WEBVTT - Time Tracking Manifesto! EP 246 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:09.720 Hi. 0:00:09.960 --> 0:00:13.840 I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:14.440 and speaker. 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:19.120 And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer, 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:22.280 and courtse creator. We are two working parents who love 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:24.040 our careers and our families. 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.360 Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:30.360 how real women manage work, family, and time for fun. 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:33.360 From figuring out childcare to mapping out long. 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:34.200 Term career goals. 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:40.680 We want you to get the most out of life. 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:44.000 Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.720 This episode is airing in late September of twenty twenty five. 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:53.280 We're calling this the Time Tracking Manifesto, an episode devoted 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.160 to the subject of time tracking and why you might 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:59.440 want to give it a whirl. I have been tracking 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:02.480 my time for ten and a half years now. Nobody 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.360 else needs to do that, but I've found it useful 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:08.160 for me at least. However, you don't need to just 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:12.240 hear about me doing this, because Sarah also recently decided 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:14.759 to start tracking her time, at least for a while. 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:18.800 I know you've not necessarily done this much in the past. 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:20.959 There maybe you could talk about why not and what 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:21.919 changed this time. 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:23.880 Yeah, I mean I have done it off and on 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:28.760 in the past, with various levels of success. Sometimes I 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:31.319 find myself going strong for a few days and then 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:33.720 give up, and other times I find myself doing really 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:35.520 well on the morning and then just kind of losing 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:38.040 steam toward the end of the day and find that 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.200 post work time frame, those golden hours turn into this 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:46.680 like milledge of nothingness. I usually use paper, so I 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:48.400 would just do it right in my planner, or i'd 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.440 use a separate notebook. I definitely did get a boost 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:55.160 in accountability and consistency when I forced myself to blog 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:57.840 how I spent the time, So I have been successful 0:01:58.000 --> 0:01:59.680 on those occasions where I'm like, you know what, I'm 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:02.120 just gonna this is my content for the week. But 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:07.400 I had not tried an electronic tool until I finally decided, 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:10.280 you know what, they exist. My phone is with me 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:13.280 a lot of the time. Let me see if these 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:16.840 things work. And I downloaded toggle, which is free, just 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:20.079 because it had by far the highest number of reviews, 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:23.120 and I actually found it to be quite user friendly 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:27.760 and easy, and you can even see the time allotment 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:29.720 on your Apple Watch, which I now have, and I 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.359 don't think I had in past times when I tried 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:35.840 to use electronic methods, so it actually turned out to 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:38.760 be a better method for me, and I was able 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:40.600 to be more consistent, and I'm actually still kind of 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:42.760 doing it. I'm not sure when my end date is. 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:45.280 I am not going for ten years, but I'm finding 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:46.120 it kind of interesting. 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:50.800 So yeah, I often recommend people try Toggle if they're like, well, 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:52.800 I want to use an app because I use spreadsheets, 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:56.160 which is a perfectly fine way to do it as well. 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.239 But if people want a time tracking app, Toggle does 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:02.639 have the upside being free, at least for the basic version, 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.359 so you know, you can download it and try it, 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:10.079 and if you decide that, hey, I'm really into this 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:12.799 electronic time tracking, but there are a few other features 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:14.840 I'd like to see, Well, then you could go into 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:19.360 the whole app market for time trackers that might be paid. 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:21.200 But you know what you were looking for, right, so 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:25.079 it wouldn't be quite as just guessing as you might 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:27.600 if you hadn't tried it out. So yeah, I often 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:30.200 tell people to start with Toggle, So how does it 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:32.320 actually work? Like, maybe you can tell people how you 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:34.600 use Toggle to actually track your time. 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:36.680 Yeah, So too bad. We don't have visual aids. I 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.040 could pull up my phone right now it probably says 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:43.280 podcast recording, But basically it has a running timer and 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:45.720 you type in what it says what are you doing now? 