When people find out I write about time management, they assume two things. One is that I'm always on time, and I'm not. I have four small children, and I would like to blame them for my occasional tardiness, but sometimes it's just not their fault. I was once late to my own speech on time management.
Ketika mengetahui bahwa saya menulis tentang manajemen waktu, orang-orang biasanya berasumsi dua hal. Pertama, saya selalu tepat waktu, dan kenyataannya tidak. Saya punya empat anak kecil, dan saya ingin menyalahkan mereka jika kadang saya terlambat, tapi kadang itu bukan salah mereka. Saya pernah terlambat berceramah tentang manajemen waktu.
(Laughter)
(Tawa)
We all had to just take a moment together and savor that irony.
Kita harus mengambil waktu sejenak untuk merenungkan ironi itu.
The second thing they assume is that I have lots of tips and tricks for saving bits of time here and there. Sometimes I'll hear from magazines that are doing a story along these lines, generally on how to help their readers find an extra hour in the day. And the idea is that we'll shave bits of time off everyday activities, add it up, and we'll have time for the good stuff. I question the entire premise of this piece, but I'm always interested in hearing what they've come up with before they call me. Some of my favorites: doing errands where you only have to make right-hand turns --
Kedua, mereka berasumsi saya punya banyak tips dan trik untuk meluangkan waktu. Terkadang saya dihubungi majalah yang mengulas topik ini, biasanya untuk membantu pembaca mereka meluangkan waktu. Idenya, kita menghemat sedikit waktu dari setiap kegiatan sehari-hari, kumpulkan semuanya, supaya kita punya waktu untuk hal-hal yang ingin kita lakukan. Saya meragukan logika pemikirannya, tapi saya ingin tahu pendapat mereka sebelum mereka menghubungi saya. Jawaban favorit saya: menghindari belanja di tempat yang melewati lampu merah --
(Laughter)
(Tawa)
Being extremely judicious in microwave usage: it says three to three-and-a-half minutes on the package, we're totally getting in on the bottom side of that. And my personal favorite, which makes sense on some level, is to DVR your favorite shows so you can fast-forward through the commercials. That way, you save eight minutes every half hour, so in the course of two hours of watching TV, you find 32 minutes to exercise.
Bijak dalam menggunakan microwave: di bungkusnya tertulis 3 hingga 3,5 menit, gunakan batas waktu minimum untuk menghemat waktu. Dan favorit saya, yang agak masuk akal, merekam tayangan TV favorit Anda supaya Anda bisa melewati iklan. Anda bisa menghemat 8 menit setiap setengah jam, jadi dari dua jam menonton TV, Anda bisa berolahraga 32 menit.
(Laughter)
(Tawa)
Which is true. You know another way to find 32 minutes to exercise? Don't watch two hours of TV a day, right?
Yang mana benar. Anda tahu cara lain untuk bisa meluangkan 32 menit untuk olahraga? Jangan nonton TV 2 jam sehari, ya kan?
(Laughter)
(Tawa)
Anyway, the idea is we'll save bits of time here and there, add it up, we will finally get to everything we want to do. But after studying how successful people spend their time and looking at their schedules hour by hour, I think this idea has it completely backward. We don't build the lives we want by saving time. We build the lives we want, and then time saves itself.
Jadi idenya adalah menghemat sedikit waktu di sana-sini, kumpulkan semuanya, dan kita bisa melakukan apa yang kita inginkan. Tapi setelah meneliti bagaimana orang sukses memanfaatkan waktu mereka, dan melihat jadwal mereka setiap jam, sepertinya ide ini adalah kebalikannya. Kita tak membangun kehidupan yang kita inginkan dengan menghemat waktu. Kita membangun hidup yang kita inginkan, dan ada waktu yang tersisa.
Here's what I mean. I recently did a time diary project looking at 1,001 days in the lives of extremely busy women. They had demanding jobs, sometimes their own businesses, kids to care for, maybe parents to care for, community commitments -- busy, busy people. I had them keep track of their time for a week so I could add up how much they worked and slept, and I interviewed them about their strategies, for my book.
