Non-Productive Time Myths and the Power of a "25-Hour Mindset"
Do you feel pressure to eliminate every ounce of "non-productive time" from your life?
Do you feel guilty for not making quarantine "the most productive period ever?"
Do you feel forced to start sacrificing existing things on your schedule to fulfill someone else's agenda?
If any of those are true, please take a moment to embrace the non-productive time in your life, to get rid of the notion that periods of isolation like quarantine are some kind of "use it or lose it" opportunity you're missing out on, and to make believe someone is giving you an extra hour each day to be used however you wish.
And in this episode, you’ll learn how a simple exercise can help you stay firmly in control of the decisions you make about your time without unwittingly following the impractical advice and suggestions that the rest of the world might be tossing in your direction.
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EPISODE OUTLINE:
Introduction & Overview
1:07 - Redundant Acronym Syndrome & “NPT Time”
2:42 - Non-Productive Time Definitions & Myths
18:54 - A 25-Hour Mindset
42:59 - Final Question & Wrap-Up
TRANSCRIPT:
00:00
Hello and welcome to The Energy Detox...a leadership podcast with oilfield flair.
00:20
Our mission here and the mission of our sponsor, Witting Partners, is to help you practically find and remove the junk that is unwittingly holding you back from producing sustainable success in both in your professional and your personal lives.
00:33
I'm your host, Joe Sinnott, and today we're going to discuss how and why non-productive time is so often viewed incorrectly, and we're going to share with you a low-stress way to increase the value of your personal productive time without turning to yet another method or system or piece of advice or book or blog that likely doesn't apply to your particular situation. And we're also going to help you lead others without unwittingly stressing them out by making them think that every hour of their day needs to fit your definition of "productive."
01:07
And before kicking off a conversation about productivity and time management, I do want to take a minute to address a rather serious epidemic that has touched the oil and gas industry for years...
and this problem was allowed to have such a big impact because our industry is known to have an abundance of acronyms, which means that there is a very high prevalence of what is called RAS Syndrome, which stands for Redundant Acronym Syndrome Syndrome.
01:36
Common examples of RAS Syndrome include when people say "ATM machine," which is like saying "Automatic Teller Machine...machine" or "VIN number," which is like saying "Vehicle Identification Number...number" or "PIN number," which is the equivalent of "Personal Identification Number...number." Or for those of you following current oilfield events, when you say the phrase "OPEC countries" to someone, keep in mind you're basically saying "Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries...countries."
02:07
While some RAS examples are more forgivable than others (and I would say the OPEC example is forgivable, especially now that we're often referring to OPEC+), there is one example that I'm not willing to forgive...and this has perhaps been one of the most egregious oilfield examples that I have personally encountered over the last 15 years...
02:26
And that is when discussing Non-Productive Time...when people talk about how harmful "NPT Time" is, while ironically using 33% more time than they would have needed if they just said "NPT." So with that very important "PSA Announcement" out of the way and with complete acknowledgment that I'm as guilty as anyone when it comes to using far more words than is needed to say something, let's start with a quick definition of NPT (or Non-Productive Time) especially if you haven't been in a position in your career to think about NPT in terms of well development, or from a manufacturing standpoint, or really from any process management perspective.
03:07
So Non-Productive Time (NPT)—as many would define it—refers to periods of time when an operation is stalled for some reason, and particularly if it is an unplanned stoppage that is often due to some issue that occurred. So whatever progress was being made has been stopped, or progress that should have started by now hasn't yet started because of something that went wrong.
03:28
And obviously given this show's focus, there's no shortage of examples from the world of oil and gas that could include down hole drilling tools malfunctioning and requiring a trip out of the hole to replace those tools...or someone accidentally dropping something downhole, forcing the operator to try and fish it out or push it to bottom...or several frac pumps being down, forcing operations to come to a halt while the pumps are repaired or swapped out...or delays in necessary materials coming to a location that can cause operations to pause as they wait to refill sand or water or whatever else is needed on location.
04:00
And typically, an NPT event is measured in hours. But obviously major issues can occur, including well collisions that we discussed in Episode 2, where a company may spend days and weeks trying to remediate an issue...and regardless of the duration, NPT matters because—as they say—"time is money." And no matter how much service companies are asked to reduce pricing these days, the relatively fixed costs of 24/7 operations could cost tens of thousands of dollars per day on land or upwards of a million dollars per day on deepwater operations (all very much dependent on the contracts, of course).
04:34
And many of these costs are difficult to escape paying, especially if you're only talking about 30 minutes of downtime here or an hour or two there because you're not going to tell everyone to go home and shut down for a short period of time, of course...you just pause things and you keep paying everyone to be ready to start back up a soon as possible.