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:47.800 And you type in what you're doing now, and then 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:50.280 when they were going to switch activities, you press stop 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:52.000 and then you type in what you're doing now, so 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:53.960 you type in the new thing, And there is definitely 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:55.760 a learning curve. Like when I started, I was like, oh, 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:58.480 let me be really granular and like now I'm taking 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:01.200 a shower, and now I'm doing that instead. I've definitely 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:04.240 found that it's easier to lump categories together. I've also 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:06.920 found that I like to make my category names really 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:09.680 short and use emojis. Just makes it more satisfying and 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:12.400 like quicker, and it is easy to go back and 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:14.480 fix it, so it's not like if I forgot to 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:18.039 hit press podcast recording that I couldn't go back in 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:20.839 time and like it. Maybe it thinks I'm showering for 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:23.239 three hours, but I could pay you're still in the shower, 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:26.680 So I do like that. It's kind of like you 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:28.599 can edit it without it looking like a mess, so 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:29.320 that's nice. 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:32.520 Yeah, yeah, which is not the case necessarily with paper 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:34.840 if you are crossing things out left and right, or 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:36.400 though you might not have even put it down in 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.760 the first place. But yeah, I mean, and so it 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:41.880 sounds like it's pretty easy then, right, Like it's not 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:44.600 taking a whole lot of time to track your time. 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:46.320 No, it takes like a second. You just have to 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:49.120 remember when you're switching activities, which just takes a little 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:50.719 bit of a learning curve. But I feel like after 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:53.120 the first few days, when you're annoying yourself by having 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:55.480 to go back and fix things, you get better at 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:57.520 it now. One thing I haven't done with it that 0:04:57.520 --> 0:04:58.840 I think I could do a lot more with is 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.360 like the analysis piece. I've looked at what the day 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:03.200 looks like, just like scrolling through. You can get it 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:05.280 in like schedule view and you can basically like see 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:07.279 how many hours were spent doing each thing, which is 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:09.640 how I was able to quantify various things. But I 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:11.919 haven't done any kind of like higher level analysis. I 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:14.040 have a feeling I am not using this app to 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:18.280 its full extent, and I also have the free versions. 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:20.840 So yeah, I'm sure there's a lot more you can 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:21.159 do with it. 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:24.760 But it actually is, Especially something like that, it might 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:28.880 be easier to add things up than it would be if. Now, 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:31.840 theoretically the upside of a spreadsheet is it could calculate too, 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:34.719 like how many entries said sleep. But if you ever 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:38.960 describe things slightly differently that are the same thing in 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:41.960 a spreadsheet, then obviously you quickly lose that functionality. 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:44.360 And I sometimes have that. 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:46.760 Like if I have a bathroom trip in the middle 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:48.640 of the night, I might put that in or and 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:50.680 so then it would have sleep and something else in 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:54.200 the cell instead of just sleep. But I'm not really 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:57.200 awake for that whole thirty minute block, so I lost 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:01.400 that functionality quite quickly, so I'm often adding things up manually. 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:02.920 And the upside of something. 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.200 Like toggle is that could just do it for you, right, 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:07.839 like everything that said work could say work. 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:09.840 Yes, although you have the same risk like if you 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:12.240 enter it differently, it doesn't know if you However, when 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:14.560 you start typing, it gives you suggestions based on what 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:17.279 you have before. So maybe that would lower the chances 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:20.360 that you would put some novel description for something because. 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:25.120 On a freelance version of your work in there. Yeah, well, 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:27.920 I'm curious, you said you haven't really done a whole 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:30.000 lot of high level analysis of it. Do you see 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:32.160 any thing as you're looking at it? 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:34.960 I've done low level analysis, and I had a couple 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:38.160 of takeaways. One is that I spend a lot of 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.200 time in the car. I mean I knew that, but 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.239 like when you actually do the drive leaving your house, 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:46.400 press start, and then like finally arrive at the office 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:48.400 and go, oh my god, that was eighty five minutes, 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:52.080 Like really, you can't tell yourself stories that it doesn't 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:53.919 take that long to drop off both of your kids 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:56.320 get to work, and that's okay. I'm not saying that's 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:58.760 like a terrible thing, but it's like, oh, well, let 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.760 me make sure that, like I, I'm attentively doing things 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:04.760 that I want to be doing within the limitations of 0:07:04.760 --> 0:07:06.920 what you can do behind the wheel, But like chatting 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:09.760 with my kids, picking music that they like, listening to it, 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:12.800 listening to my own music, listening to podcasts, et cetera, 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:14.640 and not seeing that as like, oh, this is just 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:17.240 quick and transitional, because eighty five minutes is not. 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:20.880 Eighty five minutes is a lot of time. I mean 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:25.200 that's leaving at seven thirty five to be at your 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:27.520 office at nine right, correct. 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:29.680 Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. That's eighty five minutes. It's 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:31.880 usually skewed slightly earlier than that, so it's like leaving 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:36.040 at seven twenty to get there at whatever, five. 