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So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
1978: The Science of Getting Your Time Back with Laura Vanderkam, Author of Big Time
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- [00:00]
Podcast Host / Advertiser
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Farnoosh Tarabi
so Money Episode 1978 the Science of Getting youg Time Back with Laura Vanderkam, author of Big Time.
- [02:08]
Podcast Intro Narrator
You're listening to so Money with award winning money guru Farnoosh Tarabi. Each day get a 30 minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers and from Farnoosh yourself. Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double Coupons. Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life. Welcome to so Money.
- [02:34]
Laura Vanderkam
Even people who work long hours are generally not working around the clock. Many people who have a rough night here and there do in fact get a reasonable amount of sleep, averaged over an entire week. Even people who work full time generally see their families. And when we tell ourselves, I have no free time whatsoever, what that tends to mean is that I don't have as much free time as I want, which is true. But that is a very different story from having none whatsoever. And so once we see the data, we can start rewriting these stories and just changing things that. That allow for a better life.
- [03:10]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Welcome to so Money, everybody. I'm Farnoosh Tarabi. You know, we all say the same thing. I just don't have enough time. Not enough time to work, to parent, to rest, exercise, to finally do the thing we've been putting off for years. But what if that story isn't actually true? What if the problem is not time itself, but how we think about it and how we measure it and ultimately
- [03:31]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
choose to spend it?
- [03:33]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Our guest today wants to completely rethink our relationship with time. Laura Vanderkam has built her career challenging the idea of time scarcity. And in her new book, Big Time, she makes a compelling case that many of us have far more time than we think. In our conversation, we get into the real data behind how we spend our days. Why tracking your time can be a game changer, and how small mindset shifts, shifts, especially around your evening hours, can unlock what she calls time abundance. We also talk about the very real challenges of balancing work and family and everything in between, and how to negotiate time more effectively, whether that's with your partner, your boss, or even yourself. Here's Laura Vanderkam.
- [04:19]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
Laura Vanderkam, welcome back to Sew Money. I mean, I gotta start sending you checks at this point. You're on the show at least once a year. You bring so much good stuff to our audience. And I'm so excited for your latest book. It's called Big Time A Simple Path to Time Abundance. And you even have a quote on the back from Charles Duhigg, who's been on our podcast, who wrote the great book Super Communicators and the Power of Habit. But your book, Big Time, you all, you love exploring time.
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Laura Vanderkam
Laura, I absolutely love it.
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Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
Let's start there. Tell me about how your love affair with time started.
- [04:57]
Laura Vanderkam
I think the fascinating thing about is that we all have the same amount of it. Right. Like there's so many other things in life. I mean, you know, people have more money or less money. Some people are definitely smarter or more attractive than the rest of us, but nobody has more time. Right. And, and so when you find people who are doing amazing things with their time, like they're, you know, building great careers, but they're also raising happy families or involved in their communities or, you know, all this great stuff, it's not that they have any more time than the rest of us. It may be that they're allocating their hours in interesting ways that the rest of us can learn from. So that's why I've been fascinated by time all these years and keep trying to explore it in new ways.
- [05:39]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
So speaking of new ways, how is big time, the new idea around time? You've explored it in so many ways. You know, you're big on documenting your time to kind of find the extra time in your time. We tend. And one of your big, one of the big things you like to talk about is how we underestimate actually how much time we have. But in big time, you did a lot of individual interviews, many individual interviews, to sort of figure out what, what was the sort of big idea you wanted to wrap your head around.
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Laura Vanderkam
Big time is about what happens when you truly believe that time is abundant. I think a lot of us are walking around with this story that time is scarce, that we never have enough time for any of things we want to do. But what happens if we change that story? And I think it is very much possible to fall in love with your schedule. And so that's what I'm trying to get people to do with book, to your point, about individual interviews. Yeah, I mean, for this book, I did a lot of talking with people about their time. I also did a couple of large scale time studies where I had people, for instance, track their time for a week and report back about how that changed their lives. I had people try various different things in their lives to see how it affected them, to try and get some data on how various strategies affect people and what we can learn from that.