04:50
And so what are the practical business implications of NPT? Well, for operators who are paying the bills, they're going to feel like they're not getting what they're paying for. And if it's explicitly a service company that's responsible for the issue, the service company might even have to pay back some portion of the cost of NPT, depending on what the contract says. Or even if they're not liable for NPT, they certainly won't expect to be receiving continued work if they have repeated issues that are occurring around NPT. And again, all of this could be governed by contract terms and whatever the lawyers on both sides agree upon.
05:23
So with this view, non-productive time is typically viewed as a bad thing, right? Well, of course! Of course it's viewed as a bad thing! It says so right in the name: NON-productive time. If you're not productive, you're costing the company money. And companies pour over tons and tons of data and have remote operating centers and war rooms to monitor operations and try not only to get things back up and running after an NPT event, but they also try to discover hidden downtime and make sure that everything is "go, go, go" all the time to get the most 'bang for their buck.'
05:55
And operations engineers are likely analyzing data and comparing service companies and using tools to show how much downtime could be attributed to a specific service company at different parts in the well life cycle, all to help them with future contract negotiations and sourcing decisions.
06:10
But the problem is that data, of course, can be dangerous if it only shows a part of the story...and it's really dangerous if it's used to support a faulty assumption or to answer an oversimplified question that doesn't actually have the impact on a company's ultimate objectives that people might think it does....
06:29
Which brings us to the first part of today's topic, and that is that the typical view of NPT is often a lie. It's erroneous. It often ignores far more important variables that exist. And we're saying non-productive time is a "lie"—Why? Because the words themselves imply that nothing is getting done and nothing is being learned...which, of course, we all know is not the case.
06:54
Because obviously anyone involved in an operation with tons of concurrent activities knows that you don't have to simply be drilling ahead or pumping a frac job to be productive at any given time. And often if it's a downtime event that you know is going to last at least a few hours, you could go ahead and perform some preventive maintenance without interrupting operations. Or you can catch up on some reports or even grab a nap if the opportunity presents itself.
07:18
In fact, as companies tried to pile on more and more simultaneous operations and move to zipper frac'ing operations (where you're bouncing between multiple wells on a pad to get that group of wells completed faster than if you only did one at a time), it obviously boosted efficiency, but it also had its downsides. There's less time for maintenance, there's increased safety risks. And those trade offs and new hazards can certainly be mitigated, but it can also be easy to get caught up in trying to increase productive time and efficiency so much that you lose sight of the value of downtime.
07:53
...and you might stop thinking outside the box and asking crazy questions like, "You know, could it actually makes sense to only frac during the day instead of 24/7? Could that make more economic sense?"
08:03
Because—depending on logistics—it might actually be better to only frac during daylight hours—say for 14 hours a day—and leave the nights for maintenance and to reload on materials. This typically isn't a luxury on the drilling side, which has more reasons to be 24/7, but the point is that introducing time that might seem to be non-productive (or at least less productive) can have plenty of benefits.
08:26
And obviously there are plenty of parallels to our personal lives where we know that vacations are healthy and necessary and that 14 hour work days every single day are not sustainable...much in the same way that if you were training to run a marathon, you don't have a long run every single day, and you obviously build in rest days. And you would never look at rest days as "non-productive time." Quite the opposite! You see rest days as necessary, especially if they're planned. And even when rest days are not planed, that doesn't mean they can't be a positive thing, right?
08:58
So going back to the oilfield, I'd be lying if I said that when I was working offshore, I didn't mind when there was some downtime, especially if the downtime wasn't caused by the failure of a downhole tool that my team and I were responsible for. Because I valued any time to catch up on reports...or sleep...or to enjoy a meal that wasn't rushed...or—as we discussed in the last episode—to construct a long e-mail communication to my now wife.
09:21
That extra time was appreciated, and when I used that time to recharge in some way, it was great. It was welcome. And often it came right when I needed it. And besides the opportunity to recharge or to do some maintenance, the other reason we're arguing today that the default view of NPT is this "evil and unwelcome thing" is wrong is because non-productive time—or rather the circumstances that caused the NPT—can wind up opening the door for valuable innovation and creative thinking.
09:55
If you're down because some unique tool broke or was unavailable, obviously it gives you a chance to be innovative and to put on your "MacGyver hat" for a moment and figure out a safe and clever solution that could actually wind up being a better way to do things moving forward without that unique tool or solution. How many issues have led to new ideas and ways of doing things (just as in our episode discussing GPS navigation where we talked about how a wrong turn or a detour can sometimes be the absolute best way to learn and grow and figure out a new path that is better than the original one)?
10:27
And after experiencing the innovation that comes about because of NPT if one service goes down, how often do you start asking how dependent you really are on that service that you had to work around...just as people now during quarantine are constantly learning to work around limitations?
