful question.
I can give you a very simple example of one change that I've made that illustrates this point. I didn't even realize it relates to your research. When I'm standing in a line at a grocery store, I use that time to close my eyes and just practice the four by four by four breathing. You breathe in, four seconds, hold it, four seconds, freeze out. I don't reach for my phone. I cannot tell you the difference that what seems dumb little habit of learning how to stand in a line and not distract myself and just be present to my breathing, how much peace that is brought into my life and how even in that moment, it's almost like time expands. The old me would stand in a line and get pissed off and frustrated, and I'd let them, let them, and then I'd be looking at my phone. But realizing, no, no, no, this is a pocket of time that you're talking about. If I'm aware that it's a pocket of time and that these small moments matter and what I fill it with can either bring me joy and peace or it can just be more mindlessness and distraction, you do feel better, and they add up.
I love it. My iPhone tells me on Sunday morning how much time I have spent on it in the course of the week. And so it sends me this note on Sunday morning of how much time I have spent. It's a bit of a A moment of reckoning, I guess. But it's always higher than I think it is. And it's because of moments like that, right? That you're standing in line in the grocery store or waiting to pick up a kid somewhere, or you're waiting for a phone call to start. And what do we do at that time? We pull out our phones, start scrolling around. Nothing happened on the phone that you needed to look at. Even if something important is happening, you could have looked at it at a time when you were able to deal with it. The worst is you're getting some email that actually is important and you're like, Well, I can't deal with it while I'm in the line at the supermarket. So now not only Am I still in line at the supermarket? I'm feeling anxious about the fact that I have this hot email here. Yes. So consciously using bits of time for bits of joy will change your life.
I agree with you. I really do. Your fourth rule of productivity is three times a week is a habit. What does that mean? Three times a week is a habit?
We think of our lives in days, but we actually live our lives in weeks. What do you mean? We talked about 168 hours is the cycle of life as we actually live it. Tuesday and Saturday both occur just as often. Both have the same number of hours. And yet when you look at people's lives, they're often very different on those two days. But the reason we need to think of our lives in terms of weeks is it allows us to see that even if things don't happen daily, they can still be a regular part of our lives.
Well, this makes so much sense because I am one of those people that thinks in absolutes, got to get the walk in every day. Got to make sure. And if I miss day or miss two days or something happens, now it's no longer a thing.
People say to me, there are not enough hours in the day to get to everything I want to get to. Yes. And I totally agree. There are not enough hours in the day to get to absolutely everything you want to get to. But we don't live our lives in days. We live our lives in weeks. And by looking at the whole of the week, we see just how much space there is. So there's many things that people say they would like to do in their lives, they'd like to have in their lives, they would like to do more of in their lives. And then they feel discouraged because they get to the end of the day and it didn't happen. Right. But when I have people look at their time and look at their schedules and thinking about these things that they want to do more of, oftentimes people have done them once or twice in the course of the week. It feels like they never do them because they're looking at life in terms of days. And so most days, if you were doing something once or twice a week, well, you didn't do it.
So you feel like a failure. Like, oh, I'd like to have family dinners, but we didn't do it tonight, Tuesday night. So I'm a failure. I want to exercise more. And I got to the end of this busy Wednesday, and I didn't exercise. I am a failure. That is not a helpful conversation to be having with yourself. Here's the thing. If you're already doing something once or twice a week, it is pretty easy to get to three. You just have to add one more time, maybe. So if you want to have family dinners, but between your work schedule, the kids' activity schedules, you're not all sitting down 6: 00 PM, Monday to Friday. Nobody is unveiling a pot roast, Norman Rockwell style, right? But you look at your schedule and say, well, okay, actually, we're mostly having pizza together on Friday nights. We're often having pancakes together on Sunday mornings. Now, all we need to do is find one more time. So you look at the schedule for the upcoming week, you see, Hey, most of us are going to be there on Tuesday night after a certain time. Maybe if we hold dinner until 7: 30 on Tuesday, we can all eat together.