- [07:03]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
Your first chapter is called rewrite your story. You just touched on that a little bit. Just like imagine that time is abundant in financial books and even my, my last book I write about rewriting your story as far as money goes. But tell us about what that means when it comes to time. What are the stories that we're holding onto and how did they, how did they get in our heads in the first place?
- [07:23]
Laura Vanderkam
Yeah, I think the biggest problem with time is that it keeps passing no matter what you do. So it is very hard to get our heads around where it is going. And we tend to remember bad moments better than good ones. I mean, for obvious reasons, bad things stand out in the mind. But because of that, we tend to amplify how much time the things that we don't wanna do are taking and sort of underestimate how much time we are spending on things that we do want to do. And I guess that's just human nature. But the problem is that it allows us to write these sort of problematic stories and narratives about what life truly looks like. So a lot of people are walking around with a story that, you know, I'm working around the clock, for instance, or if I am working, I'm never seeing my family. I don't have enough time to sleep. I have no free time whatsoever. I spend my life doing housework or things like this. And there are some aspects of, you know, that are true about some of these, but generally it's not the whole story. And when people track their time, they tend to see that these stories are incomplete. Even people who work long hours are generally not working around the clock. Many people who have a rough night here and there do in fact, get a reasonable amount of sleep, averaged over an entire week. Even people who work full time generally see their families. And when we tell ourselves, I have no free time whatsoever, what that tends to mean is that I don't have as much free time as I want, which is true, but that is a very different story from having none whatsoever. And so once we see the data, we can start rewriting these stories and just changing things that allow for a better life. Like, if you have a story of, okay, I have some free time, it's not as much as I want, then you start to ask good questions like, how could I scale this up over time? Or how can I choose rejuvenating things in the limited free time I do have? So I feel better. Whereas none is. Is just a fetus.
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Farnoosh Tarabi
For the person who feels as though
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Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
they don't have control over their time because they have so many demands, work being one of them, but also family demands and responsibilities and. Well, what are the questions you want these people to ask themselves to feel as though that, yeah, well, you actually, you might have more control than. Than you think?
- [09:38]
Laura Vanderkam
Yeah, well, I think time tracking can help show this. Um, for instance, many people who don't necessarily control what time they leave work might control what time they show up. So if you know, that like you're, you know, coming to work at a certain time in the morning, maybe that's time before that that you could have for personal pursuits. But you might also track your time and see that while the time you leave work is variable, it's within a certain range. And if you know that range, then you can start, you know, assuming a bit of control of the time outside of it. You know, caregiving responsibilities can obviously be 24, 7. And I've definitely talked with people in my life who have, you know, very challenging caregiving responsibilities. But even within that there sometimes are opportunities. You know, people who have young kids who go to bed relatively early might be able to find some time for personal pursuits after they go to bed, if we're mindful about that time. Maybe it involves various logistical things like trading off with a partner or a friend or other relative, but making that an intentional practice so you can get some time to do the things that you find rejuvenating.
- [10:43]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
I was just watching. It was a woman entrepreneur. She's got a new book out. I can't remember what it is, but she said something like, I spend three hours a day with my kids, that's enough.
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Laura Vanderkam
I mean, you know, it's.
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Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
So the question there is what is enough? You know, when it comes to time with your family, with your friends, on yourself, watching tv, scrolling on Instagram. Right. Think that what the other pursuit that people struggle with is how do I perfect this balance of getting it all in but feeling as though nothing is really neglected as well. So, you know, we want to have it all. We want to be able to do the work and the family and the just like vegging out time. But did your research find that there are important limitations to these things? Or maybe we are overestimating what we need to be doing in certain areas, the time spent in certain areas or under.