10:44
Something breaks in your house now and you can't run to the store...so you become a handyman. You look around and you figure something out. If you run out of an ingredient and can't easily get it, you get creative...you have some fun making up a new recipe. You need a mask? Go ahead and make one yourself. You need something that Amazon deems non-essential and won't deliver to you in two days? You look around the house for a substitute that's good enough. You run out of toilet paper and you, um, figure out how to work around that problem as well.
11:10
The point is that you adapt and you change things, and you start to realize things that you can now do yourself and you get more creative...and you likely feel that you have grown more confident and that your current situation is far more sustainable than you may have felt before. And even if it's temporary, you learned something valuable.
11:28
So with the world largely shut down (with exceptions including oil and gas, of course, which keeps on going), people are learning things...sometimes tough lessons but valuable lessons nonetheless.
11:40
But the ultimate goal is to safely complete the operation for as low of a cost as possible, and not just to get rid of the white space within an operation where nothing obvious is happening. And sometimes we get so caught up in analyzing big data sets to find an optimized solution that we miss much bigger opportunities—like before when I mentioned how, in some cases, a switch from 24/7 operations to daylight-only shifts can have a net positive impact on productivity because you have time for maintenance and other important behind-the-scenes activities. And without a mindset that looks for those "outside the box" approaches, it's easy to turn NPT into the "be-all and end-all" statistic, especially if you're trying to hold vendors accountable for any NPT attributed to them.
12:57
But from a data standpoint, placing too much value on that one stat—important as it might be—can be misleading. Because the goal is not necessarily to have 99% uptime when drilling or completing a well. And yes, time is money. And yes, it can be a lot of money, but it's only part of the equation. Because to be intellectually honest about a downtime situation, you need to also look at the hidden benefits of NPT.
13:20
And going back to what I mentioned earlier about my time in the field, taking advantage of a long trip—so long as it wasn't caused by a tool I was responsible for, of course—was great. Like I said before, you can catch up on reports, catch up on sleep, catch up on writing lengthy e-mails to the person who is now my wife...so if you're really doing root cause analysis on my current life, for example, you could argue that NPT helped play a role in providing extra opportunities for me to connect with my now wife.
13:47
And while saying that NPT offshore somehow helped the odds of me forming a relationship with my wife is probably a bit of a stretch, it does emphasize the point that NPT can have very real benefits...even if my wife doesn't always see it as a benefit!
14:04
But the point is, again, thereare positives that come out of these situations. And while I wouldn't stroll around a wellsite wearing an "I heart NPT" shirt, I do fondly recall times offshore where a problem (an NPT event) might be big enough that I'd even get a few unexpected days on land. And what can happen in those cases? Well, I immediately feel some pressure to be productive, just like the pressure now that many people feel to be productive because they are being told what a unique opportunity we have during quarantine. And that pressure for me 15 years ago to be productive might mean getting a haircut or going through a few weeks worth of mail that piled up or enjoying a nice meal at a favorite restaurant...with, of course, the haircut and the meal not being options during this current "period of downtime."
14:47
But anyway, if I felt forced to check all those things off during whatever limited time I had—even though I didn't expect to have it—that kind of sours the experience. It can make you step back and say, "Wait, this was supposed to be like a gift, a bonus...some sort of random perk!?!" And simply being busy should not be my ultimate objective during this time.
15:10
So now fast forward 15 years to today: what lessons can I apply from all of those experiences? Well, for one, at that time in my life, I had far less responsibilities than I do today...just as many people genuinely trying to offer advice to help you stay productive during these interesting times have very different responsibilities and lives than you do, which is fine, but which can be frustrating if, for example, you have children. Depending on the ages and their unique little personalities, you realize that many rules and tips and tricks don't apply to you. So to avoid frustration, my wife and I are often coaching each other and reminding each other to be hyper-aware of when we are falling into a trap of wanting to do what someone else says to do, or when we're trying to emulate when we see other people who appear to be thriving and making the this the "best darn quarantine ever."
16:01
And it's these experiences that led us to end the last episode with a warning against adhering to contracts that you didn't sign up for, especially now during the pandemic, where you've been stuck at home with all these ideas for being productive, and for transforming your lives. And as we tried to caution you not to fill your existing day with things and be stressed to the point of feeling like each 24 hours needs to look absolutely perfect and productive, so, too, in this episode we wanted to start from a position of positivity, not negativity.
16:32
But how can you not be negative when you're talking about non-productive time? Think about that phrase, "non-productive time." Pretty harsh, right? Especially if you're the one pegged as the root cause of the NPT. Go ahead and greet someone who happens to be sitting down to catch his breath for a moment and saying to that person, "Hey, you...go do something productive!"