Saya akan menjelaskannya. Baru-baru ini saya mengerjakan proyek yang mempelajari 1.001 hari kehidupan beberapa wanita super-sibuk. Mereka punya tuntutan karier, kadang bisnis sendiri, mengurus anak, mungkin mengurus orang tua, tanggung jawab di komunitas -- orang-orang super-sibuk. Saya catat kegiatan mereka selama seminggu. Saya hitung waktu kerja dan tidur mereka. Saya tanya strategi mereka untuk buku saya.
One of the women whose time log I studied goes out on a Wednesday night for something. She comes home to find that her water heater has broken, and there is now water all over her basement. If you've ever had anything like this happen to you, you know it is a hugely damaging, frightening, sopping mess. So she's dealing with the immediate aftermath that night, next day she's got plumbers coming in, day after that, professional cleaning crew dealing with the ruined carpet. All this is being recorded on her time log. Winds up taking seven hours of her week. Seven hours. That's like finding an extra hour in the day.
Satu wanita yang jadwalnya saya teliti pergi keluar pada Rabu malam. Saat pulang, pemanas airnya rusak, dan air memenuhi lantai dasar. Kalau Anda pernah mengalami hal serupa, Anda tahu kejadian ini membuat semua berantakan. Jadi, dia mengalami semuanya malam itu. Besoknya, dia memanggil tukang ledeng. Besoknya lagi, dia panggil tukang bersih karpet. Semuanya tercatat dalam diary-nya. Ternyata semua ini memakan waktu tujuh jam. Tujuh jam. Itu seperti mencari tambahan waktu dalam sehari.
But I'm sure if you had asked her at the start of the week, "Could you find seven hours to train for a triathlon?" "Could you find seven hours to mentor seven worthy people?" I'm sure she would've said what most of us would've said, which is, "No -- can't you see how busy I am?" Yet when she had to find seven hours because there is water all over her basement, she found seven hours. And what this shows us is that time is highly elastic. We cannot make more time, but time will stretch to accommodate what we choose to put into it.
Tapi saya yakin jika Anda menanyainya di awal minggu, "Apakah Anda punya waktu tujuh jam untuk berlatih triatlon?" "Apakah Anda punya waktu tujuh jam untuk membimbing tujuh orang berbakat?" Saya yakin Anda tahu jawabannya, "Tidak. Anda tak bisa lihat betapa sibuknya saya?" Tapi saat dia harus mencari tujuh jam karena lantai dasar kebanjiran, dia bisa punya tujuh jam. Ini membuktikan bahwa waktu itu sangat elastis. Kita tak bisa menambah waktu, tapi waktu akan merentang untuk mengakomodir apa yang kita lakukan.
And so the key to time management is treating our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater. To get at this, I like to use language from one of the busiest people I ever interviewed. By busy, I mean she was running a small business with 12 people on the payroll, she had six children in her spare time. I was getting in touch with her to set up an interview on how she "had it all" -- that phrase. I remember it was a Thursday morning, and she was not available to speak with me. Of course, right?
Jadi, kunci manajemen waktu adalah memperlakukan prioritas kita seperti pemanas air rusak itu. Untuk memahaminya, saya akan memakai istilah salah satu orang tersibuk yang saya wawancarai. Dia menjalankan usaha kecil dengan 12 karyawan, dan mengurus enam anak di waktu luang. Saya menghubunginya untuk mengatur jadwal wawancara tentang bagaimana dia "melakukan semuanya". Saya ingat, waktu itu Kamis pagi, dan dia tak bisa bertemu saya. Sibuk, kan?
But the reason she was unavailable to speak with me is that she was out for a hike, because it was a beautiful spring morning, and she wanted to go for a hike. So of course this makes me even more intrigued, and when I finally do catch up with her, she explains it like this. She says, "Listen Laura, everything I do, every minute I spend, is my choice." And rather than say, "I don't have time to do x, y or z," she'd say, "I don't do x, y or z because it's not a priority." "I don't have time," often means "It's not a priority." If you think about it, that's really more accurate language. I could tell you I don't have time to dust my blinds, but that's not true. If you offered to pay me $100,000 to dust my blinds, I would get to it pretty quickly.
