Robbing Peter to Pay Peter
In a year of turmoil, it was the smallest change that made the biggest difference for me
A year ago my commute was three hours a day, 4–5 days a week. I had almost no time for the things I wanted to do: spending time with my family, writing, meditating, reading books, losing weight, playing guitar, studying foreign languages, training my dog, planting a garden, getting a full night of sleep…
The sudden COVID-19 shift to 100% remote work ripped my day wide open and left a glaring question at the center of it all:
Was I really going to do all of the stuff I never seemed to have time for? Or was my commute just a cover for my own laziness?
I’ve spent the past year trying to answer that question. I’ve toyed with implementing all sorts ideas and advice from an endless stream of self-development books, articles, and blog posts — some good, some bad, some simply unrealistic for anyone who isn’t independently wealthy.
But even without a commute it’s been a struggle to make the most of that extra time. After a full workday spent at my computer, I have enough time and energy to make dinner and hang out with my wife and son…but not much more.
All things I wanted to do — the reading, the writing, the gardening, the language flash cards, the music, the exercising —I wasn’t getting them done.
Everything I tried seemed to be either unsustainable or ineffectual. By 7:30 or 8pm my capacities were eroded. My focus was gone. I was out of spoons.
But in the process of trying, I had a breakthrough.
I was getting more done in the first 90 minutes of my day than I was in the last three hours. Ultimately, the game-changer wasn’t any of the dozens of clever (and sometimes even successful) techniques for personal growth or self-transformation that I was trying out. It was the thing I had to do to keep trying those other things.
So I took an hour off of the back end of my day, and I stuck it onto the front end.
Cynics might scoff, “Oh, get up earlier. Big breakthrough dude.”
It’s not quite that simple. I’ve always been a night-owl. I don’t joyously spring from the sheets at the crack of dawn, I gather momentum as the night goes on.
But I am also a world-traveler. And I’ve had many nights where my body was telling me that I was wide awake, while my brain was warning me that there was a rapidly approaching 9am client meeting that was going to feel like 3am if I didn’t get the hell back to my hotel room and go to bed RIGHT NOW!
I didn’t become a morning person. I just moved my lifestyle to a new time-zone somewhere an hour or two east of where I used to live (I think I’m on Newfoundland time now!).
As soon as my 4-year-old falls asleep I start putting myself to bed too, using the same jet-lag techniques I’ve been using all over the world: early bedtime, minimal evening screen-time, a quiet dark room, and maybe a little melatonin.
But the thing that makes it work for me is this: anything that isn’t absolutely critical just gets pushed to the next day.
The result has been liberating.
Too late in the day to exercise? ….. Don’t. The morning is better for that anyway.
Dishes in the sink? ….. Deal with it tomorrow!
Toys on the floor of the living room? ….. That’s not tonight’s problem!
Can’t focus on the Arabic flash cards in the evening? ….. Do ‘em while making the coffee!
Need to send an email tonight? ….. Nah, they’re not going to read it until 10:00AM anyway!
So, do I get everything done in the morning?
No.
But I get SO MUCH MORE of the extra stuff done. And because I’m doing it with a full tank, I do a better job of it too.
(Note: I understand that this approach does not work for everyone. I only know what’s working for me right now)