16:51
Whoa! Talk about putting somebody on the defensive! And at least for me, that rather negative image causes me to have flashbacks to the last offshore rig I worked on, where I distinctly remember being repeatedly informed by the company man that the operations were costing him $11.25 per second, which wasn't the type of thing you want to be reminded of when you're standing on the rig floor and everybody's watching, you struggle to put a finicky snap ring into place on an LWD tool before it went downhole. Because you already know that time is money...you already have a running calculator in your head of what that's costing you. Just as in life, we all KNOW that we're wasting time on occasion, we KNOW that there are times where we're inefficient.
17:32
And there are plenty of times where we can treat our lives like a drilling or completion operation or some kind of manufacturing process where we might say, "Hey, you know, let's let's see if we could save 5% off of each connection time or reduce our average trips per well and do all these things to improve the bottom line." We do that all the time in our personal life. And should we? Sure! It's good to take stock on occasion. But for right now, let's save all that. Let's save it all for another day. Because whether or not you regularly observe the penitential season of Lent, which just came to an end, you and the rest of the world have already given up quite a bit over the last 40 days or so thanks to the coronavirus.
18:09
And—at least for today—let's not pretend like you need to give up even more. In fact, let's go the other direction. Let's assume that everything you are doing or have done or will do is fine and dandy. You are already using your time perfectly. And we don't need to mess with your perfect 24-hour schedule that you have in place. Let's instead have some fun and assume that the day is all the sudden 25 hours. What if there were an extra hour? What would you do? What would you do if you were playing with "house money," so to speak? A bonus you didn't expect? Most of us would act a little differently, right? We'd be relaxed and have some fun. So why not try the same approach for our daily schedule and our daily attempts to manage our time effectively?
18:54
And those are questions that my wife and I actually started asking back in early November when we turned the clocks back at the end of Daylight Saving Time...and that idea at the time was to find a different way to approach all of the advice out there. That often includes things like: "just add an hour per day of self care...have a date night after the kids go to bed...but still get up an hour before the kids do to get a workout in...and find time for yourself...and read more books...and try to do a fun activity each day...go ahead and connect with friends...go for a walk...meditate...pray more...and obviously make time to really connect with your children as well."
19:28
And we've tried every method to make time for those things because we know those things are good and noble goals. But, boy, it can be overwhelming when all the things that people are telling you to do would require about 60 extra hours per day of time! Now that didn't stop us from trying to squeeze some of that stuff in. And with me as an engineer and my wife as an accountant, we certainly weren't afraid to get into the details of our existing schedule. We've done "time audits" to uncover some things that might be non-productive time, just as you might do a home energy audit to see where you're wasting electricity, for example.
19:59
And even when we inevitably concluded that there aren't enough things to remove (unless we remove a couple kids or cut back on sleep), we try to be innovative and creative and asking how we might get more exercise in or more time for ourselves or more sleep instead of simply focusing on what needed to be removed or reduced. And like many parents, we're constantly asking questions like, "Is a little more screentime for the kids really that bad if it gives us 20 minutes to fold some laundry, pay a bill, take a shower, or do whatever?" (And, at the risk of offering unsolicited parenting advice—in our current state at least—I'm going to tell you that the answer is, "No, a little more screentime is not bad for your kids right now, regardless of whatever long term impacts there are."
20:39
But, anyway, fortunately we are at least starting to see more articles and posts out there that are balancing out what seemed to be the more prominent and potentially stressful messages during this quarantine about "making the best weeks of our lives out of this whole situation." And now there are lots of new messages out there encouraging and reminding people to go ahead and try to gain momentum, but to do it through smaller and more reasonable steps and not be stressed out by the 60 hours of daily activities you can do be doing right now...not just adding to the stress of living through a pandemic by adding the extra pressure of using this time to do some insanely large project or completely transform your life, and to make sure none of this "precious" time is considered non-productive time.
21:24
Because what happens when you look at everything as black and white—productive time and non-productive time? Well, it starts to feel like you're in the midst of a time audit that is trying to remove whatever possible, as opposed to a more innovative approach that aims to be a little more positive. So, fortunately, there seems to be some public momentum around what we started to discover last year, which is how easy and dangerous it can be to let yourself be swept away by this feeling that you need to overhaul your daily schedule.
21:53
Because what happens to your mind when you start asking what you can and should remove from your schedule to make room for something else? You can feel a little defeated, like someone is coming in and repossessing these things that you hold near and dear. And it can really be tough when your productivity is—or at least seems to be—so dependent on someone else, as it can be if you're working a job that continues to place high demands on you, or if you're trying to take care of a sick parent, or if you have a house full of kids, which in our case means that the vast majority of our waking hours (and sometimes what should be non-waking hours) are devoted to being with our children who really aren't on the list of things that can simply be removed from our day-to-day schedule.
