Ashley Whillans, an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School and author of 'Time Smart,' shares innovative strategies for managing time amid modern challenges. She discusses the concept of 'time poverty' versus 'time affluence,' emphasizing how prioritizing time over money can boost happiness. Whillans introduces techniques like conducting a time audit and reframing tasks to reclaim valuable moments. The conversation also tackles the chaos of 'time confetti' created by technology, encouraging listeners to find balance between work and meaningful leisure.
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Ashley's Journey to Time Research
Ashley Whillans's interest in time research stemmed from her work with Elizabeth Dunn, studying how people mismanage money.
Her focus shifted to time management when she realized her own work-life imbalance was affecting her happiness.
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Time Prioritization and Happiness
People who prioritize time over money report higher happiness levels.
This is linked to how they spend their time, often choosing intrinsically motivating activities.
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Conducting a Time Audit
Conduct a time audit by analyzing a typical workday, identifying meaningful and stressful activities.
Eliminate, delegate, or reframe non-meaningful, unpleasant tasks.
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This book addresses the issue of time poverty, where four out of five adults feel they have too much to do and not enough time. Author Ashley Whillans provides proven strategies for improving time management, including assessments, checklists, and activities to help readers make a mindset shift. The book highlights the negative effects of time stress on happiness, health, productivity, and relationships, and offers practical advice on outsourcing time-consuming tasks, managing technology, and making time-savvy decisions to enhance overall well-being.
For many of us, in this pandemic, our relationship to time has become particularly fraught. You may be noticing that, with no limits on your work time, you are going into overdrive and feeling more crazed than ever. Or you may be feeling like you have too much time and are bored out of your mind. Or you may be feeling both. My guest, Ashley Whillans, is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School and author of the book Time Smart. She was recommended to us by a former guest, Laurie Santos, a professor from Yale and host of The Happiness Lab podcast. Ashley has a radical approach to managing your time -- or taking your time, to put a new spin on an old cliche. Her goal is to get you from a state of "time poverty" to "time affluence." In this conversation, we talk about: how to do a time audit; funding time, finding time, and reframing time; the surprising extent to which prioritizing time over money predicts happiness -- and what to do if you usually do the opposite; how to handle "time confetti"; and the value of canceling meetings. This is the first of a two-part series we are doing this week on time. On Wednesday, we’re going to talk to someone with a rather different approach. Her name is Jenny Odell and she wrote a bestseller called How To Do Nothing. Take a few minutes to help us out by answering a survey about your experience with this podcast! The team here is always looking for ways to improve, and we’d love to hear from all of you, but we’d particularly like to hear from those of you who listen to the podcast and do not use our companion app. Please visit https://www.tenpercent.com/survey to take the survey. Thank you. Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/ashley-whillans-318
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