Excellence University Journal

STEAM Tip: Time Perception

by Dr. Brian Higley

December 23rd, 2009

If there are any goals that you are struggling to complete on time or at high levels of quality, you may benefit from thinking about how much time you believe that you have for completing activities that can help you to achieve these goals.  If you do not perceive enough time to achieve a certain goal, you may wish to think about how to set the goal in a way that is more sensitive to your time constraints.  Here are some ways in which to do so.

• Be flexible with activity duration.  Sometimes, we can get caught up in “all-or-none” thinking, where we decide that if we do not have time for the entire activity, then it is not worth doing the activity (or portions of the activity) at all.  This can impeded progress greatly; spending 15 minutes a day on an activity adds up to 5,475 minutes a year (or, about 90 hours per year).  In other words, dedicating even 15 minutes per day to something can result in spending around two work weeks’ worth of time (i.e., 8-9 hour days, five days a week) on the activity per year!  With this in mind, you can goal-set to be more flexible with your activity duration.  For example, the goal “Talk with John for one hour a week,” could be changed to a goal like this if you are struggling to find a full 60 minutes on a weekly basis: “Talk with John for between 15-60 minutes per week depending on my time constraints.”  This way, you will be more likely to be able to achieve the goal of a weekly phone meeting even if you only have 15 minutes instead of the normal 60 minutes during a given week.
• Be flexible with activity frequency.  The all-or-none mindset mentioned above can also apply to activity frequency.  For example, if the weekly call to John discussed in the previous paragraph cannot happen, some may decide that they just do not have the time for regular phone calls with John.  Of course, this is not true; not having time every week for something does not necessarily mean that the activity cannot happen regularly on a bi-weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis.  If you are flexible with your activity frequency, you can decide to goal-set in a way that affirms this by replacing a goal like this one: “Talk with John for between 15-60 minutes per week depending on my time constraints,” to a goal like this if you are struggling to find time for a call on a weekly basis: “Talk with John for between 15-60 minutes 1-4 times per month depending on my time constraints.”
• Be an “effective waiter” (if possible, perform portions of the activity while waiting for something).  Most of us have to wait for a certain amount of time every week (and, if you are like me, you do not like to wait in lines and/or on the phone — or even for commercials to end for a favorite show or sporting event to resume).  “Effective waiters” are those who expand their time perception by using their wait times to move a step closer to the accomplishment of goals.  You can become a more effective waiter by goal-setting in a way that reminds you to use your waiting times to move closer to the achievement of your goals by replacing goals like this one: “Talk with John for between 15-60 minutes 1-4 times per month depending on my time constraints,” to a goal like this: “Talk with John for between 15-60 minutes 1-4 times per month depending on my time constraints (during times when I am waiting for something when necessary).”  Of course, many times we wait for things for shorter durations than 15-60 minutes (e.g., 2-3 minutes waiting for commercials to end or to talk to a representative from a company we are calling).  Effective waiters can even use this time via goals like this one: “Read 1-2 paragraphs of that book I’ve been meaning to read during all commercial breaks during my favorite show/sporting event.”  You may think that this amount of time won’t result in much progress, but remember this stat when in doubt: five 3-minute commercial breaks during a 1-2 hour show result in 15 minutes per day (and, as stated above, 15 minutes per day results in about two work weeks’ worth of time on an activity at the end of a given year).  You may wish to make an “effective waiter” list (a list of activities that can be done in 2-3 minute segments) to remind yourself of all of the small but useful things that you can do when you are forced to wait for something.
• Allocate your time based on priorities and values.  Sometimes, we can perceive no time for certain important activities because we are spending too much time on less important activities.  We can minimize the risk of spending too much time on less important things by (a) clarifying what is most important (e.g., family, career, friends, health, community), what is less important (certain phone calls, certain projects, certain parties), and what is not at all important (e.g., complaining without action, excessive worrying, wishing that others were different) and (b) setting goals that remind us to live our values like this: “Review what is most important to me weekly and make sure that I spend most of my time on activities associated with my objectives and values.”  (NOTE: For those who have completed Phase I of the STEAM Training Manual, you can do this by reviewing the activity categories in the “Living Your Priorities” exercise weekly and thinking about how strongly any new activity is aligned with your most important objectives in life.  If the new activity is more powerfully aligned with your objectives in life than some of the activities that you currently spend time on, you can decrease time spent on these activities to open up more time for the new activity [spending even three fewer minutes on five less important activities will get you to the 15 minutes per day — and around two work weeks’ worth of time per year — discussed above].  If the new activity is not very strongly aligned with your most important objectives in life, you may wish to avoid committing to it or committing to engaging in the new activity when waiting for something — as an “effective waiter” would do, as mentioned above — and/or  when there is not much else that needs to be done.)

FINAL NOTE: If you were linked to this article by a video or email, please return to that link and proceed with any other instructions that you deem helpful.  If you are using the Mission Fulfillment System to identify and track goal achievement, please keep this article in mind when you develop and/or modify your goals on the system. For more articles related to improving STEAM, see our Self-Mastery, Interpersonal Expertise, and Mission Connection tips.

Article Filed under: 2. Time Perception Tips