22:34
Now, in all seriousness, we love our kids, of course. And we're blessed to have four healthy children (with healthy lungs and healthy vocal cords). And we simply do our best to adjust and to plan as well as we can. And my wife and I work together to lock in whatever limited number of hours I can count on, being able to have virtual meetings and calls and to devote 100% attention to work-related items. And we try to lock in hours that she can dedicate to whatever she needs to get done...just as so many families right now are trying to do. So all that being said, simply removing things from our daily life to free up more time for other important things has always been easier said than done and is usually met with frustration, at least from us.
23:14
Because so much advice on time management is largely impractical and unsustainable and overwhelming. So we decided to approach things from a different angle. And we decided to envision what life would be like if we added an extra hour to our day: a 25th bonus hour. And adding an hour obviously happens once per year anyway, at least in most US states (and, if you're still paying attention, "US states" is another example of RAS syndrome). But seriously, unless you are living in Arizona or Hawaii, you get that extra hour once per year where you turn back the clock. And while few people can make a coherent argument in 2020 for why we still observe daylight saving time, it still happens. And, if nothing else, we're thankful that it sparked this new approach we're calling the "25th Hour Mindset"...because a 23 Hour Mindset doesn't sound too appealing, right? As nobody likes the beginning of daylight saving time...nobody wants to lose an hour of sleep.
24:05
But yet so often the takeaway from a self-help book or parenting blog or motivational speaker is to figure out how to cram your day into 23 hours so that you can free up that hour that is so important for yourself and your health and your well-being. And I'm all for making sacrifices necessary to reach a goal. And most of my time spent working with people is helping them discover and tackle all the junk that's holding them back that they can try to remove and that's causing them to unwittingly limit their chances of being productive and successful and satisfied. Heck, that's the stated intention of The Energy Detox podcast and the mission of Witting Partners that I used to open up the show, right? "To get rid of the unnecessary junk."
24:43
But we found that it's a whole lot easier to start doing that if you first establish POSITIVE goals...and having more time or creating more time is NOT a goal. You need specifics, and that's why a bite-sized step—a baby step if you will—is often a good place to start. So one hour—-one bonus hour—what would you do with it with no obligation and no strings attached? If I'm giving you this hour and asking for nothing in return...think about what you would do with that. And after you think about what you do with that bonus hour, then you can ask yourself, "What are the ways to get there?"
25:18
But don't start with somebody else's list of things that you should be doing, as good as that list might seem...and as renowned and esteemed as the person suggesting those items might be. Come up with your OWN list and make that list as long as possible. Just let your mind wander and let it go and write it down. And after that, glance through and see what resonates, and don't dismiss any of them on the first or second or maybe even the third pass. Force yourself to ask how each of those could help you, impossible as they might seem right now, and see where that leads you. But DON'T start with a NEGATIVE. Don't start telling yourself you're wasting too much time on Netflix or too much time scrolling through social media. That might very well be the case, but don't make that your first step. Because if you do, you're likely going to go right back to those habits and activities eventually, because you're likely going to feel subconsciously at least that you were forced or coerced into giving them up because it wasn't your idea.
26:12
But if you start by choosing what you want, and if those choices are 100% your idea in the first place, you will be starting off with a much better mindset. You know the carrot-and-stick approach only works if you have a carrot, and what better carrot than the one that you grew yourself and washed and peeled and tied to the string? So instead of someone saying to "wake up an hour earlier" and then causing you to immediately respond, "Hey, I'm already sleep deprived...there's no way I'm getting up an hour earlier...but thanks for your advice." Or someone saying that "you need to take better care of yourself" when you're lucky to simply brush your teeth or shower on some days. Or someone saying you need to do X, Y, or Z—whatever they happen to be. Or I know, in our home, I often feel frustrated that I'm too exhausted at the end of the day to even have a beer or a glass of wine with my wife or stay up and watch a show even for 30 minutes. And it's frustrating because earlier in the day, when in a moment of false hope my wife or I might suggest how nice it would be to stay up for a couple minutes and have a drink and watch a show.
27:10
But then, inevitably, that doesn't happen for whatever reason, leaving us disappointed. And we do it (building up false hope) all the time. And sure, if you were coaching me and my wife, you'd say that we're simply choosing sleep because that's what our bodies need. And that's more important than everything else. But that's still frustrating. And it still feels like we're missing out on something. And we're not doing what everyone else is able to do who is more normal than us and has a different life, even though we know that that's not actually the case. Just like when you see people enjoying life on social media, which of course presents them in a very skewed reality. But taking this 25th hour approach—as unrealistic as that might be—we can now ask ourselves, "What would we do if we had an extra hour somehow? If we didn't have to sacrifice sleep or whatever? What would we do if somebody just said, 'Hey, you have an hour?"
