6: Learning to live on 24 hours a day
I’d generally consider myself a recovering workaholic but I'm learning to make the most of my days while finding time for things I love.
I am, slowly, learning to live on 24 hours a day. This means two things to me: (1) not trying to do two day’s work in one afternoon, and (2) not wasting two days doing an afternoon’s work.
I’d generally consider myself a recovering workaholic. I like shiny objects and I’d like them all now. If there’s anything it’s possible to achieve, I’d like to achieve it, and in as short a time as possible.
But often “having it all” feels like spinning a plate on your nose while pushing an egg up a hill. You rise each morning like Sisyphus, bright with hope, dragging your boulder of work and dreams up the day’s mountain despite being doomed to failure because by 6 pm birds are plucking at your eyes, and your body won’t carry the load you’re trying to lift.
That said, while I now accept that you can’t lift everything, it may also help to be cognizant of exactly what you’re lifting. As much as you might think yourself a productivity ninja, how good are you with managing the minutiae? After honest consideration, I’ve surmised I’m pretty rubbish at it. Luckily that’s changing fast thanks to a nifty little book I’ve been reading: How to live on 24 hours a day by Arnold Bennett. Despite being written in 1910, it has upturned the idiom “time is money” for me, by forcing me to consider the intrinsic value of time.
The supply of time is truly a daily miracle. You wake up in the morning, and lo! your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours. It is the most precious of possessions. A highly singular commodity, showered upon you in a manner as singular as the commodity itself!
Of course, I’m usually sceptical with anything that sounds like a promise to deliver great revelations, but this came well recommended, and with just a few excerpts my perception had already shifted.
Time is limited
You have to live on this 24 hours of time. Out of it you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect and the evolution of your immortal soul. It’s right use…is a matter of the highest urgency.
Now I’m familiar with considering the constant flow of lost time, and the need to make the most of each day. I always keep at the back of my mind something that Seneca noted in his moral letters to Lucilius:
What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily? For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years lie behind us are in death's hands.
There’s a singular line in Bennett’s book that embodies this best:
We shall never have more time. We have, and have always had, all the time there is.
Things may seem to have taken a sombre turn, but Bennett means it to be inspiring. The underlying theme is that it’s never too late to start making the most of our time:
You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose.
And so we return to the problem I hinted at earlier - Bennett urges us to maximise our time, but not by over-allocating ourselves. Instead, we should give room for ourselves to make small, human mistakes.
Beware of undertaking too much at the start. Be content with quite a little. Allow for accidents. Allow for human nature, especially your own… a glorious failure is better than a petty success.
That last part is a sensational quote that I have every intention of keeping close to my chest, as someone perpetually afraid of failing.
How do you spend 24 hours right now?
Recent studies say the average worker is only productive for 3 hours in a given working day. This may sound unbelievable for those of us who know we spend our days scuttling furiously like worker ants, doing one task after another. But then you think of the toilet breaks, the walks to the photocopier, the idle chatter with colleagues both before and after going to make another cup of tea, the spontaneous, fruitless, endless meetings, and suddenly the claim doesn’t seem so outlandish after all.
You are pale and tired…in an hour or so you sit up and feel you could take a little nourishment. And you do. Then you smoke, seriously, you see friends, you potter, you play cards, you flirt with a book, you take a stroll, you caress the piano…by jove! A quarter past eleven.
For me, this might often be a reflection of meeting friends or colleagues for spontaneous drinks and turning a “quick check” of my Twitter notifications into an hour-long scroll before deciding to treat myself with an hour or three of Netflix before bed interspersed with snack-breaks.
How I’m spending precious time more wisely
So I mentioned I’m trying to change things - what does that look like in practice?
Luckily technology is starting to make this easier. I’ve set the “downtime” function on my phone for hours during the day rather than exclusively the night as recommended. This means I get far fewer notifications during the time I’ve set aside for productivity. I’ve also put a cumulative total of 2 hours a day as a screen time limit for all social apps (Whatsapp, Twitter, Email and Instagram - I’ve deleted Facebook and LinkedIn).