- [11:39]
Laura Vanderkam
I think the key realization here is that there are 168 hours in a week. And a lot of people don't know that number. But we live our lives in cycles of weeks. And I think if you look at the whole of the week, you can see that there is generally space for quite a few things. You know, if you work 40 hours a week, I've probably done this calculation on your show before furnish, but it's repeating, it's worth repeating. But working 40 hours a week and sleeping 8 hours a night, so that's 56 hours per week leaves you 72 waking non working hours to do stuff with.
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Podcast Host / Advertiser
Right?
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Laura Vanderkam
And if somebody's working 50 hours, you've got 62 hours for other things. I mean, even if you're working a very large number of hours, you're still gonna have some time for other things in your life. Now, everything you might wanna do does not necessarily fit on Tuesday, but Tuesday is not the only day that exists. Most of us seem to have seven days in a week. And if you look at spreading things over the whole of that, you can often find space for a lot. I mean, you know, in 62 wa non working hours, would there be time to exercise for 45 minutes three times? Well, it seems like there might be. Would there be time to read for 20 minutes four times a week? Again, seems like there might be. The woman who is saying three hours with her kids a day. I mean, three hours somebody a day is 21 hours in a week. That's quite a bit of time. If you think about quality time with someone now, there might be other time that somebody needs to have somebody there as a caregiver with them, but actual interactive time, that would be quite a bit for anyone. So I think if you, you look at these totals within, you know, the denominator of 168, like even high numbers start to fit in there. You know what I'm saying?
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Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
Is our relationship with time very different versus like generations ago, medieval times. I mean, were people always like running up against the clock, feeling as though they were running up against the clock as we are today?
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Laura Vanderkam
Well, I think there had to be clocks for people to feel like they're running up against the clock. Watch the sundial go around. I know. Well, although I would point out that then as now, a lot of time is about filling it. We do different things to fill our time now, but a lot of people find themselves in boring meetings wishing the time away. And I imagine that, you know, a medieval peasant might also have been sitting there wishing that it was, you know, time to bring the cows back in or whatever it was. We fill time like they may have been, I don't know, telling stories around a fire or playing games with dice or something. I just saw something that dice were like, prehistoric. So we've always been trying to fill time with things. And now, of course, we have our electronic hobbies of scrolling around online and reading random headlines and, you know, responding to comments of people we don't even know. I mean, I don't know. People have always managed to waste time is what I'm saying. And certainly within the modern era, I feel like people have always managed to think that they are extremely busy. So I don't know if it's better or worse now than in the past. You know, we all still have 24 hours in a day.
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Podcast Host / Advertiser
That's true.
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Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
That's the one constant. I want to skip to one of your chapters where you talk about embracing your golden hours. This is the evening hours, right? And you begin with an anecdote with a woman named Rebecca. She came to you with a bit of a revelation. She had changed jobs at one point in the summer and while she was doing a different sort of work, she was still working for the same group of companies. The volume of work itself had not shifted much. And you write how she felt about her time after work had shifted a great deal. And that's when the two of you sort of start to work together. What did you learn through her life and what is the big message from that chapter of embracing your golden hours? Because I think evenings too can be like, really, um, if you unplanned it, you could just be on your phone for two hours. The time flies.
