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.
Ko ljudje izvejo, da pišem o upravljanju s časom, predvidevajo dve stvari. Prva je, da sem vedno točna, in nisem. Imam štiri majhne otroke in rada bi jih okrivila za moje občasno zamujanje, a včasih pač ni njihova krivda. Enkrat sem zamudila na lasten govor o upravljanju s časom.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
We all had to just take a moment together and savor that irony.
Vsi smo si morali vzeti trenutek in uživati v tej ironiji.
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 --
Druga stvar pa je, da predvidevajo, da sem polna nasvetov in trikov, kako prihraniti drobce časa tu in tam. Včasih to slišim od revij, ki pišejo članek v tem stilu, ponavadi o tem, kako naj bralci v svojem dnevu najdejo dodatno uro časa. Ideja je, da bomo z vsakodnevnih aktivnosti odbili drobce časa, jih združili in imeli bomo čas za nekaj dobrega. Dvomim v celotno predpostavko tega članka, a me vedno zanima, česa so se domislili, preden so me poklicali. Nekaj mojih najljubših: opravki, pri katerih se obračaš samo v desno -
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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.
Biti zelo preudaren pri uporabi mikrovalovke: če na embalaži piše od tri minute do tri in pol, absolutno ciljamo na spodnjo mejo. In moja najljubša, ki je na nek način celo smiselna, je, da posnamete svoje najljubše oddaje, da lahko prevrtite naprej skozi reklame. Tako prihranite osem minut vsake pol ure, tako v dveh urah gledanja televizije, najdete 32 minut za telovadbo. (Smeh)
(Laughter)
Kar je res.
Which is true. You know another way to find 32 minutes to exercise? Don't watch two hours of TV a day, right?
Veste, kako lahko še najdete 32 minut za telovadbo? Ne glejte televizije 2 uri na dan, ok?
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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.
Kakorkoli, ta ideja, da bomo prihranili čas tu in tam, ga združili, in se končno lotili vsega, kar želimo. A ko raziščemo, kako uspešni ljudje preživljajo svoj čas in pogledamo njihov urnik uro za uro, menim, da je ta ideja popolnoma napačna. Življenja, ki ga hočemo, ne zgradimo s tem, da prihranimo čas. Zgradimo življenje, kot ga hočemo, in čas se prihrani sam.
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.
Tole mislim. Nedavno sem naredila projekt dnevnika in pogledala 1001 dan v življenju zelo zaposlenih žensk. Imele so zahtevne službe, včasih svoja podjetja, skrbele so za otroke, morda tudi za starše, obveznosti v skupnosti - zelo zaposlene osebe. Sledila sem njihovemu času en teden, da bi lahko seštela, koliko časa so delale in spale, in jih intervjuvala o njihovih strategijah za mojo knjigo.
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.
Ena izmed žensk, ki sem jo preučevala, gre v sredo zvečer po opravkih. Ko pride domov ugotovi, da se ji je pokvaril bojler in voda je poplavila celo klet. Če se vam je že kdaj zgodilo kaj takega, veste, da je to grozna mokra zmeda, ki povzroči veliko škode. Tako se s trenutno škodo ukvarja tisto noč, naslednji dan pridejo vodovodarji, naslednji dan čistilci, ki se ukvarjajo z uničeno preprogo. In to se zapiše v njen dnevnik. Na koncu ji vzame sedem ur v tednu. Sedem ur. To je, kot če bi našli dodatno uro na dan.
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.
A prepričana sem, če bi jo vprašali na začetku tedna: "Bi lahko našla sedem ur, da bi trenirala za triatlon?" "Bi lahko našla sedem ur za mentorstvo sedmim ljudem?" Sem prepričana, da bi rekla enako kot večina izmed nas, in sicer, "Ne - kaj ne vidiš, kako sem zaposlena?" A ko je morala najti sedem ur, ker je imela klet polno vode, jih je našla. In to nam pokaže, da je čas izredno elastičen. Ne moremo narediti več časa, a čas se bo raztegnil, da bo prostor za tisto, kar damo vanj.
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?
