Once you know where to begin, it’s time to think about when. You can set your clock by Theodores forgetting to set their clocks, but time management can also be the Achilles’ heel of the most competent Simons among us. Why is that? I mean, we’re surrounded by time-telling devices in our homes, cars, offices, and everywhere else. Watches, iPhones, cable boxes, microwaves, Big Ben, sundials, THE SUN ITSELF.
These are built-in tools to help human beings manage time. Everyone should be using them!
But for people who don’t have their shit together, there never seems to be enough time. Too much on the to-do list, too few hours in the day. If their life was a one-hit wonder, the chorus would be “I don’t know, I’m just really bad at time management.” Again, I’m forced to demolish some lame excuses here. Time is both infinite (until a giant asteroid wipes out Earth) and finite, in that there are only twenty-four hours in any given day and they must be used wisely.
Time, like irritable bowel syndrome, can be managed.
I happen to be a chronically early person. I hate to keep people waiting, and that’s motivation enough for me. But I also know I’m lucky to have a healthy relationship with time. Time and I are copacetic. We understand each other—and understanding time is key to getting your shit together.
So why can’t some people reach that understanding?
Well, after careful and completely unscientific observation of friends who have “poor time management skills,” I came to realize that they share a common trait—and it’s not that they enjoy keeping me waiting or they don’t own a clock. It’s that they don’t actually know how long it takes to do anything.
One of them will text me Jumping in shower. See you in 15, even though she has never taken a fifteen-minute shower in her entire life. Her intentions are not malicious; some people just have no fucking clue how long it takes them to shower and get ready to leave the house. Fifteen minutes seems about right, sure, and while you’re at it—Headed to the DMV, see you in 5!
Uh-huh.
Therefore, if you are one of these people [waves to an old roommate], and if you hate being late as much as I hate the New York motherfucking Yankees, you can do something about it.
(And if you don’t hate being late, then I guess you must love composing that charming song-and-dance routine you put on every time you have to explain your tardiness to colleagues and dinner companions. How does it go again? Something-something-traffic-something-couldn’t-find-my-something-got-stuck-on-the-phone-with-oh-my-God-you-wouldn’t-believe-something-something.… You realize you’re not fooling anyone, right?)
Well, if and when you’re ready to be reliable and courteous rather than late and completely full of shit, the first step in improving your time management skills/getting your shit together is to time yourself doing daily tasks.
For example, before you get in the shower, set the stopwatch app on your phone (or one of those portable plastic kitchen timers, which can easily be repatriated to the bathroom), and keep it running until you’re actually finished getting ready. Do this every day for a week and then crunch the numbers. Had to shave on Tuesday? Ten extra minutes. Took a whore’s bath on Friday, minus five. When you’re staring at your times and forced to confront reality, you’ll have no more excuses to—as George W. Bush might say—misunderestimate the time it takes to perform your morning ablutions.
TASK: _________________________________
DAY: Sunday
TIME: ___________
NOTES: ___________
DAY: Monday
TIME: ___________
NOTES: ___________
DAY: Tuesday
TIME: ___________
NOTES: ___________
DAY: Wednesday
TIME: ___________
NOTES: ___________
DAY: Thursday
TIME: ___________
NOTES: ___________
DAY: Friday
TIME: ___________
NOTES: ___________
DAY: Saturday
TIME: ___________
NOTES: ___________
The same could go for leaving work. Whether you have to get to the airport or meet someone for dinner (or relieve the nanny, or pick up dry cleaning before the shop closes, or any of a million things one might have to do after work), people with poor time management skills usually severely misunderestimate how long it takes to finish up the workday. And I’m only talking about getting out of the office—not even traveling from the office to the airport or the restaurant. Simply extricating yourself from the building can take a lot longer than you might think.
If this sounds familiar, you could try spending a week exploring this particular Twilight Zone.
For one day, resolve to neither gab with anyone nor use the bathroom on your way out. Time yourself from the moment you punch out or turn off your computer (or power down the fro-yo machine, or whatever) until you Exit Stage Left.
THAT’S how long it takes to “leave work.” You have your baseline. Next, you need to factor in the variables.
For the rest of the week, just press a button on your watch or phone when you stand up to leave, and don’t touch it again until you’re out the door, no matter what happens. If you get waylaid by a coworker or a sudden downward urge (which better include two minutes for washing your hands, mister), record the results, then average them in with your baseline time. This is the easiest homework in the world, and it will give you a much more accurate sense of where you stand when it comes to Leaving the office. See you in 10!
And when you feel like you have an accurate sense, there’s no harm in padding that shit. You can always circle the block so you’re not ringing your friend’s doorbell ten minutes before the dinner party starts, but at least you won’t be slinking into your seat like a grade-A tool in the middle of her heartfelt toast. Bad chipmunk!
But please note: I’m not asking you to shower faster, kick your kids out of the house without breakfast, or jack your beanstalk without finishing. The secret to time management isn’t speeding up or slowing down. It’s about strategy and focus. (Strategy: Y = how much time does X take? Focus: if X is a necessary task, schedule Y minutes/hours to get it done; and/or undertake X task only when you have Y minutes/hours available.) In other words, don’t try to shove a square phone call with your mother into a round five minutes.
Once you understand how time applies to your life, you’ll be able to use it as a force for good instead of a force for missing flights or pissing off your dinner date. Meanwhile, perhaps invest in a sundial, which is a perfect visual reminder to keep working on your time management skills. And they’re quite pretty.