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:41.760 Minutes, eight forty five exactly. It's not really I don't know. 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.040 Suddenly the math is beyond me at this moment, but 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:47.400 we're recording. But yeah, yeah, no, I think a lot 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:50.640 of people sort of have discoveries like that. 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:53.560 I was thinking about that today, of. 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:55.000 How much time I am going to spend in the 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:59.520 car today because my Beethoven listening project for today assigned 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:04.840 me Fidaleo, which is a whole opera. So the question 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:08.520 is am I in the car for a whole opera today? 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:12.920 And it's not going to be that far off, right, 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:16.280 Like I took Sam to school this morning and drove home. 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:18.920 I will pick him up from cross Country and drive home. 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:20.720 He's just going to have to listen to Fidelio because 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:23.680 he's in the car with me. I will drive to 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:29.520 rehearsal tonight and back home, and I don't think that's 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:32.400 total two hours for all of it, but it's not 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:35.400 that far off of it. So in theory, I could 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:39.400 in fact listen to the whole of Fidaleo in the car, 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:41.680 which is like, oh my goodness, that is a lot. 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:43.240 Of time in the car. Like would you think, like, oh, 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:46.160 on a Monday, I could see a whole opera. 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:50.240 I mean no, But in fact, all this time does 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:52.760 add up, and if you're you're listening to it, So yeah, 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:56.880 I think it's worth trying, right, I mean, Sarah, you 0:08:56.880 --> 0:08:57.920 would agree with us. 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:00.400 Oh, one hundred percent. I think. Well, let me share 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:03.320 my other takeaway, which is that classic Laura van OrCam 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:06.360 you have more time than you think. I always feel like, 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:08.800 oh my gosh, my evenings are so rushed, like there's 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:10.920 nothing of quality I can put in here. But when 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:13.920 I actually acknowledge the sheer minutes between, like when I 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:15.839 get home from work on a clinical day or when 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:18.320 I finish work on a regular day, a non clinical day, 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:19.800 and then like when the kids go to bed, like 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:22.079 there are a lot of minutes and I'm not doing 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:24.199 the kind of hands on parenting that I used to 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:26.800 do when they were little. There is homework help, there 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:30.679 are emotional supports, there are drives sometimes to pick someone up. 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:33.080 So it's not like I'm doing nothing, but like, there's 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.160 just more time there than I think, and I wouldn't 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:38.600 have without quantifying it. I really do think we can 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:40.840 just kind of tell ourselves stories. 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:42.000 Yeah. 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:43.800 No, it is easy to say like, oh, well, we 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:46.880 have so much stuff this evening, there is no time whatsoever. 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:50.000 But certainly, as I have been coming out of that 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:55.280 intense handholding parenting stage as well, I'm starting to see, yeah, 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:57.800 like the evenings have a lot of time. 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:01.040 Like the other day, I got Henry to bed. 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:02.760 It was about eight forty five, and I'm like, well, 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:05.960 I'm not planning on going to sleep until like ten 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:11.080 forty five. There's two hours here. I don't necessarily have 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:13.640 something I was planning on doing. I hadn't really thought 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:14.960 it through, but I like two hours. 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.600 There's a lot of time. Like I have two mostly 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:18.480 kid free hours here. 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:20.200 I'll make sure the other kids have turned their lights 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.160 off at some point, but they're supposed to be doing 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:26.079 their own thing, and I have time, and yeah, I 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:30.160 have to sort it out, like this is leisure time. 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.600 It is a lot of leisure time, and yet if. 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:36.560 You don't think about it, it's easy to lose it 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:37.920 to random things. 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:41.040 And so yeah, we're just throwing. 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:43.440 Out of here in our time tracking manifesto that you 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:46.640 might want to consider if to track time, because if 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:48.959 you want to spend your time better, it really helps 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.720 to know where it is going now, because otherwise, like 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:53.679 how do you know if you're changing the right thing. 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:56.079 You may be telling yourself a story that I have 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:59.400 no time because I'm always cleaning my house, and then 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:01.280 you track your time and you see that you're spending 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:03.280 more time in the car than you are cleaning your house. 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.000 It's like, okay, well maybe both could go down, But 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.000 let's look at the thing that's occupying the biggest chunk 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:12.880 of time to see if there's some opportunities there or 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:14.840 maybe something you haven't thought. It's taking a lot more 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:17.520 time than you imagine. You just want to be working 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:20.040 from good data, and really the only way to get 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:23.280 that data is to actually keep track of your time, because, 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:26.080 as Sarah said, we tell ourselves a ton of stories, 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:29.600 and the stories may not be one hundred percent true. 