And now, you are a family that eats together regularly. Three times a week is a habit. It happens three times a week. It can be part of your identity. I think the reason I came to this rule is one of the occupational hazards of writing about time management is that people want to tell you about their great daily habits. They're like, I want to tell you about my great daily habit. I'm like, Okay, let's hear about your great daily habit. And then people are telling me about this, and it turns out that they usually do this habit Monday through Friday. But that is not daily. That is five times a week. And you dig a little bit deeper, and they're not doing it on vacations. They're not doing it on holidays. So people are telling themselves they have this daily habit Because it happens most of the time, Monday through Friday. But I think when we dig down, we see that's probably three or four times a week. So let's just start with the assumption that we're trying to get to three or four times a week. Three times a week is a habit. It's so much more doable, can be part of our identity.
I love that. And what I also love is that it builds with the plan on Fridays. Because if you are taking Friday afternoon to look ahead, and one of the things that brings you joy is to have dinner with family or friends, and you can go, Oh, okay, there are two nights where this works. Where can I find a third? Now you're making it a habit. And so these things build on themselves. It's very, very cool. Rule number five of your productivity rules is create a backup slot. It's like a rain date for your life. What is that?
Raine dates are one of the most brilliant scheduling inventions ever. If people are invited to an outdoor event, say in the summer. The existence of a rain date, the hosts are acknowledging right there that there is much that can go predictably wrong outside. It might rain. But by setting a rain date, you increase the chances that the event happens, even if not when originally planned. I think there are a lot of things in life that we want to get to, but life happens, and so we can't do it at the time we originally planned. But that doesn't mean we don't get to do it. We can create a rain date for it.
Can you give me an example of how this works?
Well, let's say- Is this only the big stuff? Let's say you want to exercise three times a week, and you carve out time somehow, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, you're going to do it. Now, what It happens. Tuesday, school nurse calls.
Oh, yeah.
And you have to go pick up your kid and the entire schedule for the day is off. You're like, Well, I just can't exercise three times a week. But what if we set a backup slot for one of those times? We're going to have time carved out in our schedules on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday for a workout. You don't have to do it because it's only three.
You don't have to do it.
If the time is open, it's open. You do something else with it if you want. But when one of those slots is taken away from you, You still have time. We should get in the habit of creating more open space in general in our schedules, because that way, when life happens, there is a place for things to go. If you have all these things that need to happen on Tuesday at work, and again, the school nurse calls, you have to go pick up your kid, where do all those things go? Well, this is people start-Out the window. Out the window, or people start borrowing time from the next week. But next week is going to have crises is of its own. Yes. Whereas if you have open time on Friday, let's say, the things that didn't happen Tuesday can go Friday. You are still on track. You are not borrowing time from the next week. And when you have open space and things don't keep festering on the to-do list because even when life happens, you can get to the things that happened and the things you want to do. You start feeling less overwhelmed.
Life starts feeling more calm. When you say you're going to do something in the week, you know probably it will happen because even if it can't happen at the time I originally planned, I have a rain date for it. Life starts feeling more calm. You feel like you are making progress on your goals, and that's a much better place to be starting from.
I don't know about you, but I could listen to Laura all day. This is one of those conversations where time is just flying, and I'm getting so much out of it, and I know you are, too. I'm so thrilled that we're spending this time together. Here's what I want you to do right now. I want you to think of someone in your life who's exhausted, someone who's trying to do it all and feels like they're falling behind. Send them this episode. Let them know that they're not broken. Their systems are. The way that they look at time is what's wrong. There's nothing wrong with them. This conversation will help them take their power back, and all you got to do is share the episode. How cool is that? When you're done sharing, I will be waiting for you after a short break. There is so much more that we're going to dig into that will give you back control of your time with Laura Vandercam, so stay with me. Welcome back. It's your buddy Mel Robbins. Today, you and I are learning how to take back our time from researcher, best-selling author, and time management expert, Laura Vandercam.
So, Laura, rule number six is one big adventure, one little adventure. What does that even mean? How do you do that?
So as adults, a lot of our life starts to feel pretty routine. You get up in the morning, get everyone off to school and work, collect everyone at the end of the day, go through the cycle of dinner, baths or homework, bed, wake up in the morning, do it all over again.
And you forgot laundry and doomsprying a dog.