Tapi alasannya tak bisa bertemu adalah karena dia mendaki gunung, saat itu musim semi begitu indah, dan dia ingin mendaki. Tentu saja ini membuat saya penasaran, dan saat kami bertemu, dia berkata demikian, "Laura, semua yang saya lakukan, tiap menit yang saya pakai, adalah pilihan saya." Jadi, bukannya berkata, "Saya tak punya waktu untuk x, y, atau z," dia berkata, "Saya tak melakukan x, y, atau z karena itu bukan prioritas." "Saya tak punya waktu," sering berarti "Itu bukan prioritas." Jika dipikir, istilah ini lebih akurat. Saya bisa bilang tak punya waktu membersihkan kerai, tapi itu salah. Jika ditawari $100.000 untuk membersihkannya, saya akan langsung kerjakan.
(Laughter)
(Tawa)
Since that is not going to happen, I can acknowledge this is not a matter of lacking time; it's that I don't want to do it. Using this language reminds us that time is a choice. And granted, there may be horrible consequences for making different choices, I will give you that. But we are smart people, and certainly over the long run, we have the power to fill our lives with the things that deserve to be there.
Karena itu takkan terjadi, saya bisa nyatakan ini bukan masalah kurangnya waktu. Saya hanya tak mau melakukannya. Ini mengingatkan kita bahwa waktu adalah pilihan. Dan benar, mungkin ada konsekuensi buruk karena memilih hal berbeda, dan saya sepakat. Tapi kita cerdas, dan dalam jangka panjang, kita mampu mengisi hidup kita dengan hal-hal penting.
So how do we do that? How do we treat our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater?
Bagaimana melakukannya? Bagaimana melihat prioritas seperti pemanas air yang rusak itu?
Well, first we need to figure out what they are. I want to give you two strategies for thinking about this. The first, on the professional side: I'm sure many people coming up to the end of the year are giving or getting annual performance reviews. You look back over your successes over the year, your "opportunities for growth." And this serves its purpose, but I find it's more effective to do this looking forward. So I want you to pretend it's the end of next year. You're giving yourself a performance review, and it has been an absolutely amazing year for you professionally. What three to five things did you do that made it so amazing? So you can write next year's performance review now.
Pertama, cari tahu apa saja prioritas itu. Saya akan memberi Anda dua strategi. Pertama, dari sisi profesional: Saya yakin banyak orang di akhir tahun memberi atau mendapat ulasan kinerja tahunan. Anda meninjau kesuksesan selama tahun itu, "kesempatan untuk tumbuh" Anda. Ini ada tujuannya, tapi menurut saya, lebih efektif untuk melihat ke depan. Saya ingin Anda berpura-pura ini akhir tahun. Anda mengulas kinerja Anda, dan tahun ini, secara profesional, kinerja Anda sangat luar biasa. Sebutkan tiga sampai lima hal yang membuat hal ini mungkin. Jadi, buat ulasan kinerja untuk tahun mendatang hari ini.
And you can do this for your personal life, too. I'm sure many of you, like me, come December, get cards that contain these folded up sheets of colored paper, on which is written what is known as the family holiday letter.
Ini pun bisa dilakukan untuk kehidupan pribadi. Saya yakin kita semua, saat Desember tiba, mendapat kartu berisi lipatan kertas warna-warni, bertuliskan apa yang disebut surat liburan keluarga.
(Laughter)
(Tawa)
Bit of a wretched genre of literature, really, going on about how amazing everyone in the household is, or even more scintillating, how busy everyone in the household is. But these letters serve a purpose, which is that they tell your friends and family what you did in your personal life that mattered to you over the year. So this year's kind of done, but I want you to pretend it's the end of next year, and it has been an absolutely amazing year for you and the people you care about. What three to five things did you do that made it so amazing? So you can write next year's family holiday letter now. Don't send it.
Semacam genre literatur yang mengenaskan, berisi betapa mengagumkan seluruh penghuni rumah, atau bahkan lebih hebat, betapa sibuknya seluruh penghuni rumah. Tapi surat ini punya tujuan, yaitu memberi tahu teman dan keluarga Anda yang Anda lakukan dalam kehidupan personal, yang penting di tahun itu. Tahun ini hampir berakhir, tapi berpura-puralah ini akhir tahun depan, dan tahun ini sangat luar biasa bagi Anda dan orang-orang yang Anda sayangi. Tiga sampai lima hal apa yang membuat tahun ini luar biasa? Jadi, Anda bisa menulis surat liburan keluarga tahun depan, sekarang. Jangan dikirim.