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Laura Vanderkam
Time absolutely does fly. Yeah. No, this Rebecca's story was so fascinating to me because she had been leaving work at about 5:30 in her previous job and it had been somewhat of a rush to get out the door at 5:30. She'd always felt like, you know, she wasn't entirely done but she needed to get home. And she is in an hour long traffic jam in her particular, you know, community that it takes to get back to her house. And so she was arriving home at 6:30 and she was always feeling sort of stressed and spent at that time. And she would feel like the day was over, right. Like there wasn't enough time to do the things that she wanted to do. Like there was just the things that had to happen to get her kids, you know, ready for bed and then for her to go to bed after that. And then she switches jobs and in her new position, everyone was basically wrapping up at 5 and so they're all out in the, you know, parking lot saying goodbye to each other at 5:15. However, this is the same place she's working basically. So she's still in that hour long traffic jam getting home. She's arriving at home around 6:15. And if you look at these two, 6:30 and 6:15 are not different times. Like they are not at all. And yet suddenly she had this whole different perspective on her evening, that she wasn't as stressed and she felt like the evening was more open and available to her. And we were trying to figure out like, why on earth is this, like, was she thinking, okay, 6:15 rounds to 6, but 6:30 rounds to 7. So you know, if I'm getting home at 6:30, I don't have time, whereas if I'm home at 6:15, I do. I don't know what it is, but I think what it is is that her mindset had shifted where she wasn't having this work stress hanging over her into the evening. And so she had started to see that evening was a time of day she could use. And so she had begun thinking about, well, what would I like to see in my evenings? And she had started doing things like hanging out outside and watching her dogs play and watching the sunse. And you know, all of that was available to her before, but she'd had the story of time scarcity and so she hadn't allowed herself to see possibilities. But once she had this idea that oh, the evening is available to me, she started asking what she wanted to do with it and as a result had much better evenings. And I think we can all do this right? We can all ask what do I want to do with my evenings and make use of this time.
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Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
Well, it also raises an interesting another layer to this, which is that we have time, but then how our relationship to time and our belief that we can make the most of that time, it's also due to other influences. It could be that 6:15, the sun was still out, you know, and versus by 6:30 she gets home, it's more dusk, depending on the time of year. And at that point your mood is just different and you're not as optimistic about what you can do if you get home and it's still light out. Hey, I could go for a walk. I can do this, I can do that. Your spirits are still hot. And so, you know, talk a little bit about also the externalities around time that can sometimes shape your. You said at the beginning, like your ability to see time as abundant. Are there certain other things that you want us to think about as we're orienting our schedules? Right. If we want to be more productive, do these things at these hours because maybe your energy is higher, the sunlight is better, you're more awake, whatever it is.
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Laura Vanderkam
Yeah, I think it's important to look at your energy and to look at these things that might be affecting your time. And definitely everyone has these things as one of the things that affects our narrative, you know, of how much time is available to me. Am I feeling stressed? Am I feeling like there are things I haven't done that I should be doing. Is it dark out? Is it cold out? Is my family in a good mood? Like, am I coming home to somebody's already cooked dinner, or is everyone expecting me to do it? You know, there's all sorts of things that can affect how we feel about our time, and yet we can still look at how much time is there and make choices with that. Because, you know, again, the 15 minutes was not a huge difference. And so understanding that it is about mindset can allow us to then change our mindsets if we want to. I know a lot of people feel like the day is over after dinner, but it isn't. Like, there's often still several hours before you go to bed, and you may have lower energy during that time, but that doesn't mean that nothing can be done with that time. And I'm not even saying something productive. I mean, like, what are you doing that is enjoyable, memorable in your life? And we can also recognize that we can change our mindsets and we can also shift our energy levels to some degree too. And we can do this holistically by trying to get enough sleep by getting physical activity. We can also do it in the moment while time is completely unrenewable as a resource. I mean, a second passes and it's gone. Energy is a lot more malleable, and there's various things you can do to feel more alert. So, you know, for instance, many people have had their lives changed by, you know, putting in a brisk 5pm walk, right? Like you're getting done with work. Like, go outside, walk around, get some fresh air activity. And now you have energy for the evening and feel like you can actually take advantage of this time as opposed to feeling completely drained to just block
- [20:49]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
off my schedule sometimes. And that way nothing gets put on there. And then I love, I used to be. Because I know I'm a grinder. This is like a, it's a, it's like I've learned this in therapy. I'm a grinder. I like to, I like to look at my long list of assignments that I've created for myself and all the checks on the boxes, and I, I, I bask in that. So, you know, my question is sometimes we set out with these really lofty goals for the day or for the week or for the quarter, and one of your tips is be rational about what you can actually accomplish. How do we measure for rationality in our, you know, because, and I do think part of it comes down to first tracking, you know, actually seeing what things require in terms of time. And sometimes it's less than you think, but sometimes it's more than you, than you estimate. But, but how do we, how do we get more rational with how we ration our time?