We're going to put those in, too. But days aren't really distinguishable from another. And if too much of this stacks up, there's nothing wrong with routines. I mean, routines make good choices, automatic. So I don't want to say that there's a problem with routines. But when too much of this sameness stacks up, whole years can disappear into these memory sink holes. You have no idea where the time went. But here's the thing. We don't say, where did the time go? When we actually remember where the time went.
Okay, hold on. You don't say, Where did all the time go? When you remember where the time went.
And the reason we remember our time is because we have created memories in our time. What creates memories? Doing things that are novel or intense. Okay. All right. This led me to this rule, one big adventure, one little adventure each week. Each week, we are going to aim to do two things that are a little out of the ordinary.
Okay, and so this would go into your Friday planning session.
Friday planning. We're going to say, looking forward to the next week. We're going to do three times a week as a habit. Where can I do things three times a week? But also, where can I build in one big adventure, one little adventure? Now, before anyone complains, a A big adventure doesn't mean you have to fly off to Italy, though if you do, great. I mean, I'm here for it. That's wonderful. But I'm just talking about a couple hours, maybe half a weekend day is a big adventure.
A little adventure. You can find that every week, a half a weekend day? We'll get to that. Okay. Laura.
And a little adventure could be even less. It can be less than an hour. So doable on a lunch break, maybe a weekday evening, just as long as it is something out of the ordinary.
Okay.
And this is a cadence that is enough to make the week feel different. This is the week that we went to the beach and went on that ferris wheel. This is the week where we tried that new gelato place. This is the week where I went to visit my friend in the next town over and we went to that used bookstore. This is the week where the new colleague and I walked around the block at lunch together. Those are adventures we're talking. Now, it's not a week like any other. It is a week with things that we remembered because they were different. And that can make time feel more rich and full.
It's true because so much of what you're doing in these strategies is just getting us to wake up and be aware that we do have time. And to look ahead and to be intentional about what we're adding into it. Because if we don't add in these little pockets, whether it's family dinners or for me, the things that came to mind is I need to go to a bookstore and get a page dinner. So I have something intentional to fill time with. And there's an ice cream place that I want to try that's near the studios that I want to do one day this week because that is something that I love. But that when you really When you really start to do these in small and big ways, you are reclaiming your time. You are finding these pockets. And then that has this ripple effect that because you're now looking forward to something this week, It shifts your mood and energy around it.
We want to always have things that we are looking forward to. Getting into this cadence where we are planning in adventures, things that you are genuinely looking forward to. You're doing two a week. Well, think about that. You've got 100 things you are looking forward to in the course of the next year. You don't know what all of them are yet, but how exciting. It changes our perspective on ourselves. We're not just marching through the day doing everything we have to do. We're the people who do cool stuff. How exciting What story is that?
I notice you keep saying, I'm the person who. There is something big that's shifting in the narrative and the story you tell yourself, because the story you tell yourself, which I did for most of my life, I have no time, I'm behind, I'm so stressed out. It's all for everybody else. I don't have... That leads you down one direction. All of these nine little rules actually help you start telling a different story, which is I'm the person that has a lot going on, and I still make time to do fun things. I'm the person who has a lot that I need to do, but I still find time to take care of myself.
Once we have a story, we look for evidence to support it. And so if your story is, I have no time whatsoever, could you find a couple of moments during the day where you feel incredibly crunched, where you feel overwhelmed, where you feel behind? Absolutely. All day long. All day long. Anyone can find those points of evidence. But if you have a different story, I have a lot going on, and I have time that I can choose how to spend it. Well, you start to see that five minutes in between phone calls, completely different. You start to see the 15 minutes that you get home before the rest of your family, completely differently. Now, I have these pockets of time that I can choose how to spend. I'm the person who makes great choices with this time, so I feel differently about my time in general.
Yeah, and I don't have to use it rushing the laundry through, because I can do that when I'm doing something else. I can take these 15 minutes and go for a walk or sit down on the back deck or look by the window that's my favorite window of the apartment and just take a minute because that's what's going to make me feel good. I love how this builds on each other. Rule number seven, take one night for you. What is the impact of carving out a night for you going to do?
