‘Moving out of defence and into offence is critical’ for our time

Why did you write a book about time and boosting productivity?

A few months ago, I interviewed one of my psychology heroes - Professor Richard Wiseman - for my podcast How I Work. He recalled how he'd had asked a famous magician about what he wanted his audiences to say after a show. The magician said that most performers want audiences to say, 'You were great'. But for this magician, it was the worst thing. He wanted people to say, 'Thank you. You gave me something'.

So my reason for writing Time Wise was to give people something. Perhaps it will be a strategy that helps them find more joy in their work. Maybe it's a tip that will help them get things done in less time. But above all, I hope that Time Wise makes people think more intentionally about how they use the hours in their day. Given time is the one thing we can't get more of, I hope that my book helps people use theirs more wisely.

Are we as workers/parents/family members/friends genuinely busier than in the past?

I don't think that we are busier, but I do think that compared with say 10 years ago, busy-ness is more of a badge of honour. Indeed, saying that you are busy has become the default answer to 'how are you?' If we are busy, it means we are in demand, popular, relied on by other people. But we should not aspire to be busy. Instead, we should aspire to be more intentional with how we use the hours we all have in each day.

On your website you describe yourself as a 'total science nerd' which means that everything you 'speak and write about is backed by scientific evidence and tonnes of data' – could you tell me a bit more about the evidence you drew on for Time Wise?

Oh gosh – there are 11 pages worth of references listed at the end of Time Wise, primarily from top tier psychology journals.

What are the key pitfalls most people make when it comes to managing their time?

When it comes to a standard work week, most of us play defence. Meetings are scheduled in our diaries by co-workers, the emails we receive determine our priorities throughout the day, and everything that people want from us feels urgent. Days feel like an ongoing game of Whac-A-Mole – but not in that 'I'm having fun at a fairground' kind of way. Taking control of your calendar and moving out of defence and into offence is critical to make the best use of our days. 

Are there one or two key things most people can do to stop from being 'reactive' to 'proactive' with their time?

My favourite strategy for being more proactive with our days is to work to our individual chronotype. Your chronotype is the natural 24-hour sleep-wake cycle that influences the peaks and troughs of your energy throughout the day. People typically fall into one of three categories: Larks (stereotypical morning people who do their best thinking in the hours prior to lunch), Owls (people who come to life at night), and Middle Birds (who follow the pattern of a Lark, albeit delayed by a couple of hours).

Aim to structure your workday based on your chronotype [you can find assessments online] to help you decide when you should be doing your most focused and deepest work, and when you should be doing less cognitively demanding work. I am a Lark so I rarely accept meetings before lunch because I know I get my best thinking done between around 8-11am.

You interviewed a lot of people for this book: are there one or two key tips that you personally have used and what are they?

For making quick decisions about requests made on my time, I love author and athlete Turia Pitt's Next Tuesday Rule, whereby I ask myself, how would I feel about this 'thing' I am being asked to do if it were happening next Tuesday? If the answer is anything less than very excited, I say 'no'. This strategy helps to overcome the bias that things in the distant future seem more appealing than things happening in the short term. 

I really liked the idea of the 'to-don't' list, can you tell us a bit about that and how it could help people time wise?

There is so much talk about to-do lists in productivity circles. But here's the thing: none of us, even the highly efficient, will ever get to the end of our to-do list. We are constantly adding to them. Yet given time is a finite resource, writing a list of things we don't want to do can be just as productive.

Create your own to-don't list by reflecting on the month that has just gone and ask yourself what de-energised or deflated you most during this period in both your personal and professional life. You might consider daily habits (such as checking social media), people you saw (who perhaps felt like human Dementors, sucking the life out of you), or things you said 'yes' to but later regretted.

Create a list of things you will not do the following month. Keep this list in eyesight of your desk to act as a constant reminder. In subsequent months, review how you went sticking to your to-don't list, what served you and what didn't. You can add or subtract items based on your reflections of what and who sucked up your energy and could thus benefit from being removed from the following month.

You've highlighted a number of tips and tricks in the book – do you have a favourite and why?

I love Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur Kevin Rose's rubber band trick. This is a great one for people who want to reduce the number of times they mindlessly check their mobile phone every day (for the average person, it's around 200 times). To reduce pick-ups, tie a rubber band around your phone. This puts a physical barrier in the way to checking it (you'll need to take off the band to unlock your phone). It's such a simple yet effective hack, and for Kevin, it reduced the number of times he picked up his phone every day from 100 down to 30.