In ključ do tega upravljanja s časom je, da obravnavamo naše prioritete kot enakovredne tistemu pokvarjenemu bojlerju. Da se tega lotim, rada uporabim jezik ene od najbolj zaposlenih oseb, kar sem jih intervjuvala. S tem mislim, da je imela manjše podjetje z 12 zaposlenimi, v prostem času pa 6 otrok. Stopila sem v kontakt z njo, da bi naredila intervju, kako "ji vse uspeva" - ta fraza. Bilo je četrtkovo jutro in ni bila na voljo za pogovor. Normalno, kajne? A razlog, da ni bila na voljo za pogovor z mano,
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.
je bil, da je šla na pohod, ker je bilo lepo pomladno jutro in želela si je na pohod. Seveda sem bila potem še bolj radovedna in ko sva se končno ujeli, mi je takole pojasnila. Pravi: "Poslušaj, Laura, vse, kar počnem, kako preživim vsako minuto, je moja odločitev." In namesto, da bi rekla, "Nimam časa za x, y, ali z" reče, "Ne delam x, y ali z, ker ni prioriteta." "Nimam časa", pogosto pomeni, "Ni prioriteta." In ko pomisliš, je tako bolj točno. Lahko bi rekla, da nimam časa za brisanje prahu z žaluzij, a to ni res. Če bi mi ponudili 100.000 $, da jih obrišem, bi to storila precej hitro. (Smeh)
(Laughter)
Ker pa se to ne bo zgodilo,
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.
lahko priznam, da ne gre za pomanjkanje časa, tega pač nočem početi. Z uporabo tega jezika se spomnimo, da imamo izbiro. In seveda, drugačnim odločitvam lahko sledijo grozne posledice, to priznam. A smo pametni in dolgoročno imamo moč, da zapolnimo življenja s stvarmi, ki si zaslužijo, da so tam.
So how do we do that? How do we treat our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater?
Kako torej to storimo? Kako obravnavati prioritete kot enakovredne pokvarjenemu bojlerju?
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.
Najprej moramo ugotoviti, kakšne so. Želim vam dati dve strategiji za to. Najprej glede profesionalne strani. Prepričana sem, da vas veliko konec leta daje in dobiva letne ocene dela. Pogledate nazaj na uspehe preteklega leta, na "priložnosti za razvoj." In to služi svojemu namenu, a menim, da je bolj učinkovito, če gledamo naprej. Želim, da se pretvarjate, da je konec naslednjega leta. Sebi pišete letno oceno in za vas je bilo to leto na profesionalnem področju neverjetno. Katerih pet stvari ste naredili, da je bilo tako neverjetno? Zato si lahko sedaj napišete oceno za letos.
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.
Enako lahko naredite za zasebno življenje. Prepričana sem, da mnogi izmed vas, tako kot jaz, decembra dobite kartice, v katerih so zloženi listi pisanega papirja, na katerih je napisano družinsko praznično pismo.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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.
Precej klavrn literarni žanr, v katerem opisuje, kako neverjetni so vsi v gospodinjstvu, ali še boljše, kako so vsi zaposleni. A ta pisma imajo smisel, in to je, da povedo vašim prijateljem in družini, kaj ste pomembnega naredili v osebnem življenju čez leto. To leto je nekako končano, a pretvarjajte se, da je konec naslednjega leta in bilo je absolutno neverjetno leto za vas in za ljudi, ki so vam blizu. Katerih tri do pet stvari ste naredili, da je bilo tako neverjetno? Tako lahko napišete družinsko praznično pismo že zdaj. Ne pošljite ga.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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.
Prosim, ne pošljite ga. Lahko ga pa napišete. Sedaj imamo z oceno dela in družinskim prazničnim pismom seznam šestih do desetih ciljev, na katerih lahko delamo naslednje leto.
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.
In sedaj moramo to razdeliti na izvedljive korake. Morda si želite napisati družinsko zgodovino. Lahko si najprej preberete kakšno drugo, da dobite občutek za stil. Potem se domislite vprašanj za svoje sorodnike, določite datume za intervju. Ali pa si želite preteči 5 km. Najti morate tek in se nanj prijaviti, pripraviti načrt za trening in izkopati čevlje iz zadnjega dela omare. In potem - to je ključno - naše prioritete obravnavamo kot enakovredne pokvarjenemu bojlerju tako, da so prve na urniku. To naredimo tako, da premislimo naše tedne, preden so tu.