I have to say this is the rule that I got the most pushback from with busy people because what I want people to do is is to take a couple hours a week, could be a weekday evening, but the equivalent of a couple hours a week, to do something that is not work, that is not caring for family members, and that is intrinsically enjoyable for you. We are talking some hobby, more or less, right? I sing in a choir. Other people might play musical instruments or play pickleball or anything like that. You can choose whatever you want that is intrinsically enjoyable to you. But I would really like people to choose something that gets them out of the house at a certain time every week, and that involves a commitment to other people.
Okay. Why?
Because that makes your fun rise up the hierarchy in your schedule. So when I teach this rule to people, they're like, Yes, I need more me time. I'm going to take more bubble baths. Okay, let's see how that plays out, right? Because you decide, I'm going to take a bubble bath. Even if you give it a specific time, you say, I'm going to take Wednesday night at 7: 00 PM. I'm going to have a bubble bath. What happens when work is running late on Wednesday night? I'm doing work. You're doing work. What happens when your kid wants you to drive them to the mall at 7: 00 PM on Wednesday? I'm driving them to the mall. You're driving them to the mall. Things that can happen whenever tend to happen never. Your bathtub isn't going anywhere, so you can always push it forward. Whereas if you decide that you're going You play in a string quartet, and they meet at 7: 00 PM on Wednesday, and you don't show up. They're a string trio. We have a problem here, right? Yes. Because of that, you will do a lot to make sure that you can be there at 7: 00 PM on Wednesday.
You have worked out with a colleague that when work is running late on Wednesday, you will have covered for your colleague on Tuesday, so he covers for you on Wednesday. The kid who wants you to drive them to the mall knows not to ask at 07: 00 PM on Wednesday because the answer is going to be no. Because it is a commitment to other people, you will do it, and that way you are building this act of self-care into your life.
What is the excuse that people give you when they push back and are like, A night for myself? I couldn't possibly do that. How's the house going to run? Who's going to take care of my... What do people say?
Everything will fall apart without me. That is what people are basically saying. And this comes from different perspectives. Sometimes it's arrogance in disguise, that nothing can function without me. You can't hire good people these days. Nobody can do anything what I do at home. But it also can be fear. Well, if I'm not necessary for absolutely everything at work, what's the point of me? They'll fire me tomorrow. Or if I acknowledge that people in my household can function without me, Maybe they do things a little bit differently, but maybe they can function without me. Then it feels like, well, what's the point of me? But everyone has intrinsic worth apart from whatever you do. The truth is Earth is not going to crash into the sun if you take two hours to go play in your pickleball league. For the vast majority of us, most things will not change if you take an hour or two away to go do something for yourself. Now, I'm not promising that all the dishes will get done in exactly the way that you would have done them. But it won't be a crisis. The world will keep spinning.
What will the person who's resistant to going back to a religious service, like on a Wednesday night or volunteering for hospice on a Thursday? What will happen in your life if you start to do this rule where you take one night for yourself?
This will allow you to see that you are not just a person who who works and has caregiving responsibilities. You are a person who does awesome things in the world. And this can totally transform people's lives. We've talked about how it doesn't take much time to make life feel entirely different. One story I remember for this, a woman who learned this rule. She was very busy, full-time job, spouse who works, young kids. She decided to start playing tennis on Tuesday night. And her husband had been encouraging her to find something, a hobby, to be less stressed and all that. First time she comes home, her husband's like, You're glowing. You're glowing. All it took is a little more than an hour on a Tuesday night It becomes like this tent post in the week. You build your life around that requirement that you be there because it changes how you view yourself.
I think a lot of us have had an experience where you start to I don't even know who I am anymore. Everything you're teaching us, to me, feels like a way to insert your spirit back into the pockets of time that you can find when you get intentional, because you're not going to be able to just take all 24 hours, but you can find 15 minutes, an hour here or there, over the course of a week in order to start to feel like yourself again.