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:31.200 So we're going to take a quick ad break and 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:43.680 then we'll be back with more about time tracking. 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:48.640 All right, we are back, and I'm going to ask 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:52.120 you a few questions about time tracking. Particularly what do 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.240 people discover? And I will just start with a tiny 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:57.600 thing for myself, which is that I mentioned discovering I 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:00.760 had more time in the evenings and yeah, yet I 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.400 discovered that my limiting factor was not time but energy. 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:05.360 So that was like an. 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:08.160 Interesting thing that I came up with. But I am interested. 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:10.960 You have looked at like nine million time logs. Well 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:12.840 maybe that's a hyperbole, but you've looked at a lot 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:13.960 of time logs. 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:17.080 And we're into the four figures for sure, in terms 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:17.600 of numbers. 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:20.240 Yeah, that's amazing, and I can imagine there are some 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:23.920 common themes, So tell us, like what are the undercover 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:26.760 discoveries that people have when they finally shine light on 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.720 how they're using their one hundred and sixty eight hours. 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:32.120 Yeah, well, the first thing people discover is that there 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:33.920 aree hundred and sixty eight hours in a week. I mean, 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:37.320 that is something that I will tell you most people 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:40.199 don't know, and that was great for me for search 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:42.320 engine purposes. I don't know if it's still the case, 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:43.800 but for a while, if you typed one hundred and 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:46.360 sixty eight hours into Google, you would get me, which 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:49.280 is kind of crazy because that's like typing twenty four 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:51.400 hours in a day and getting Laura Vanderkam like, you 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:53.440 wouldn't do that, But one hundred and sixty eight is 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.160 so not known. People say twenty four to seven, and 0:12:56.240 --> 0:13:00.560 yet they never multiply it through. The first thing people 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:03.320 discover is like, oh, yeah, that's what a week looks like. 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:05.120 That's how many hours are in a week, which is 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:07.160 helpful in and of itself. I mean, if you've been 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:09.679 telling yourself, I have no time for anything because I 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:11.760 have a full time job, and then you realize, okay, 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:14.360 well I work forty five hours of one hundred and 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:17.679 sixty eight. There are a few hours left over when 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:20.360 you subtract, so maybe it's possible to do some other things. 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:25.400 So that's kind of exciting to discover, but those are 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:27.240 so what you mentioned. Energy. 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:29.480 People might see that the limiting factor is not that 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:32.400 I have zero time. It is that the time I 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.720 do have tends to come when I have very limited energy. 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:38.160 But then you can decide, well, are there things I 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:41.080 can do about that? And there might be one is 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:43.559 you can choose low energy activities. 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:44.760 Right, maybe there are. 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:47.000 Things that you can do that don't require a lot 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:49.080 of energy, but that you still enjoy, but you know, 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:51.160 if you set an intention, then you are able to 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:55.160 seize that time. In some cases, if it's lower energy 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:57.960 and it's not like late at night, if it's for 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:00.120 whatever reason, you have low energy in the afternoons and 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.360 that's when you have free time for some reason, maybe 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:05.320 there are things you can do to boost your energy. 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.480 There are certain activities people do, I mean, like getting 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:11.920 fresh air or exercise that sometimes make people feel like 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:15.320 they can do more things than if they didn't. Sometimes 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:17.920 people decide, not in your case, Sarah, but other people 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:22.720 decide to move where that free time happens. So if 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.120 you've been staying up late and you have little energy 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:28.920 at night, maybe you could decide to go to bed earlier, 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:31.840 wake up a little bit earlier, and have some of 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:34.520 that free time in the morning when you might have 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:37.320 more energy for other things. So that's something that maybe 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.520 a time log could show. But yeah, in general, not 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:43.600 having a sense of how much time there is or 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:45.600 like where the space is, a lot of time is 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:49.520 just spent unintentionally, we overestimate things we don't want to do. 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.760 So in many cases, people overestimate how many hours they 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:58.880 are working because let's say maybe some of us love 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:01.160 our jobs, but not everybody and not every minute, so 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:03.920 it's easy to overestimate how many hours we are working. 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:09.240 We overestimate housework often by somewhat ridiculous factors, but that's 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:11.640 because we don't want to do it, and so we 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:14.120 decide that emptying the dishwasher takes thirty minutes. 