27:58
Leave the answers to those questions open-ended. Because the funny thing is that when you approach things that way, and when you don't start with any preconceived notion of what we SHOULD be doing, we're probably not choosing a beer or a glass of wine or a TV show in many cases. In fact, in many cases, we might CHOOSE an extra hour of sleep. And again, we're not choosing it from a menu of options that somebody else presented to us...it's simply the first thing that popped into our heads...or maybe we would choose to read or write or exercise or whatever, but it's probably not the thing we felt compelled to do or that we would have defaulted to without giving some thought to this.
28:34
And if we CONSCIOUSLY choose sleep, for example, that's a wildly different approach that is far less likely to leave us bitter than if we felt forced to give up and go to sleep instead of doing something "fun" like watching TV and having a drink. And obviously, this is all silly because there isn't actually a bonus hour to our day, but pretending for a moment there IS gives us a totally different perspective. And another—perhaps better—example of this perspective and this mindset doesn't have to do with the 25 hour day. It goes beyond that. Envision a WEEK...envision a week long vacation. And think about the feeling that you have when you see someone on Facebook who is on vacation somewhere great like Hawaii (where, again, they never have 25 hour days because they opt out of daylight saving time).
28:45
And as is the case with social media, you might be inclined to think, "Oh, that's nice. I wish I had the time or the money or the opportunity to go on vacation in Hawaii for a week." And you focus on what you're NOT doing as if the measure of productivity at this exact moment is being on vacation in Hawaii and nothing else. But now let's flip that again to a positive. Ask yourself, "If I had a week of vacation to burn and a few thousand dollars saved up, what would I do?"
29:50
Because faced with unlimited options, it's probably not going to Hawaii...It could be anything. Well, today it can't be anything due to the coronavirus, but fast-forward a year or so when we're not locked down and you could do anything or go anywhere: maybe a Grand Canyon excursion...or fly to London for the weekend...maybe not a vacation at all...maybe that week and that money is spent on some big home improvement project that you'd enjoy. Point is that you should make it personal and make it positive...make it a reasonable dream that is YOURS. Because if the thought originates in a more natural way and in less of a forced way (i.e. because you see somebody else doing something), then it's less likely to feel like you're somehow missing out on something else. And it's less likely to feel like you're somehow not being as productive as somebody else because you're not doing what that somebody ELSE defines as productive.
30:37
And sticking with the vacation themes for just a second. It can also be valuable to think of how stressful a vacation can be if your perspective on time mirrors that of a drilling operation or a manufacturing process where "time is money" as we said earlier. And a trip to Disney World is actually a great example of this. Because for many folks, it can absolutely be the "happiest place on earth" (when it's not closed for COVID-19, of course). But for many families, it can be chaotic when you go to Disney World. Your day can feel like it's being dictated by their Disney app to help you completely fill your time with excitement and to help you in your mad scramble to see and do everything on your list and to get the most bang for your buck...because if you've gone to Disney World, you know it's a lot of buck!
31:21
But as at least we eventually learned after our first two trips down there, it's important to have a rest day built into vacation. Having one day to spare without a jam packed schedule...a day to simply enjoy the hotel and maybe the pool...a day to recover...potentially a day to re-energize. And for veteran travelers, they know this very well. And it's one of the things we certainly wish we'd learned earlier.
31:44
Because once you embrace this idea and get yourself and your children thinking about what they would do if they had an extra day to relax, to recharge, to enjoy the pool, to take a midday nap (or maybe that's just the parents having that desire)...but either way, it starts to have a lot appeal. But unless that (building in that extra day) is your starting point, you will have already quickly filled up your agenda. And then you'd be forced to face the pain and the agony of trying to pull back and trying to free up some extra time, let alone an extra day. And it can be agonizing to go in and try to remove a whole day at the park or rearrange your schedule to go ahead and now add that extra day for whatever cost that would take. No, because once you get to that point, removing an attraction that you feel obliged to experience or removing something that you already had in your mind—let alone your kids minds—it's not going to work.
32:33
So why not go into the vacation with a mindset that you have this open-ended extra time—this one day to use—go ahead and do that before it's too late and before you inevitably fill up every day with all kinds of stuff that will ultimately be more stressful if and when you determine that you want to remove it. Because if you're not careful, you will absolutely try to fill your schedule...because you are fully aware that time is not open-ended; time is not unlimited...there's only so much of it. And you instinctively want to maximize your productive time because you have spent a lot of money on this vacation.