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Laura Vanderkam
Best things you can do is have a designated weekly check in. I really like to plan my life in weeks. I have designated weekly planning time. I think everyone should have a designated weekly planning time where you look to the upcoming week and ask yourself, what is most important to you in the spheres of career, relationships, and self? Say, what would you like to do over the next 168 hours? When I get to the other side of the next 168hours, what would make this feel like a really good week, maybe a little challenging, but also doable? And what's also on my plate already? And what can I set as a reasonable goal to do given what is already on my plate in these three spheres over the next 168 hours? But as part of that check in, you can look at what your set of goals and intentions for the last week was, right? So when you sat there, say, the previous Friday, looking forward to this Friday, and said, okay, this is, these are the things I want to do over the course of the week. Now, when you are planning your next week, you can look at that list because, you know, if some of it's undone, maybe you're going to want to migrate some of those things. But that moment of check in allows you to ask, well, were those things reasonable? Like, did I do all of them? Great. Could I be a little more ambitious if I did all of them? Well, maybe, or maybe not. Maybe that was the perfect amount. But if a large number of them did not happen, then that provides you an opportunity to say, okay, well, then maybe that wasn't realistic given what is on my plate and given the tendency of life to happen. So what could I set that would be more reasonable as a goal for the next week in those three spheres? And then a week from now, you will check in again. And this constant looking forward, looking backward, at a sort of about the same time every week will give you a sense of what can fit in a week and what cannot. And I know life changes. I mean, the week where, you know, you've got a huge plumbing emergency and three kids are home from school sick, and, you know, there's like a work deadline, like that week is not gonna be good for a lot of extra things. But, you know, that's not every week. And so we can sort of develop a sense given what life Looks like given the demands I have, here's what else I can do.
- [24:00]
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- [27:37]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
When you spoke to people at different life stages, what were some of the the shifts that you saw that were healthy? Like I'm thinking now for people in my audience who are about to become empty nesters, this can be a really trying time for those couples, those households because suddenly all of the ways that you were consuming your time and using your time in the past, taking care of your kids, college applications, all that they done and now good news, you have more time to yourself potentially. But then bad news, you don' have a plan for that. And what is your advice or what have you seen work really well for those in that life stage? What things to look ahead to, things to think about ahead of that so that you don't feel like you're that time is getting washed up.
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Laura Vanderkam
Everyone should spend some time thinking about what they would like to spend more time doing in their lives. And one of the troubles of walking around with a story that we have no time whatsoever is we don't ask what we'd like to do with our time. And when we don't think about what we'd like to do with our time we do whatever is right in front of us, whatever is easiest. And again these days it Tends to be our electronic hobbies of headline reading, checking social media comments, things like that. But you know, it could be puttering around the house. I mean, it could have been staring at a cave wall in the old days. Like it's. It's going to be whatever is easiest and whatever is right in front of you whenever a spot of time appears. So I think everyone should think about. But particularly if you are coming into a stage of life where you think you will have more available time, it is helpful to be intentional about it so that you can enjoy some open, relaxed feeling and also feel like the time is not getting completely frittered away. I think everybody should have something in their lives that is not work and is not caring for family members something that you find intrinsically enjoyable. And ideally, this is something that is a regular commitment and perhaps involves other people so that it rises up the hierarchy of your schedule and actually happens. So I sing in a choir. That's a great idea for people who have some time in their evenings and would like to be around other people and have something that happens at a regular time. But it could be anything. I mean, it could be playing in that pickleball league, it could be volunteering at the food bank regularly, it could be tutoring English language learners at your library. It could be a running club you join. It could be a regular dinner you have with a group of people in your faith community, community or people that you work with or anything like that. You know, as long as it's. It's not just solely work, but, you know, people you want to see regularly. I think everyone needs something like that in their life. And you know, if you haven't been doing this, it might take some time to come up with what this thing is. You know, a lot of people feel like, oh, a hobby should be easy, like I should just automatically know what I want to do. And that's. If you've been really busy, that may not be the case. Or if you haven't really thought about it, that may not be the case. And the first thing you try maybe be okay, but not amazingly fun. And that's fine. Like give yourself 6 to 12 months to come up with something that you want to commit to on sort of a longer term basis and try different things out with sort of spirit of curiosity. But I think if you give yourself 6 to 12 months, you will probably come up with something that you want to make a regular part of your life.