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."
Zelo dober čas za to se mi zdi petek popoldne. Petek popoldne je čas, ki bi mu ekonomisti morda rekli čas nizkih oportunitetnih stroškov. Večina nas v petek popoldne ne sedi in pravi: "Navdušen sem, da bom napredoval proti svojim osebnim in profesionalnim prioritetam zdaj."
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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.
A pripravljeni smo pomisliti, kaj bi te lahko bile. Zato si vzemite nekaj časa v petek popoldne, naredite seznam prioritet s tremi kategorijami: kariera, razmerje, jaz. Ko naredimo seznam s tremi kategorijami, nas to opomni, da mora biti nekaj v vseh treh kategorijah. Kariera, na to pomislimo; razmerja, jaz - pa niti ne. A kakorkoli, samo kratek seznam, dve do tri stvari v vsaki. Potem poglej čez celoten naslednji teden, in poglej, kam ji lahko splaniraš.
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.
Kam jih splanirate, je odvisno od vas. Vem, da bo za nekatere to bolj zahtevno kot za druge. S tem mislim, da so življenja nekaterih ljudi težja kot druga. Ne bo lahko najti časa za tečaj poezije, če skrbite za več otrok čisto sami. To razumem. In nočem podcenjevati truda drugih. A mislim, da številke, ki vam jih bom povedala, dajejo moč.
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?
V tednu je 168 ur. Štiriindvajsetkrat sedem je 168 ur. To je veliko časa. Če ste polno zaposleni, torej 40 ur na teden, spite 8 ur na dan, torej 56 ur na teden - nam to pusti 72 ur za druge stvari. To je veliko časa. Če delate 50 ur na teden, morda službo in malo ob strani, vam to pusti 62 ur za druge stvari. Recimo, da delate 60 ur na teden. Tako vam ostane 52 ur za druge stvari. Recimo, da delate več kot 60 ur na teden. Ste prepričani?
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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.
Neka študija je primerjala ocenjene delovne tedne ljudi z njihovimi dnevniki. Ugotovili so, da so ljudje, ki so trdili, da delajo 75 ur in več, bili v zmoti za kakšnih 25 ur.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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.
Lahko si mislite, v katero smer, ne? Kakorkoli, v 168 urah na teden, menim, da lahko najdete čas za tisto, kar vam je pomembno. Če si želite preživeti več časa z otroki, če želite več študirati za izpit, če želite telovaditi tri ure in dve uri volontirati, lahko. In to celo, če delate veliko več kot polni delavnik.
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.
Imamo torej veliko časa, kar je krasno, ker veste kaj? Sploh ne potrebujemo toliko časa, za neverjetne stvari. Ampak ko imamo malo časa, kaj naredimo? Potegnemo ven telefon, kajne? Začnemo brisati e-maile. Ali pa se premikamo po hiši, ali pa gledamo televizijo.
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.
A majhni trenutki imajo lahko veliko moč. Lahko uporabite drobce časa za drobce veselja. Morda, da izberete nekaj lepega za branje na avtobusu na poti v službo. Ko sem imela službo, oddaljeno 2 vožnji z avtobusom in eno s podzemno, vsako jutro, sem šla vsak vikend v knjižnico po nekaj za branje. In celotna izkušnja je bila skoraj, skoraj prijetna. Odmore v službi lahko izkoristite za meditacijo ali molitev. Če družinska večerja odpade zaradi vašega norega delavnika, je morda družinski zajtrk dober nadomestek.
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.
Gre za to, da pogledate na čas kot celoto in vidite, kam lahko gredo dobre stvari. To res verjamem. Čas je. Tudi če smo zelo zaposleni, imamo čas za nekaj, kar je pomembno. Ko se osredotočimo na to, kar je pomembno, zgradimo življenja kot si želimo, s časom, ki ga imamo.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplavz)