A mindset shift and a timer can help us in reclaiming time in small pieces, yet most people will tell themselves that they can’t possibly get anything done of worth and will fritter it away.
A large part of managing time is to use the time that we have. Small chunks of time can be used effectively if we shift our mindsets and use tools to help us stay within the bounds.
“There Isn’t Enough Time To Do Anything”
I’m sure you know the feeling. You have 10 minutes before your next meeting, and rather than doing something productive, we choose to scroll social media, check our email or play a quick game.
After all, those few minutes probably can’t be put to use to move us forward on anything major.
Most of the people I have talked to about this agree that they don’t use the little bits of time effectively because there seems little point to starting something when it will be interrupted in a few minutes. Work is for the big blocks.
But those 10 minutes could be put to use, removing necessary tasks from the big blocks so you can focus on bigger things.
15 Minutes Is Longer Than You Think
Back in the day when I was learning how best to manage keeping my house clean, I worked with the Flylady system. She believed you could do anything for 15 minutes. One of the tenets of her system while cleaning a room was to set a timer for 15 minutes and start ticking things off the list.
I found that 15 minutes really was long enough to do a pretty thorough clean of an area.
The timer never seemed to go off when I thought it should. I would check the timer to make sure I started it, and usually found that there was at least 7 minutes left.
I no longer follow Flylady, but the lessons I learned about the power of 15 minutes has stayed with me.
My Ongoing Battle With Time
One of the tenets I was raised with was “always be a few minutes early”. I understand why my parents impressed me with that particular habit: it is rude to keep someone waiting. Experiences early in my career with a coworker who is late for everything just reinforced the idea.
However, I am also a really poor judge of time. If I am absorbed in something, I will forget all else going on until I am pulled out of my concentration zone. I naturally come back out of the zone about every 45 minutes.
Knowing this, I was always hesitant to start anything if I had less than 45 minutes. I didn’t want to get into a state where I would forget about what was next, and I didn’t want to be constantly checking the time.
Leaving Time On The Table
Recently, after being assigned to take on many of the team management tasks that my manager is no longer able to attend to, I realized I was going to have to make the most of the large blocks of time to really focus on my project work. I couldn’t let low-value tasks derail me because my project time was cut by a third and I would need every bit of the block to get my tasks done.
It led me to think about the little bits of time that I am not using, both at work and at home.
Our team has configured Outlook so that meetings are 50 minutes or 25 minutes. I would use the “leftover” time to glance at my personal email or chat with co-workers.
At home I would have time before I had to leave for wherever I needed to be (or had to dial into a meeting). I would use that time to play a game on my phone or check email for the billionth time. (Social media is limited by my phone by duration and day) Or even worse, I would login to a profile that wasn’t controlled by Leechblock and go over to Bored Panda.
Finding Ways To Use The Little Blocks Of Time
In order to make better use of my time, I found I had to approach it from several different places.
Limit Access To The Time Wasters
I have to watch myself or I will fritter away not just the small chunks of time, but also the large ones as well.
In order to get by this, I use Freedom to keep me on track during my sessions. I also use Leechblock on all my browsers to limit the total time I have on timewasting sites. I also have ScreenTime set up on both phone and tablet.
Know What Can Be Done
I have a list of things I can do when I have 5-10 minutes. At home these include things like unloading the dishwasher, doing a bit of housework, picking up an area, updating my bullet journal, reading a magazine, filing email or computer files or weeding part of a garden bed.
At work my list includes filing email, processing my inbox to zero, reviewing the code checkins by our junior developers, doing part of a code review, or updating my log or team documentation.
Having a list of things that can be done during bits of time – and keeping it visible – gives me options to get around my default activities.
Do Something That Can Be Interrupted
Some of the bigger tasks I do can be interrupted with little consequence. Writing a blog article, bringing code up to team standards, doing blog maintenance, and reading a book are all examples of this.
Some tasks are too concentrated to be interrupted, and those I save for the blocks. It was a shock to me, however, to find how many of my “big block” tasks could be interrupted.
Using A Timer
The key, for me, to using those small blocks of time is to use a timer. Back in my Flylady days, this was a physical timer that I carried around. Now I can use my phone or Google Home to set a timer.
I have found that using the timer allows me to forget about the time and focus on the tasks.
And just like I learned so many years ago, I am able to get far more done in a timed session than I would have figured.
Using small chunks of time with lists and a timer has not only allowed me to get more of the little things done, but also to use time I would have otherwise frittered away.
