Lesson: Decision Making & Happiness with Kevin Fishner

Step #6 Time Managing: Manage your time better to accomplish your priorities

For me, time management is making sure that I don't have to think about anything at all during the day, except for things I am most interested in. So what I mean by that is, I don't want to have to think about what I eat for breakfast. I don't want to think about when I work out and I don't want to think about when I wake up. So by setting a schedule weeks in advance, I don't have to expend any cognitive thought on, “I want to wake at 6:30 today,” because I already know I am doing that. Instead, once I wake up and eat breakfast and read the news, I can focus on writing or I can focus on designing.

We have this limited amount of true thinking and true creative ability each day, so I want to focus that on true creative endeavors rather than deciding what I want to eat or deciding what time to wake up. So that's why a schedule is perfect at taking away those decisions when you don't really have to be doing it and once you set and forget it for the most part.

My daily priorities are getting enough sleep, exercise and working on something creative. These are beyond the scope of my 9-5 or 9-6 job. The way I do that is I find I am most creative in the morning, so I wake up early so I can write and work on creative endeavors then. Then right when I get home it is exercising, which clears the mind and lets you get away from the decision making of work. Then after that it is usually improving on a more logical skill set, so playing chess, some people will say it's a creative endeavor, but I find it more logical. So those aspects of the day I would want to plan and by setting a schedule I don't have to think about, “Oh, when can I fit in the time to do this?” I already know that there will be time.

I do have a daily schedule but I know that I’ll accomplish these things probably like three out of five days. So when a friend would send me a message, “Hey, you want to grab a drink?” or, “Hey, do you want to talk about this project I am working on?” it's very easy to say, "Yeah, that's great. I am done with work at 6:00. Let’s go do it." knowing that the previous days I got to work out or I got to work on other projects.

So setting a schedule is more liberating for me because I know that I have already gotten what I wanted to do previously in the week, so I am happy to spend more time with friends. Then weekends are completely schedule free so it's a way to kind of breakout of that regimented life style and spend time with friends and family.

Having a rigid schedule where you know you are getting things done makes it easier to spend time doing new or adventurous things. So it takes away that dread of, "Oh my god, I need to finish my paper, I need to finish my workouts,” because you have already done it. Getting that cognitive burden away from you makes it much easier to do new things.