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It's about time (and finding it)

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QUICK SPIN:

• The Sanity tax
• 7 hacks that save me 10 hours a week
• 4 Part Exercise: The calendar audit

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♟️ MY TURN:

Over the past decade of being a parent and navigating a divorce while juggling taking a public company private, raising 2 rounds of VC capital, selling a startup and, most recently, leaving my 9-5 to start five solopreneur revenue streams….

I’ve had to learn a lot about the laws of trading time and money.

Trading time for money: Sometimes I trade time for money.

Examples:

• CMO Consulting work
• 1:1 Coaching calls
• Creating exclusive content for my membership community

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​Trading money for time: Sometimes I trade my money for time. I spend my money to get time back.

Examples:

• Hiring an assistant (no longer have one but did during the pandemic)
• Hiring specialists to do things that would take me far too long to learn and understand (usually if there is development or engineering involved)
• Outsourcing tasks in my personal life to free up time with my kids

Today’s newsletter is all about getting + buying back time.

When you spend money to buy back time, my therapist has coined this the “sanity tax”.

Sanity Tax: Paying someone else to do something that drives you crazy.

Not sure if you should outsource something?

Ask yourself these 5 questions:

• What’s something you put off doing because of the amount of time it takes you?
• How many hours do you think about doing it without doing it?
• Could you pay someone to learn how to do it?
• Could they do it repeatedly?
• How much is my time worth?

(Value of Time) X (Hours spent thinking/doing it) = Sanity Tax

These questions and formula have led to me outsourcing the following things:

• Laundry and deep cleaning the house: The laundry would sit in piles for days and I'd think about it all the time.
• Wrapping christmas presents: takes me hours and I hate doing it / not good at it.
• Grocery shopping: I use Amazon - Whole Foods shopper 2x a month - saves me so much time because the list is saved, I cook the same meals every week and I just place “reorder”.
• Paying bills: Every month I have my old assistant who I trust go through all my bills and pay them. I pay for her time as well as a 20% cut on any savings she gets me. (yes, many bills are negotiable if you have the time - something I learned from the book Never Pay the First Bill)

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I know not everyone can spend additional money right now so I also wanted to share 7 FREE hacks that save me 20+ hours a week.

7 hacks that save me 20 hours a week

HACK #1: No email before 10am

Being able to focus on the deep work I need to accomplish to move my goals forward is key to my success and email is the #1 time suck for anyone looking to work on a big project.

If you sit down and open your inbox first thing in the day, you will automatically lose 2 hours. The brain is now wired for that dopamine hit of refreshing to see who has emailed you and what they need.

Email is like sugar for the brain.
Once you get a quick hit, it’s hard to stop.

Time saved: 2 hours a day

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​HACK #2: Gmail templates

I have 20+ responses already created in Gmail.

Over time you see patterns of things people ask you. Saving your responses as templates will save you the cognitive load and typing time of replying to similar emails.

Time saved: 45 mins a day

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​HACK #3: Calendly

I have blocks of time during my weeks that are specifically allocated to meetings. Batching them together allows me to have as much free time as possible for writing and bigger creative thinking.

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Every meeting has a blast radius. A meeting in the middle of the afternoon is likely to defer a task that needs hours of unbroken concentration.

I use Calendly to schedule all my meetings (which are already created in a gmail template)

Time saved: 4 hours a week in scheduling and context wasted time between scattered meetings

HACK #4: Be a robot

Think of your brain like a gas tank. The more decisions you make, the more gas you use.

• I have 3 work outfits I recycle.
• I eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch everyday.
• I keep the same workout schedule every week.

Not having to think is the best way to save time….. and brain power.

Time saved: 30 mins a day

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​HACK #5: Tab control

I used to spend 20-30 minutes a day just switching around finding tabs that I had opened.

Then I found the power of naming tabs.

Step 1: Simply open a Chrome window and right click in the upper right hand corner.

Step 2: Name your tab

I always have the following 4 windows named and open:

1. Email
2. To Do
3. Social
4. Office Hours

Time saved: 20 mins a day

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HACK #6: 20 minute meetings

Every task expands to the time you allocate to it. That’s Parkinson’s Law.

If you have 4 meetings a day that are normally 30 mins and you cut them down to 20? You’ve saved 40 mins a day….almost 3 hours a week! That’s 3 workouts you could get in….3 long walks……3 hours to binge watch Ted Lasso.

Time saved: 40 mins a day

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​HACK #7: Power Hour

• When was my last dentist visit?
• I need to call and cancel that subscription.
• Do we need more paper towels?

Does this sound like your brain?
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I call these “mosquito tasks” that buzz around my brain and add to our distracted context switching throughout the day.

So I created a concept called “Power Hour”.

I keep a Power Hour list in my phone notes app. Every time a mosquito task flies in, I write it down and go right back to what I was doing.

Every week I have a block of time on Friday afternoon when my brain is headed into weekend mode. I knock out as many tasks as possible (it feels almost like a game at this point).

Batching these tasks together reduces the cognitive load we feel when we just keep pushing them off “hoping” we remember to do them later.

Time saved: 30 mins a day ​
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♟️ YOUR TURN:

The below is a 4 step exercise I use in coaching when someone says “I don’t have enough time.” This 20 minutes a day activity will save you 20 hours a week. I promise.

What you need:

• Paper + pen
• 20 minutes a day

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Step 1: Record Activities

Set a timer on your phone for 10am, 2pm, 5pm, 8pm.

Document all your activities for the past few hours. Include meetings, email time, deep work, social media scrolling, leisure time, and any unexpected events or calls.

Use a simple calendar or a notebook to jot down each activity and its duration.

Should take 5 mins each.
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Step 2: Categorize Your Tasks

Organize your recorded activities into categories such as email, meetings, deep work, personal, social, and self-care.

Example:

• Email: Blue
• Meetings: Yellow
• Scrolling: Red
• Deep Work: Green
• Relaxing: Purple
• Kid time: Orange
• Exercise: Pink

This step helps you identify the areas where you invest the most time and those that may need adjustment.

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​Step 3: Identify Time Wasters

Look at the colors.
The more color switching, the less efficient your schedule.

Look at how many times you switch from deep work to scrolling and identify the following:

• Are there patterns in when you switch the most?
• What is happening during that time? More meetings?
• What's stopping you from doing deep work?
• What categories do you want to get more attention?
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Step 4: Create Time Blocks

As you head into the next week, based on your audit, create dedicated time blocks and try to stick to them as much as possible.

Sample schedule:

7-8am Me time
8-10am Deep work
10am Email
11am Workout + Lunch
1-4pm Meetings
4pm Email
5pm Family time
7-9pm Me time

A reminder: Control your calendar or someone else will.

Hope this was helpful!!

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♟️ Let's Win Together.

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