Absolutely. Particularly when people are in phases of life, like you have lots of young kids, or you are caring for a family member who has a complicated medical condition, it's not going to be easy to take this time. But if you get support from the other people in your life, I'm guessing you can make it happen. You can trade off with your spouse. You offer to take Tuesday night, your spouse takes Wednesday night. Each of you gets one night for you. If that is not in the cards, maybe you trade off with a friend or family member, right? Like your neighbor takes the kids on Tuesday and you take the kids on Wednesday, and each of you get a night off. I have people push back with this, again, with things like, well, I'm caring for a family member who has this complicated medical condition. I can't just walk off. I'm not saying you can just walk off. We do need to figure out the logistics. But it's scary to me if nobody else can take care of this person. That's a bad situation. Something could happen to you. We need backup systems in general to make sure that people are cared for.
If you have that mindset, I think you can figure out a way to take an hour for yourself, and it will change how you see time.
Tell me about rule number eight, which is give things less time.
So many of us start to feel like we are carrying a huge mental load. There's all the things we need to remember to do. And it adds up. The more complicated a life you have, the more things there are. And you'll be sitting there trying to focus on some deep work project. You're like, did I send in the permission slip? Did I answer that invitation to the meeting on Friday? Did I book the tickets for that trip next week? All these things are in your brain.
You just made me remember that I- All the things you didn't do today that you're supposed to. Oh, my God. Two weeks ago, I donated to the local library. I still have not filled out the form. Now I got to write a note and tell Chris. Okay, so yes.
Yes. We're carrying this mental load. And there's many interesting things written about who carries what proportion of the mental load, and I'm here for that. But this is not about that. This is about saying whatever proportion you are carrying, you can minimize the mental cost by batching these things. Instead of just doing it when you think of it, you're working on a project, you're like, Oh, I need to send in that permission slip. Just quick write it down somewhere and get right back to what you were doing. Then do all these little tasks at a certain low energy time when it's not your prime time, maybe 4: 00 PM in the afternoon, take 30 minutes, plow through all of them. So you're protecting your mental energy for the things that matter, and you're still getting them done.
So do you have a little notebook with you or a note card, or how do you manage those little things?
I keep what I call a Friday punch list.
You keep a Friday punch list?
A Friday punch list. So a punch list, you have a... I don't know, anyone has a huge home renovation project at the end. They have all these tiny little tasks that they... That's a punch list, okay? Got it. That the contractor has.
It's not something you want to punch yourself in the face because you don't want to do this stuff?
No, you don't want to punch. Although you might, looking at it. But no, it's a Friday punch list, and I put all these little tasks that aren't immediately time sensitive. They didn't have to get done right that second, but they do need to get done at some point in the next week or so. And then low energy time, Friday, planning the week, but I take 30 minutes, an hour, and just try to plow through as many of these things as possible. And this does two things. I mean, one, it makes it take less time because when you are filling out three permission forms at one point, as opposed to here and there and everywhere and ordering four birthday party presents at the same point. You just achieve economies of scale. All of this takes less time. But here's the thing. We often procrastinate other things we are doing, more difficult things we are doing, by getting these easy wins. I'll be working on a project. It's not coming. I really need to think about it. I'm like, Or I could just order this birthday present. It needs to happen at some point. Maybe I'll just go do that and get the satisfaction of crossing it off my list.
And I get it. I I love crossing things off my list. Sometimes I add things to my to-do list just to cross them off. After I've even done them, I put them on the list just so I can cross them off.
Laura, you're sick. You're sick in the head if that's what you're doing.
You've never done that. You've never done that either.
Well, I'm not that productive. That's why.
Sometimes we want to deny ourselves the quick, easy hit, that quick victory, so we can really wrestle with the more difficult stuff, and then plow through all of it at some other point.
Well, plus, if I now go I find the form for the library thing or I take time to text to Chris, my husband, and make it his problem, it takes me forever to get back to what I was doing. I can see how a punch list of all these little things that you do at that slot on Friday, a couple of things psychologically happen. I can see that when I give time to these things that pop in my mind, I don't feel in control of my time. But when I make a list and I say, Okay, this is important, but it's not important right now, I now suddenly feel like I'm the person who uses Laura Vandercam's research, and I am in control of my time because this is not that important right now, and I will remember to do it in the slot that it's designated. So I can see how it changes the way that you think about yourself. Rule number nine, tell me about effortful before effortless.