33:09
And when you're thinking about money, of course, it could be plenty stressful, just like thinking about time. But at least money is less finite than time. Money can at least be more fluid and more easily stretched and borrowed. In fact, many people would be quick to say that, "Hey, nothing is stopping you from becoming a billionaire in a capitalist society built on free markets." So in that sense, money is somewhat unlimited. And you can always make more, theoretically. And as plenty of oil and gas companies know, thanks to the beauty of debt you can borrow far more money than you currently have if you need to or want to. And, heck, the government can print plenty of money as we're finding out these days. And, yes, a monetary budget has trade offs, of course, just like scheduling your day. And lots of families are revisiting their monetary budgets right now. And for families fortunate enough to have some savings or some credit, they have the flexibility to spend $100 on groceries one week, and then maybe $200 the next week if that's what's needed.
34:03
But time is very, very different. Time is not unlimited. You can't borrow time from someone else. In fact—not to be a downer—but at the absolute most, you're probably looking at no more than 120 years of life on Earth, which is, again, at most, about a million hours...1 million hours on Earth. That's it. So again, with time, there is always a trade off because you're not going to invest a portion of your million potential hours and try to grow it 20%. Or take out a "reverse mortgage" and use that time before you get into your 80s and 90s to really enjoy life. Time doesn't work like that. So budgeting your time can't work the same way as budgeting your money.
34:45
So all this brings us back to the hypothetical question of what would you do with a 25th hour of the day? What if I gave you an hour for free? What would you do with it? What would you do with this "time stimulus," if you will? Because if you have a steady job and I all of a sudden told you, "I'm going to just go ahead and give you a $1200 check you really don't need at the moment," what would you do with it? You might have some fun or put it to work somehow or donate it...and whatever you do, it doesn't matter because it feels like house money that—if you didn't already have it earmarked for something else—you can go ahead and spend as you please.
35:19
And really, that's the goal of this 25th hour mindset: to think in terms of having a "time stimulus" of one hour per day, and asking what you would do with it. So dream a little bit and pretend you're playing with house money (or time) and see how that changes your mindset. And just like a $1200 check is not exactly hitting the lottery. And it's probably not going to be a down payment on a new home and it's not going to pay your rent if you're out of work for a full year. But it's also not going to introduce the stress that many lottery winners feel initially.
35:49
An hour per day is not going to be this overwhelming amount of time that you need to invest and figure out what to do with and stress over. It's just an hour...and because it's limited, go ahead and ignore that giant list of things to do. Because you're not going to do everything on the list in an hour anyway. So just do the first thing that comes to your mind...do what you want to do, because you weren't supposed to have this time anyway. So why stress over it? Give up on your dreams of crossing off your to-do list and rip it up. Because a big long to-do list, of course, is often stressful. So just go ahead and do something...or do nothing and enjoy that hour without guilt, as tough as that might be.
36:28
And I know it can be tough and stressful when you actually have an hour to be productive because my wife and I often informally coach each other when we have a rare bonus period to get stuff done. Because with all that pressure, there's a question of, "Well, what should I do? I gotta really take advantage of this valuable time." But, feelings of being so far behind and needing to tackle "the most important things"—those feelings and thoughts are dangerous so many times. So the best advice often is just to do something...as it's better than nothing. And it's better than feeling like you have "this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" you need to get absolutely right. Because that's not necessarily the best way to think of things.
37:07
So I guess the point of what I'm saying is—and the point of this episode is—to give up on your dreams. Yes, if you leave this podcast with one idea, it's to give up on your dreams! Or maybe—stated another way—give up on your irrational wish to finally catch up one day...because you're NOT going to catch up, no matter how often you might be fooled into thinking that it's possible from all of the many articles and podcasts offering productivity tips and tricks...but it ain't gonna happen. If somebody else is defining your list, it's NEVER going to happen. If somebody else is telling you what you need to do and if your list has anything on it that isn't yours, you're in trouble. And similarly if your definition of success belongs to somebody else, and if your definition of productivity belongs to someone else and how they define it...because if you're adhering to someone else's terms and someone else's vision of how things should be, I promise that your time management efforts will not be sustainable and will not meet your definition of success, because everyone's situation is very, very different.
38:04
And we need to remember that for ourselves. We need to remember that our situation is different. And we need to remember that also when we're leading other people and when we're setting expectations for other people. And we need to remember that their definition of success, and their situation is different. Because the reality is for many folks right now that you MIGHT actually have a lot more time and you MIGHT even have that thing that many people are longing for: that thing called...boredom. Maybe the lack of a commute and a more efficient work schedule during the day has freed up time for you...and that's great. But for many people, the opposite is true. Maybe for two working parents who were used to having kids in school or in daycare or perhaps with a nanny or a sitter or a grandparent (that are no longer options due to the coronavirus)...maybe right now they feel like they have no time at all. Their jobs may continue, but the support for the kids is gone. And now they're expected to squeeze school into their already busy days.