- [30:48]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
That's really great advice. Well, when it comes to outsourcing to save Time, paying money to earn back time. What is your take on that? When is it it wise? When does it veer into maybe overdoing it? Because I think there's a school of thought where, sure, it'd be great to outsource all my household responsibilities, but that does come at a cost. And so how do I make sure that I'm being smart about those investments and that I'm actually, with the time that I am gaining, kind of making up for it. And obviously, you know, if you can't afford it, you shouldn't do it, but if you can and it's, it seems worthwhile. Like, I don't know if you have any thoughts on that or any interesting stories.
- [31:29]
Laura Vanderkam
This is a good reason to track your time because then you can see what is actually consuming your time. I mean, a lot of people, when they're like, okay, I'm gonna start outsourcing things, one of the first things they do is get a cleaning service to come every two weeks. And that's great. Like, if you can afford it, I'm all in favor of it. But the problem is that often doesn't save you time. Like, you're gonna have a cleaner house than you might have. But they're often doing things like a deep clean of the whole house, which you may or may not have been doing on a regular basis. If you look at what the housework is that people spend their time doing, it's kind of the daily cleanup, the daily, you know, dishes or laundry or things like that. And that, that's probably not stuff that your cleaning service is doing. So, you know, if that's what you're trying to get off your plate, then that suggests something different. So, you know, maybe if people have kids, but they, you know, have hired an after school sitter for, for them, could you get that person to come an hour earlier, three times a week and do some of that might be a more effective way to outsource. That would actually save you time versus the cleaning service every two weeks. Some stuff though that's outsourcing doesn't really take a whole lot of money. Like, I mean, the, the cost of grocery delivery versus going yourself, you know, particularly if it's a hassle on your weekend or you're trying to cram it in after work. Like the cost of the delivery is gonna be nothing compared to that. And given that you are then not in the grocery store hungry, buying things you didn't put on list, it may actually save you money. Right? So, so those are the sorts of Things that are really kind of low hanging fruit here.
- [33:05]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
Or I forget all my grocery bags
- [33:07]
Laura Vanderkam
and now buy six, you know, more grocery bags every time you're there. Yeah, right.
- [33:12]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
I mean, as we're recording, I got an alert from Whole Foods. It's like one of your items is out of stock. I didn't have time to respond. You know, wish me luck. I don't know what it'll be.
- [33:20]
Laura Vanderkam
See what you get for sure.
- [33:23]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
But I think it's like ten dollars a month for unlimited deliveries. You know, deliver three. It's so worth it. Ten bucks.
- [33:29]
Laura Vanderkam
Bucks.
- [33:29]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
Ten bucks to save yourself the gas.
- [33:31]
Laura Vanderkam
The gas cost alone.
- [33:34]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
And I would overspend. You can be more precise and quicker, obviously when you shop online. I know some people don't love it though. I know people who are just like, I need to be in the grocery store. I have to feel the mangoes. That's my thing.
- [33:47]
Laura Vanderkam
That's the thing. I mean, you can decide part of outsourcing and choosing what is wise to spend your money on with this. It's about saving time, but it's also about reducing hassle. So even if something doesn't take a ton of time, but you absolutely hate it and it is a drain on your energy and your satisfaction with life, then absolutely, that might be worth, you know, getting a little bit of help with. And, and, and so, yeah, I, I think you, you have to look through, at it through both lenses.