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:17.400 It does not. So if that's what's in your brain, 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:18.920 you might want to. 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:21.880 Time in you know what, So folding laundry takes forever, 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:24.480 that's been I take to state that like unloading the 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:27.040 dishwasher is a very brief task, it's like eight minutes 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:29.960 a lot of times, and folding the laundry takes like 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:32.520 I can spend thirty minutes folding a giant I mean, 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.600 we do giant loads of laundry. But that's a reason 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:37.520 to do that while you're listening to a great. 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:40.120 Podcast or watching that fund If Rgilio is the case 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:45.040 making an opera, yes, definitely, yes an opera. So if 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:48.080 you are telling yourself that you are spending a ridiculous 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:50.360 amount of time on housework, it might be worth timing 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:51.200 it just to see. 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:52.600 I'm not saying you like it. 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:56.160 Like I could totally buy that we dislike every minute 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:59.200 of it, but it may not be as many minutes 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:02.920 as we think. People tend to underestimate things they do 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:06.480 want to do, So people underestimate leisure time, and they 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:12.840 underestimate sleep. We tend to view our shortest night as typical. 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:15.120 If you ask someone to describe a typical night for you, 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:19.880 they will never describe a Friday or Saturday night, or 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:22.720 a holiday night. It'll always be like a Tuesday night, 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:24.920 and that it tends to be like the Tuesday that 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:27.800 they actually got up at the time they intended to. 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:30.840 There was no snoozing, there was no sleeping through alarm, 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:32.600 and it was when they were doing stuff in the evening. 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:34.560 They didn't crash on the couch or anything like that. 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:38.240 So those things do add up over the course of 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:39.320 one hundred and sixty eight hours. 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:40.160 I but here's some good news. 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:42.240 I've greatly enjoyed tracking my sleep, by the way, which 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:44.440 is not like I'm not a sleep tracker person. I 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:46.880 don't wear like my watch, debat or anything like that, 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:48.920 but something about like when I if I wake up 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:50.280 on my own and then I look at it and 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:52.080 I'm like, oh, seven and a half hours or like 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:53.560 on the weekend. I got one night where I got 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:55.600 eight and a half, and I'm like, wow, I don't know, 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:59.080 it's just been interesting because not something that I really 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:01.520 quantified before. But I am in that camp of like 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:04.760 seven seeming like my normal. But really I make up for. 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:07.800 Yeah, yeah, which is fine. 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:09.280 I mean, as long as we're not like doing like 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:11.560 four hours and then twelve hours to come out to 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:12.360 an average of eight. 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:15.000 I mean probably between seven and nine. 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:17.080 Coming out to an average of eight is a little 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:22.680 bit more reasonable. But yeah, you're definitely not the only 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:23.840 one to have that experience. 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:24.800 I was gonna say. 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:28.879 One positive thing is a lot of working parents, perhaps 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.320 mothers in particular, have been telling themselves a story that 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:33.560 like I never see my kids, or I don't spend 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:36.880 nearly enough time with my kids, or some version thereof. 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:39.560 They track their time for one hundred and sixty eight hours, 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:44.000 discover again that they're working forty hours, sleeping seven to 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.040 eight hours a night. We've got somewhere like seventy hours 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:49.800 in here that is not working and is not sleeping, 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:52.399 and in many cases quite a bit of that time 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:55.520 is spent with children, especially if they are very young 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:57.359 and require constant supervision. 0:17:57.400 --> 0:17:58.240 That's starts to. 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:02.160 Change as kids get a little bit older. But certainly 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:04.520 when people are saying these sort of things about guilt, 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:08.080 it's often that they have younger children, and so people 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:11.880 are often very pleasantly surprised at how much family time 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:13.440 winds up happening in the course of the week. 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:17.879 No, that's awesome. Well why have you ended up tracking 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:21.000 your time for is it ten years now? Eleven? I 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:22.400 don't even remind me of where we are. 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:23.959 Yeah. 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:28.720 I started in April of twenty fifteen doing it continuously, 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:30.679 so I guess this is airing At the end of September, 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:34.639 we were almost ten and a half years. And I 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:38.119 don't like celebrate my anniversary every year, like woo, you know, 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:40.480 I made it because it's not hard. It's like saying, 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:44.200 I'm celebrating my anniversary of brushing my teeth for whatever. 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:47.119 I've been doing it independently now for probably. 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:49.359