A letter from Time-Broke

Where does my time go? Read your week like a bank statement.

If your weeks feel full but you can’t say where the hours went, the problem usually isn’t discipline. It’s that you’ve never seen the numbers. The fix is the same one people use for money: stop guessing, and read the statement.

Why your memory gets it wrong

We remember the week we planned, not the week we had. Time-Broke puts it plainly: “The number you remember spending on the screen is almost always the number you intended to spend, not the number you actually spent.” The same goes for meetings, errands and the drive in between.

Your calendar is a statement, not a plan

Look at last week’s calendar the way you’d look at a bank statement: as a record of what was spent. “A calendar treated as a statement is a record of transactions — the week you actually had.” Then add what the calendar leaves out: the drive, the getting ready, the half hour of recovering afterward. That’s where the surprises are. The book’s example is “A one-hour weekly meeting that actually costs two and a half hours.”

How to read one honest week

Pick seven ordinary days. Start today.
Each evening, take five minutes to write down the day in plain categories: work, sleep, family, getting around, screens, chores, everything else. Use your calendar and your phone’s screen-time report. Don’t estimate when you can check.
For anything recurring, write down its real cost, door to door, including preparation and recovery.
At the end of the week, add it up. You have 168 hours. See which categories surprised you.

Don’t act on it yet

The first impulse is to cut something right away. Wait. “Acting on a single week of receipts is exactly the wrong scale for any move you might be tempted to make.” Read two or three ordinary weeks first. Then you’re ready to budget the hours on purpose instead of guessing.

Next steps

— Andrew

From the books Life Is Not a List and Time-Broke.