Welcome to the Monthly Newsletter by Amer Kaissi
Edition #33, September 2022
Off the Clock by Laura Vanderkam is one of those books that opened my mind on how I use and value my time. To be clear, it is not a time management book. Rather, it is a book based on the following premise: time discipline leads to time freedom. If we are disciplined about planning our time, then we can create the freedom to enjoy our time more. The daily experience of minding one’s hours changes the experience of time and can lead to a more savored career and life.
In order to be disciplined about our time, we need to know how we spend our time on a weekly basis. The most practical tool that this book offers is the exercise of tracking your time in 30-minute increments for two consecutive weeks. It’s sounds daunting at first, but it is a very valuable exercise. I did it myself and have required my graduate students at Trinity University to do it as part of a time discipline assignment. At the end of the two weeks, we ask ourselves: What do I like about my schedule? What would I like to spend more time doing? What would I like to spend less time doing? How can I make that happen?
The book also addresses why back-to-back meetings all day are detrimental for our deep work. When you have a 10:00 am meeting, you will likely stop doing any deep work at 9:45 am. After the meeting, you go to your transition ritual, checking emails, glancing at social media. So a one hour meeting can take the mental space of 90 minutes. If you have another meeting scheduled at 11:30, then you can’t do any deep work in between. This creates a vicious circle. Vanderkam notes “People assume you’re not doing any work besides meetings, so they schedule meetings to force deadlines. They call meetings to share information, because it’s assumed you’re not reading your email, because you have so many meetings, and much of your email is about scheduling meetings.” While we can’t eliminate meetings all together, we can be more mindful about when to schedule them and for how long.
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Dr. Amer Kaissi is a Top Leadership Keynote Speaker. He speaks about leadership, teams and culture.
