Here’s how to tame your schedule — and claim carefree minutes for yourself
Thayer Allyson Gowdy
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Step 2: See What You Can Give Up (continued)
What distractions can I limit, if not eliminate?
Shut the door. Seriously. If you have work to do, make it clear to your assistant/colleagues/ kids/spouse that you need to be left alone. A 2004 study found that office workers are interrupted, on average, every three minutes. The study’s researchers also found that it takes about 23 minutes for people to get back to the task they were taken away from. If you don’t have a door to close, put a sign on the back of your chair that says, please do not disturb. (Dorky? Sure. But it works — we’ve tried it.)
At work, resist the urge to check your e-mail 500 times a day (or however often you usually do). For a truly rewarding challenge, time-management expert Timothy Ferriss recommends checking only twice a day — at noon and at 4 p.m. “I’ve found those are the times when you’re most likely to have responses to your previously sent e-mails,” he says. And make liberal use of the auto-respond feature: When you’re swamped, direct e-mailers to an assistant or, with his or her permission, a colleague.
At home, give that BlackBerry a rest. “BlackBerries hijack your downtime,” says Edward Hallowell, a psychiatrist in Sudbury, Massachusetts, and the author of CrazyBusy (Ballantine, $25, www.amazon.com). In addition, the devices give the illusion of efficiency. “People erroneously believe they can type on their BlackBerries while watching the news or talking to their families,” says Hallowell. “But if the tasks are at all demanding, you are creating the perfect storm of mistakes, misunderstandings, and mismanagement.”
As for TV, watch a show you love, then turn off the set. The average American spends 2.4 hours a day in front of the tube, but that investment yields sparse rewards. “We found that watching TV doesn’t make people nearly as happy as activities that really engage them, like playing tennis, taking a walk, and sharing a meal with their family,” says David Schkade, a psychologist and a professor of management at the University of California, San Diego, who recently coauthored a study on the subject. Translation: You’ll get more psychological benefits from choosing other forms of fun.