38:58
Or maybe you're one of the millions of people who have lost their jobs. And now you're filling that time working odd jobs—however you can—to support your family in whatever jobs you can find, which of course now might mean more hours away from home than before. Or maybe you're a medical worker or another frontline worker supporting essential functions right now. Or maybe you have felt the calling to help and volunteer and you have filled your day supporting others, which has left you busier than you were two months ago.
39:24
And maybe life is relatively unchanged for you. Maybe you don't fall into those categories. Maybe your schedule really isn't that impacted. Maybe you are you are already working offshore on a drilling rig somewhere. And you're already far away from home and you're used to being separated from your family while your spouse is at home managing things. No matter what, the key here is that it's a spectrum. And there's no one-size-fits-all approach. And if you see messages geared towards those who might have more free time than you, you might get frustrated. And if you see messages directed towards folks who might feel overwhelmed, then you might feel pressure to do more.
40:02
And if you're in the middle, you might feel like nobody cares about you. If you've already been homeschooling kids or working from home, you might feel like, "Hey, welcome to the club. I've been doing this for a while now." And maybe you take that opportunity to offer help to folks because much of what's out there isn't aimed at you. If so, that's great...you take that opportunity to share your knowledge with other people. Or maybe you were already unemployed for a few months before all of the recent events happened. And you've already been adjusting to the emotions and the changes that come with this. And, again, you might be thinking, "Hey, you know, those are all great tips. But I've already been there. I've already gone through that process., Welcome to the club."
40:37
And again, maybe you offer whatever perspective you can or you just offer to listen and be there for folks. Either way, whatever you can do to better your current state—regardless of what it is—is a good thing, right? And whether or not you have a net increase or decrease or no change at all in your free time, what improvements in your time...what improvements in your management of that time...and what improvements in your mindset that surrounds all of that can be made?
41:06
So, for all these reasons, we hopefully offered you something today that can help, regardless of where you're at on that spectrum of available free time. And the reason we're optimistic that this 25th hour mindset and these reminders about the positive side of NPT can help a wide variety of people—no matter where you're at—is because if you're a person who seems firmly in control of your time, and even if you already have a healthy and positive mindset around productivity, and even if you have read every self-help book out there, the reality is that your default reaction if I suggest—directly or indirectly—that you need to sacrifice some time to do something else is initially going to be negative. And you might be very quick to turn it into a positive...but for most of us, the initial thought of having to squeeze something else into our already busy day seems impossible. And it puts your mind in the wrong starting position.
41:55
So, therefore, you might as well start with something that already IS impossible (except for that one day a year), and that is to pretend you have an extra hour....What would you do? What would you do if you could freely add an hour to each day? Take this moderately absurd leap, and this mental shift and see how it works for you. And if it doesn't work, then you can and should call me out for ironically stealing a chunk of your very precious time during a podcast that is encouraging you to actually add extra time to your day, not waste it listening to someone like me.
42:30
So, on that note, the main point we hope surfaced today is that whether you are analyzing NPT to try and improve a company's operations, or whether you're taking stock of your personal time and your personal productivity, don't waste your energy and don't waste your time trying to align yourself with someone else's definition of productivity or with someone else's agenda. Because that's not going to help. That's wasteful. That's not sustainable. That's not productive. And with that being said...
42:59
And with that being said, the final question today is…
What steps are you taking to determine your personal definition of productivity before you attempt to reduce non-productive time… and what steps are you taking to make sure you're not unwittingly stressing out yourself and your stakeholders by trying to align with someone else's often erroneous and overly negative take on the supposedly unforgiveable sin of non-productive time?
…and as you ponder that, allow me, your grateful host Joe Sinnott, to thank you sincerely for taking some of your very precious time to listen to today's podcast, with special acknowledgement to all of the men and women whose jobs leave them intimately familiar with every part of a full 24-hour day—be they oil and gas workers on a wellsite somewhere engaged in essential functions or medical workers performing unending and life-sustaining work that leaves them very little spare time or energy as they man the front lines in the fight against COVID-19.
And if you'd like to learn more about The Energy Detox or our sponsor Witting Partners…or if you'd like to share your thoughts about the productivity concepts discussed today, please visit us at theenergydetox.com.
And until next time, please remember that you spend enough time adhering to the schedule someone else dictates for you, so don't be afraid to get a little creative and innovative with whatever time you have have for yourself and don’t feel like you need to wait until the end of daylight savings time on Halloween night this year to envision what a 25-hour day might feel like for you.
Thanks again.