So there are two different kinds of fun. Effortless fun is stuff that doesn't require you to plan ahead. You can do whenever, however much time you want. You don't have to coordinate with anyone.
Give me an example. What is that?
Scrolling around on Instagram. Oh, God.
It's so true. Yes. I don't have to plan to scroll on my phone.
Instagram doesn't care what you are wearing. You can do it for two minutes. You can do it for 20 minutes. You can do it for two hours. Whereas effortful fun requires a little bit more effort. So reading a book or calling a friend, doing a puzzle, doing a hobby. People always say, Oh, I'd love to spend more time reading or talking with friends or doing a hobby. If only I had the time. And yet you look at the screen time function on your phone, you may be spending three hours a day on your phone. People are like, Where did that time come from? Well, it came in little bits of time, and it came at very low energy times. And so it was and effortless, and you did it. So I'm not saying don't scroll around on Instagram. We're both on Instagram. I'd love to have people there. But challenge yourself to do just a little bit of effortful fun before the effortless. So if you're picking up your phone when you are standing in line in the grocery store and you're not doing Mel's deep breathing, if you are picking up your phone, put the Kindle app on your phone and read an e-book for three minutes.
And then if you want to stop and go on Instagram, great. Be my guest. But one of two things will happen. One of which is that you will keep reading the book because it was a good book and you want to see what happens. I mean, effortful fun is fun. It just takes a little bit of effort to Going, yeah. Or you will go do the effortless fun, but then at least you got to do both.
I love that. Out of all of the rules that you talked about today, what do people resist doing the and why?
I really do think it is the rule about taking one night for you.
It does seem impossible. It does seem impossible. I'm just going to say right now, one night a week, I don't know that I could find that. I'd really...
I was telling myself that story. Then a couple of years ago, I used to sing in lots of choirs when I was younger, and I decided I would like to get back into it. I was tracking my time, and I looked at my schedule, and I saw that a great many of my evenings were very nebulous. I mean, it was half-heartedly hanging out with the kids, but also wishing they would sometimes leave me alone so I could do other things. Nothing much was happening. I was like, Okay, could I do that with the kids six nights a week? And one night, I do something different. So I joined a choir, meets 7: 00 PM on Thursday nights. There's nothing flexible about being in a certain place at 7: 00 PM on Thursday nights. So it It hasn't been easy, but I have structured my life to make it happen. I think most people could do that. Maybe it's not a weekday evening. Maybe it's an hour on a Saturday morning. But it's sometime during the course of the week for something. If you don't believe me, you don't believe me, just try it for a couple of weeks.
If Earth crashes into the sun, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But I'm guessing you will find out that life keeps functioning, and then you can keep having your fun and taking one night for you, and life will feel different.
I think life will not only keep functioning, I think you'll start functioning in a much more powerful and positive way. And that's the whole point of this, because you start to feel like you're reclaiming your life. And I love the suggestion. Maybe it's Sunday morning, maybe it's Saturday morning. One of my family members started going back to church, and her family does not go with her. She does not care. This is something she does for herself. And it really has been a very big, positive thing in her life. And it's one small thing that she does for herself. If you had to recommend one of the rules that is the most important one, if you're only going to pick one, what do you think has the biggest bang for the buck? That's easiest to implement. You know what I mean?
I would say Oh, boy. Can I give two answers? Yes. Because giving yourself a bedtime is absolutely transformative. Even if you do nothing else, that will make you feel so much more in control of your time. Okay. That I think you'll just be inspired to go do the other eight rules. I believe you. We can start with giving ourselves a bedtime. But I think rule number two, to plan on Fridays, to have a designated weekly planning time where you look forward to the next week and see what is most important, what you would like to see happen, what needs to happen, figure out your marching orders, figure out what you are looking forward to. That will make life feel so much more calm because I feel like certain phases of life, it's like you're canoeing down this rapidly moving river. It's hard to know how to direct your canoe down there. If you're just at the mercy of the rapids, you're going to be banged all over the place. But if you can take just a little bit to get yourself over to the in the calm, in the shallows, and see what's coming up, then you can direct your craft better.
That doesn't mean that those currents aren't there. It doesn't mean the rocks aren't there. But you see them, you have thought about them, at least the ones you can anticipate, you've thought about how you will deal with them, and that makes a more productive life possible.