(Laughter)
(Tawa)
Please, don't send it. But you can write it. And now, between the performance review and the family holiday letter, we have a list of six to ten goals we can work on in the next year.
Tolong, jangan dikirim. Tapi Anda bisa menulisnya. Antara ulasan kinerja dan surat musim liburan, ada daftar enam sampai sepuluh target untuk dikerjakan tahun depan.
And now we need to break these down into doable steps. So maybe you want to write a family history. First, you can read some other family histories, get a sense for the style. Then maybe think about the questions you want to ask your relatives, set up appointments to interview them. Or maybe you want to run a 5K. So you need to find a race and sign up, figure out a training plan, and dig those shoes out of the back of the closet. And then -- this is key -- we treat our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater, by putting them into our schedules first. We do this by thinking through our weeks before we are in them.
Kita perlu memecahnya menjadi langkah-langkah praktis. Mungkin Anda ingin menulis sejarah keluarga. Pertama, Anda bisa baca sejarah keluarga lain, dan memahami gayanya. Lalu, coba pikirkan pertanyaan yang ingin Anda tanyakan ke keluarga, atur jadwal untuk mewawancarai mereka. Atau mungkin mau lari 5 km. Jadi, jika ingin ikut lomba lari, daftar dan rencanakan latihan, keluarkan sepatu dari lemari. Kemudian -- inilah kuncinya -- atur prioritas seperti menghadapi pemanas air yang rusak itu, dengan mendahulukannya. Kita harus memikirkannya jauh sebelum menjalaninya.
I find a really good time to do this is Friday afternoons. Friday afternoon is what an economist might call a "low opportunity cost" time. Most of us are not sitting there on Friday afternoons saying, "I am excited to make progress toward my personal and professional priorities right now."
Waktu yang pas untuk saya adalah Jumat sore. Jumat sore adalah yang disebut ekonom sebagai waktu "bernilai potensi rendah". Kebanyakan orang tak duduk santai di Jumat sore dan berkata, "Saya ingin mengembangkan sisi pribadi dan profesional saya sekarang juga."
(Laughter)
(Tawa)
But we are willing to think about what those should be. So take a little bit of time Friday afternoon, make yourself a three-category priority list: career, relationships, self. Making a three-category list reminds us that there should be something in all three categories. Career, we think about; relationships, self -- not so much. But anyway, just a short list, two to three items in each. Then look out over the whole of the next week, and see where you can plan them in.
Tapi kita mau memikirkan soal itu. Jadi, luangkan sedikit waktu di Jumat sore, buat prioritas untuk tiga kategori: karier, hubungan, diri sendiri. Membuat daftar tiga kategori mengingatkan kita bahwa seharusnya ada sesuatu dalam ketiga kategori ini. Kita memikirkan karier; hubungan dan diri sendiri, tidak terlalu. Tapi, ini hanya daftar singkat, dua - tiga hal per kategori. Lalu siap-siap untuk minggu berikutnya, kapan Anda bisa merencanakannya.
Where you plan them in is up to you. I know this is going to be more complicated for some people than others. I mean, some people's lives are just harder than others. It is not going to be easy to find time to take that poetry class if you are caring for multiple children on your own. I get that. And I don't want to minimize anyone's struggle. But I do think that the numbers I am about to tell you are empowering.
Itu terserah Anda. Saya tahu ini rumit bagi beberapa orang. Hidup beberapa orang lebih keras daripada yang lain. Tidak mudah menemukan waktu untuk mengikuti kelas puisi jika Anda merawat banyak anak seorang diri. Saya tahu itu. Saya tak mau mengecilkan perjuangan siapa pun. Tapi saya pikir angka yang saya sebutkan akan cukup memotivasi.
There are 168 hours in a week. Twenty-four times seven is 168 hours. That is a lot of time. If you are working a full-time job, so 40 hours a week, sleeping eight hours a night, so 56 hours a week -- that leaves 72 hours for other things. That is a lot of time. You say you're working 50 hours a week, maybe a main job and a side hustle. Well, that leaves 62 hours for other things. You say you're working 60 hours. Well, that leaves 52 hours for other things. You say you're working more than 60 hours. Well, are you sure?