- [34:15]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
Do you have any conclusions around working from home versus going into the office and what is actually a better use of time? And you know, I don't know if you've had any research to, to suggest one way or the other.
- [34:30]
Laura Vanderkam
I think working from home is great. Obviously I'm, I'm here in my home office right now and, and one of the very few upsides of COVID was that it made it more acceptable that a lot of places are still sort of in, in the situation where people are working from home at least, you know, two days a week, and that's acceptable. Um, whereas pre Covid, I was having all these conversations with people trying to psych them up for negotiating to work from home on Fridays, like after they'd been with a company years to have proved themselves. I mean, it's just a totally different game, which I think is great because, you know, are there upsides to being in your office? Absolutely. Are there downsides? Absolutely. And in many cases people are like commuting 45 minutes into an office just to email and call people in other places. I mean, that is just Such a waste of gas and time and energy. So my thought on working from home or whatever remote location or working from an office is when you are going into the office, you want to make it worth the commute, Right. So think about what can you do best in an office and in person with your colleagues? And then also think about what is best done sort of in a solo and potentially less interrupted environment. So the interactive meetings, like you're brainstorming with a colleague, that is a great thing to do in person because you have this back and forth or even something that's complicated logistically, you probably want to do that in person because then you can work through these things without, you know, the weirdness of going back and forth by email. If you're having any sort of difficult conversation with somebody, that's. That's probably best done in person. I would also make your days in the office as social as possible. Like, these are not the days to shut your door and get stuff done. Like, this is the day that you should be grabbing coffee with, you know, the new hire. This is the day that you should be taking your team out to lunch. So you want to make it worth your while if you're going in and really think about what is best done with other people versus what is best done on my own.
- [36:25]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
Yeah, that's on point. Okay. Finally, for couples that have children, specifically, what are. What are the ways that you want them to better negotiate their. Their way, their times to their goals towards time? Abundance? Because I hear often, you know, there can be resentment when one partner is spending their time in a way that they're happy with. You know, they're going and they're. They're doing their recreation. They're golfing for three hours on a Saturday, and the other partner's like, what's going on?
- [36:55]
Laura Vanderkam
And.
- [36:55]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
And, you know, from the golfer's perspective, I'm living my best life. I've decided how to make my time most efficient and abundant. But the other partner is, like, not on board. And so there is that disconnect. And so I think it's, you know, everything we've talked about so far, these seems like conversations to be having with yourself around your time, but when it involves a partner and now your time decisions impact a household, what are the considerations? How do we communicate and align on making sure that. How I'm using my time and my partner's using their time, actually sort of it works, you know, it works for the family.
- [37:34]
Laura Vanderkam
I think the leisure should be fair, and that is best done through intentional Conversations. And the re. The thing is, a lot of people don't plan their family and leisure time intentionally. And so you do wind up defaulting to perhaps one parent doing more of the background childcare while the other person feels free to come and go as they wish. And yes, that will build resentment very quickly, but it doesn't have to look like that. You know, I mentioned earlier that I think everybody should have something in their life that is not work and is not caring for family members. One of the best ways to do this is have each partner in a two parent household get to take one night for you, right? Party A gets Tuesday night, Party B gets Thursday night. And each of you gets to do what you want on your night off from, from caregiving. And it is the other person's responsibility to cover it. And if for some reason they can't, it is that person's responsibility to find other coverage because it is their night. Now I understand that not all families can make this work for various reasons, but if you are in a situation where one party really has trouble covering for whatever reason I think it is, it definitely should be a household decision to hire additional help for that. That still party A can still get their time off, you know, regardless of party B doing what they are are doing, you know. So for instance, my choir, we have a slightly different setup now. But what it was always for years is my choir is on Thursday nights and so our sitter stays late on Thursday nights and often my husband will be there and then he can either go to the gym or he can let her go home early. But I didn't want it to be a situation where he was stuck in traffic. And I was pissed off, right, that I wasn't making it to my rehearsal on time. And you know, again now we have older kids, so it's not the same. Same thing, but with weekends as well. If one party wants to golf for three hours, that's great. That party should also cover three hours for the other person to do something. And that should be, you know, a decision as you are planning out your week and planning like when this is going to happen. Like if the golf game is moving then you know, either like I'm not sure if that's a great idea because then it makes it hard to plan for. But if it is, that needs to be set well ahead of time so the other party can get their three hours around that. Now people are like, well, we like to spend weekend time together, great. There's a lot of time on the weekend. Like there are 60 hours between 6pm Friday and 6am Monday morning. Like each of you takes three hours for your own thing, trading off of who is covering with the kids. Like, you'd still have a ton of other hours. I think that's like 30 waking hours. Right. If you, you know, are sleeping eight hours a night, so that's still 30 hours. You can do family stuff together, but each of you is going to get a break. But it won't happen unless you're having an intentional discussion of.