So cool. Laura, if the person who's listening takes just one action from all All of these simple yet powerful strategies that you've just taught us, what do you think the most important thing to do is?
I think getting a sense of where the time really goes is the first step to making mindful choices about how to spend it more in service of the life that you would like. I know it is not tremendously fun to track your time, but maybe we can dangle the carrot out there of saying, I bet you will be able to find at least a little bit of time in your schedule for something you've been telling yourself you don't have time to do. I would love to hear about the amazing and wonderful things that people do when they find even that 30 to 60 minutes for some adventure that makes their life feel more wonderful. I'm excited to hear what comes out of that.
I am, too. I am, too, because I think something really awesome is going to come out of that insight. Laura, what are your parting words?
I think knowing where the time goes allows us to make more intentional choices. And time is so precious, but it is also plentiful. How we spend our time is how we will spend our lives. I know that time management gets this bad reputation. It's about squeezing more in or about these people have these elaborate routines that don't look like the rest of our lives, and that's fine for them. But to me, time management is about being a good steward of these hours that I happen to have, and I believe we can make life wonderful.
Well, I am so excited by everything that you shared. I'm actually going to track my time. All right. And I will let you know what I discover. I'm afraid that I'm going to be confronted by the fact that I don't work as much as I complain that I do. But I'm excited about finding time and getting more intentional about filling it with things that really matter. I cannot thank you enough for making the time to come here to our studios in Boston, for all of the research that you've been doing that has had a huge impact on my life and the lives of millions of people around the world, and for spending the time with us, teaching us what we can do to take control of it. So thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
My pleasure. And I also want to thank you. Thank you for finding the time and making the time and spending it watching or listening to this conversation, which will improve your life. Laura is right. Your life is determined by what you pour your time into. And I I'm certain that these strategies that you and I learned today based on research will help you take your time back. When you do that, your life is going to get better. It's going to feel like yours. In case no one else tells you today, I wanted to be sure to tell you that as your friend, I love you, I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a better life. All righty. I will be waiting for you in the very next episode. I'll welcome you in the moment you hit play. I'll see you there. Today, you and I... Okay. What's the mood here? I don't think I have anything. I think we got it. I do have to go to the bathroom. So good.
Oh my gosh, that was fantastic. Good. Good.
Really fantastic. Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.
Xm Podcasts.
This episode is for you: the person holding everything together. If your days are packed with work, caregiving, and nonstop demands, this is what you need to hear right now. Today, Mel sits down with one of the world’s leading experts on time management, Laura Vanderkam. She’s a New York Times bestselling author, a researcher who’s studied thousands of real schedules, a mom of five, and a total realist about how busy life can get. Laura Vanderkam’s approach isn’t “do more.” Laura’s not selling hacks. She gives you a clearer map of your days and a few small changes that reduce the chaos and help you feel more in control.When you’re maxed out, Laura says you don’t need “more time,” you need to stop spending your limited time on default. Laura helps you see the small, real openings in your week and she shows you exactly what to do with them so you feel less trapped and a little more in control. This is not a lecture about hustling harder or optimizing your life. It’s a practical reset that will help you feel less behind and it will lighten your load fast. You will:-Find hidden pockets of time already in your schedule-Choose what matters most (without guilt)-Use one habit that creates more breathing room-Make space for what you keep putting off (even with a full-time job)-End your day with more energy instead of more exhaustionIf you’ve ever thought, “I have no free time,” “I’m always behind,” or “I don’t even know where to start,” this episode will change the way you look at your week and help you take back a little more control.Because when your time feels calmer, everything feels a little more doable.And when you learn to take control of your time, you start taking control of your life. For more resources, click here for the podcast episode page. If you liked the episode, check out this one next: If You’re Feeling Overwhelmed, You Need to Hear ThisConnect with Mel: Get Mel’s newsletter, packed with tools, coaching, and inspiration.Get Mel’s #1 bestselling book, The Let Them TheoryWatch the episodes on YouTubeFollow Mel on Instagram The Mel Robbins Podcast InstagramMel's TikTok Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes ad-freeDisclaimer Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.