Do I break those limits? Yes. Daily. In fact most days I’ve reached the limit by morning. However, this means whenever I opt-in to use those apps during the day, it’s only available for 15 minutes at a time. It’s only now I’m realising how fast you can guzzle down 15-minute units of time while having done nothing of consequence, but it has also made me painfully aware of how often I hold my phone and stare at the screen looking for something to press.
I’ve gotten so used to receiving notifications every minute of the day that checking my phone has become an involuntary reflex. I’m a dopamine junkie who doesn’t even like being on his phone, let alone responding to messages; it’s just a compulsion. I don’t know if this makes me a burgeoning sociopath or a reluctant hostage of the internet age, but I can’t be the only one who feels this way. I hate it here.
Now, my overzealous quest for optimising productivity may be to the ire of my friends with whom I already have a strong reputation for being hopeless when it comes to timely responses. However, it has also made me more intentional with doing as much as possible when I am actually using my phone.
I give myself permission to slack off, but it’s done intentionally and in short bursts.
A visual representation of my brain cells dragging my body through each day ^
Calendars > to-do lists
The second tool in my belt has been my calendar. After failing to utilise to-do lists in a million different ways, I’ve now split my life into three colour-coded sections, each with its own calendar, and I diarise items for each meticulously.
I can see all three simultaneously on Google Calendar. Home items are recurring and need little maintenance - this includes morning and evening routines. Meetings, interviews, appointments and anything else scheduled by or with others is now the second, separate calendar.
To this end, I now also send friends a link to my calendar so they can see when I’m free for catch-ups or coffee. This is time I’ve specifically set aside to be free but focused. This method also means we all save hours going back and forth saying “can you do this day? at this time?” and re-scheduling is also a breeze.
The third calendar is for workday tasks. Instead of piling a million things onto my to-do list, each morning I now place the things I want to do that day directly onto my calendar, seeing how much space each task takes up and deciding as a consequence what tasks are best left for another day. I also make sure to leave time between each block to be lax, grab a coffee, etc.
I will report back in time on the continued progress of this strategy, but for now at least, while making me busier it has also made me more satisfied and allows me to find time for work and play equally. It also gives me a visual indication of exactly how I’m spending my hours in a day.
If you have any other super tips for staying productive and getting the most out of each day, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Reply via email, leave a comment or send me a tweet!
Photo: taken by me, in New York
Reading list
Books I’ve read/seen/will impulsively buy and add to my “to read” shelf on Goodreads:
I managed to read all 541 pages of The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson in under 13 hours (thanks to Audible (at 2x speed)) and it was amazing. His worldbuilding is everything I’d heard it would be.
How to live on 24 hours a day by Arnold Bennett is short but powerful.
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - while some of her thoughts on Feminism have sparked controversy, Chimamanda is still one of my favourite writers.
Things I’m loving
Films and shows:
Queen & Slim - at this point I must admit I’d like to watch a film about Black people that does not end in death, but this was a beautiful and intense piece of cinema.
Gotham - I’m late to this, as usual, and am not even sure if the show is still running, but I’ve just started season 2 and am loving the empathetic insight into the lives of Gotham’s heroes and villains.
Apps:
Audible again - for new reasons mentioned above, and also for the fact you can pick a free book every month. Couldn’t ask for more, although I finished my first book in 4 days of commuting (at 2x speed) so I’ll probably need to pick up new books often. Try it for 30 days and see how you find it.
Blue Letter Bible was also recommended by Rachael, a newsletter reader. It’s like a normal bible but you can get x-ray insights into words and verses as you read. I love it. The rest of you need to be more useful. Send me cool stuff!
Let me know if you have any suggestions for next week. Feedback is welcome too! Email me or drop me a tweet here.
Until next time!!