Ada 168 jam dalam satu minggu. Dua puluh empat dikali tujuh adalah 168 jam. Banyak waktu. Jika Anda bekerja penuh waktu, ada 40 jam satu minggu, tidur delapan jam per malam, jadi 56 jam per minggu -- yang menyisakan 72 jam untuk hal lain. Ini waktu yang sangat banyak. Misal Anda bekerja 50 jam per minggu, penuh waktu dan sedikit sambilan. Itu menyisakan 62 jam untuk hal lain. Anda bilang bekerja 60 jam. Yah, itu menyisakan 52 jam untuk hal lain. Anda bilang bekerja lebih dari 60 jam. Anda yakin?
(Laughter)
(Tawa)
There was once a study comparing people's estimated work weeks with time diaries. They found that people claiming 75-plus-hour work weeks were off by about 25 hours.
Pernah ada riset, membandingkan perkiraan jam kerja mingguan dengan catatan waktu. Orang yang mengaku kerja lebih dari 75 jam per minggu ternyata selesai dalam waktu 25 jam.
(Laughter)
(Tawa)
You can guess in which direction, right? Anyway, in 168 hours a week, I think we can find time for what matters to you. If you want to spend more time with your kids, you want to study more for a test you're taking, you want to exercise for three hours and volunteer for two, you can. And that's even if you're working way more than full-time hours.
Anda bisa tebak arahnya, kan? Dalam 168 jam per minggu, kita bisa menemukan waktu untuk hal-hal penting bagi Anda. Jika ingin menghabiskan waktu dengan anak-anak, ingin belajar untuk menghadapi ujian, berolahraga tiga jam dan jadi relawan dua jam, Anda bisa. Itu bisa dilakukan bahkan jika kerja Anda lebih lama dari kerja penuh waktu.
So we have plenty of time, which is great, because guess what? We don't even need that much time to do amazing things. But when most of us have bits of time, what do we do? Pull out the phone, right? Start deleting emails. Otherwise, we're puttering around the house or watching TV.
Jadi kita punya banyak waktu, dan ini bagus, karena apa? Kita tak perlu waktu sebanyak itu untuk melakukan hal hebat. Tapi saat kita punya sedikit waktu, apa yang kita lakukan? Mengambil HP, kan? Mulai menghapus surel. Kalau tidak, sibuk dengan pekerjaan rumah atau menonton TV.
But small moments can have great power. You can use your bits of time for bits of joy. Maybe it's choosing to read something wonderful on the bus on the way to work. I know when I had a job that required two bus rides and a subway ride every morning, I used to go to the library on weekends to get stuff to read. It made the whole experience almost, almost, enjoyable. Breaks at work can be used for meditating or praying. If family dinner is out because of your crazy work schedule, maybe family breakfast could be a good substitute.
Tapi momen kecil bisa punya kekuatan besar. Anda bisa gunakan sedikit waktu Anda untuk bersenang-senang. Mungkin membaca di bus dalam perjalanan ke kantor. Dulu saat kerja, saya harus naik bus dua kali, lalu kereta bawah tanah sekali. Saya biasa pinjam buku di perpustakaan di akhir pekan. Ini membuat pengalaman berangkat kerja menyenangkan. Jeda kerja bisa digunakan untuk meditasi atau berdoa. Jika makan malam keluarga terlewat karena padatnya jadwal kerja, mungkin sarapan keluarga bisa jadi ganti yang bagus.
It's about looking at the whole of one's time and seeing where the good stuff can go. I truly believe this. There is time. Even if we are busy, we have time for what matters. And when we focus on what matters, we can build the lives we want in the time we've got.
Ini tentang melihat keseluruhan waktu seseorang dan melihat di mana hal baik bisa terjadi. Saya sangat percaya ini. Selalu ada waktu. Meskipun kita sibuk, ada waktu untuk hal-hal penting. Saat kita fokus pada yang penting, kita bisa membangun hidup yang baik dengan waktu yang ada.
Thank you.
Terima kasih.
(Applause)
(Tepuk tangan)