Save Time: Don’t Read This 😂

What I Do, How I Do It, and Why

Everyone keeps asking me how I get everything done.

“You must have a clone!”

“Do you sleep?”

“How do you do it all!?”

I usually laugh awkwardly because obviously I don’t have a clone, I do sleep (usually 7-8 hours but I can fully function on 4 or more), and I don’t do it all – at least, not all at once.

The bigger question to start with is why.

Why do I do it all? I feel the pressure of time running out. Constantly. The why informs the how.

I know some people don’t really confront their own mortality until old age. I confronted it at 25 years old. I’ve written about this a lot, but my college roommate and best friend Stacey Sanders died on 9/11. Before that day, time felt like a luxury; I could lounge, stretch my arms and legs, luxuriate in the abundance of life ahead, like I was sunbathing at the beach.

After she died, that all changed. Suddenly I was in the cold plunge.

Once I’d spent the day going through her belongings in the apartment she shared with our mutual good friend Sarah, packing up her unfinished business school applications and putting them in boxes, holding her clothes up and trying to process how she’d never wear them again, and deconstructing her entire existence one item, one box at a time, I changed my point of view forever.

(I also now think about whoever will be packing up my belongings whenever I buy something – which often stops me from buying it at all.)

I learned right then that at any moment I could go, too. Poof. Done. Obliterated from the earth. Or, at best, from natural causes in a few decades.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about post-traumatic growth. The scientific community has now identified what anyone who has gone through anything already knows. Laura Gilman sent me a recap of a recent Wall Street Journal article which cited these as the main ways people experience growth after trauma:

• a wellspring of personal strength

• the ability to relate to others more deeply

• an openness to new possibilities

• a greater appreciation of life

• spiritual and existential change

All true. I would add:

• a heightened sense of time ticking

• a deep knowledge that things could end at any second

• a recalibration of priorities

Saving time and being efficient becomes critical when you realize how short life is. Then, it’s about deciding what’s most important to you.

Being productive in and of itself is important to me. Quickly responding to all my teammates’ emails is important to me so I don’t hold up anyone’s work. Picking my kids up from school is important to me. But is the third-grade cocktail party important? Maybe not. But being a part of my school’s community is.

The other night I was supposed to go to a party in L.A. that I was really looking forward to, but attending would require taking a red eye back to New York. I had to ask myself (and Kyle): Is this event worth sleeping on a plane for? Frankly, almost nothing is worth sleeping on a plane for. So, I made my decision.

I also allocate my time constantly.

Take now, for instance. I’m on a two-hour flight from Chicago to Denver. Every flight time is like an automatic timer being set off that I race against. My fingers fly on the keyboard. I strategize. I think about how much I can do and how to divide my time. 30 minutes of email. Write my essay. Read a book. Watch an in-flight movie? Not a chance.

But crazy enough, I like it this way. I’m not particularly happy relaxing. (Is that weird?) I feel much more at ease having a lot to do and doing it than doing nothing. I’d much rather be overwhelmed than bored – and I get bored easily.

Time management is really just about efficient decision-making. It’s having a framework in place so you know what to spend time and how much. It’s admitting what you’re good at and what you aren’t, what you can outsource and what you can’t. It’s always being aware that you’re spending time doing something (“I’ve spent 20 minutes reading this magazine;” “I’ve spent 15 minutes on that Halloween costume”), working backwards, and making sure you’ve saved enough time for other things.

Here’s what I prioritize (but you should make your own list):

·      Quickly responding to emails and texts.

·      Spending as much time as possible with my kids on my custody days.

·      Answering my kids' Facetimes, calls, texts, emails, and anything else they need including making appointments, playdates, and everything else.

·      Being prepared for my podcast interviews.

·      Reading. Selecting great books to cover and recommend.

·      Writing, from a newsletter to an Instagram caption to a novel.

·      Building my brand and all that comes with that down to proofing every social media post or piece of collateral, sometimes designing it myself.

·      Coming up with ideas and starting new things.

·      Keeping in touch with my friends in some way, even a heart on Instagram.

·      Showing my love for my husband and my family in whatever form that takes.

·      Trying to help others and give back through my work.

·      New! Going to the doctor and taking care of my health.

·      Instagram. Staying in touch with and building my community, responding to DMs.

·      Thanking people who do something to help me.

·      Reading the newspapers (in print) and other industry news items so I don’t miss anything.

·      Being part of my communities.

Here’s what I don’t:

·      Almost everything else

·      Cooking

·      PTA meetings

·      Board meetings (I know, I should go but…)

·      Endless coffees and lunch dates with friends (I find I have more time to do this in L.A.!) and meetings lots of new people who want to connect (I’d love to but…)

·      Exercise (I walk – good enough)

·      Shopping (hate it)

·      Clothes/fashion (I get dressed in two minutes)

·      Skin care (again, two minutes)

·      Making photo albums (I pay my kids per album to do it for me)

Your list might look totally different. But I know what I want to make time for now so my decision-making is easier and I save time.

Other things I do to get it all done:

·      Constantly allocate time for certain things and schedule it out in my head. For example: I’m going to write an essay for an hour. Now I’ll email for 30 minutes. Now I’ll prep for a podcast for an hour. Then, I stay to the allocation time.

·      Use every available second all day.

·      Type quickly.

·      Read quickly. I’ve taught myself how to skim/speed-read when I need to.

·      Write quickly without belaboring every sentence and edit later.

·      Hire really smart people to help with things.

·      Set an alarm on Instagram to tell me when I’ve spent an hour and then stop.

·      Add bookmarks to my browsers so I can find things more easily.

·      Sort books I’m evaluating by publication month.

·      Set timers on my phone even just to pack for 10 minutes.

·      Email management is a separate beast, but constant upkeep saves time. If my inbox is up to 300 emails, I’ll spend a couple hours straight plowing through it even if I have to get up really early or stay up late to finish it. During a catch-up session, I sort all my inboxes alphabetically in one on Apple Mail and start at “A” but after a few letters are done (“I’m up to ‘D’!”) I work my way up from “Z,” and then switch back and forth a few times until I finish.

·      Only dry my hair a couple times a week, not every day, and only spend five minutes on it.

·      Stop myself if I realize I’ve spent too long, say, designing a book cover we won’t end up using.

·      Only focus on some things some times. (“I can’t think about that right now!”)

I’m lucky that my default mode is super speed, but I still have to be intentional about what I’m doing, for how long, and when. And I always keep my “why” in mind.

Are there two of me? No. But there is the me who existed before a tragic, sudden loss and the me who came after. And those two are definitely not the same.

I’m racing against time.

We all are.