- [40:21]
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- [40:22]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
Yeah. And a word to the young. You know, you got time on your side. You can stay up all night and get three hours of sleep. I mean, that's. These are your years to really take and run with, I think. You know, I sometimes fool myself. Talk about realistic, rational. I sometimes I'm like, oh, I'll just. I'll pick up the work after my kids go to bed at like 9pm and I used to be able to do that for a pretty long streak. I was good at just like, I wrote my last book entirely between the hours of 9pm and 1am them
- [40:54]
Laura Vanderkam
we get older, we. We have less energy. I don't know. Yeah, know your body.
- [40:58]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
I'm telling you as somebody that, you know, this is again, my word of wise to the young people. Like, get it all in now. I mean, you can certainly. There's. There's a lot of good stuff waiting for you in your midlife, but, you know, your time budget is going to change. You're kind of like, you're, you're. I don't know how to explain it. What's the word? Like, you're. Your energy is going to change throughout the day. So name you now more of a morning person. Although I'm not really a morning person still.
- [41:24]
Laura Vanderkam
Well, as we get older and we get further along in our careers, we can sort of set our hours in a more limited way and still know that we're going to get stuff done within it, you know, which is. Which is great. And, and put in the, Put in the effort early and it pays off later.
- [41:39]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
I remember I was in my 20s and I was like, gonna go do a TV hit. I was single. I didn't have any responsibilities other than myself. I felt so overwhelmed. And I met a mom on the my of side set who had a, you know, big career, big family, big life. I was like, how do you do it? Like, I am one person and I'm struggling. She's like, you'll figure it out. You will. You'll figure it out. You know what? She was right. You know, you figure it out. You also figure out what needs to get done and what can wait. You you realize like just how much needs to get done. You don't have to go overboard in some cases. Some cases you do. Like, you just get a better sense of managing expectations too, when you're older. And so that's what I mean by gets better.
- [42:21]
Laura Vanderkam
Yeah.
- [42:22]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
But yeah, I wish I could still stay up a little bit later than
- [42:25]
Laura Vanderkam
of course, of course.
- [42:27]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
Laura Vanderkam, Laura Vanderkam. Thank you so much Big Time everybody. A Simple Path to Time Abundance Congratulations.
- [42:35]
Laura Vanderkam
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
- [42:39]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Thanks so much to Laura Vanderkamp.
- [42:41]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
Her book Big Time A Simple Picture
- [42:43]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Path to Time Abundance, hits shelves this week.
- [42:46]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
I'll see you back here on Wednesday
- [42:47]
Farnoosh Tarabi
with Mrs. Dow Jones, who's got her
- [42:49]
Interviewer (Farnoosh Tarabi)
own book out this week.
- [42:51]
Farnoosh Tarabi
Be sure you hit that subscribe button so you get that episode as soon as it lands. I hope your day is so money.
- [43:10]
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