182. Stop Chasing Time and Start Owning It: Communication, Happiness & Wellbeing

[00:00:01] Cassie Holmes: When it comes to time and happiness, it's not about how much time you spend on any given activity. It's really about how you spend that time to have it have its big effect on your satisfaction, on your sources of fulfillment, and on those relationships that are so important for both satisfaction and fulfillment. 

[00:00:26] Matt Abrahams: Hi, Matt here. The New Year gives all of us an opportunity to reflect and focus on who we are, who we want to be, and our wellbeing. To help you chart your course and write your story, I'm excited to invite you to our four part mini series on communication, happiness and wellbeing sponsored by BetterHelp. Every January brings us three hundred and sixty-five blank pages waiting to be filled. This year, maybe you're ready for a plot twist. Or maybe there's a part of your story you've been wanting to revise or explore further. Think of therapy as your editorial partner. Helping you craft new chapters and create the meaningful story you deserve to live. Therapists from BetterHelp can help you write your story. I believe in you. Everyone should leverage the support of therapists and coaches. Visit BetterHelp.com/ThinkFast to get ten percent off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H E L P dot com slash ThinkFast. 

[00:01:31] Having a clear purpose can help you focus on what's important, not what's urgent. My name's Matt Abrahams and I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. Today I am super excited to talk with Cassie Holmes. Cassie is a professor at UCLA's Anderson School of Management. She specializes in behavioral decision making and she's also the author of the book Happier Hour. Cassie, I am really excited for our chat. Thanks for being here. 

[00:02:05] Cassie Holmes: Thanks so much for having me. I'm really happy. 

[00:02:08] Matt Abrahams: Yeah, I would expect that. Should we get started? 

[00:02:11] Cassie Holmes: Let's do it. 

[00:02:11] Matt Abrahams: Excellent. In your book, you emphasize the importance of purpose and its relationship to happiness. Can you help us understand what you mean by purpose? And can you highlight the importance of using purpose as a filter to help us decide what we should say yes to and no to?

[00:02:27] Cassie Holmes: Yeah, absolutely. Because it's so important. So when I say purpose, what I mean is what really drives you? You know, what is your ultimate goal? You might describe this as your why. It's an interesting thing to ask about because it sounds so lofty of like, what is your ultimate goal in life? But there is an exercise that I have my students do and I talk about in the book, which is the five whys and it's asking, so what is it that you do? And then asking yourself, why do I do that? Oftentimes the first answer is the job description or maybe making money. But then if you ask yourself well, why is that important to me? And once you do that at five levels, it really reveals what drives you personally. And it is so helpful because what it does is it clarifies where you should be investing your efforts.

[00:03:19] And everything I couch with respect to time is really where you should be spending your time. So once you clarify for yourself, what is your purpose? What is your why? Then you can use that as that filter of, you know, the barrage of incoming requests. Can you do this? Can you show up for this? Will you take this on? It becomes very clear. Is this and this or this of helping you reach that goal? If not, say no, and you say it nicely, but confidently, and if so, then you say, yes. I mean, me coming here today and joining you in my figuring out what is my purpose. I am a business school professor. So at the face of it, my job description is to research, teach, and that is to create knowledge and disseminate knowledge.

[00:04:12] But in figuring out what really drives me, it's about creating knowledge about what makes people happy, disseminating knowledge about what makes people happy. So when asked to join you today, I'm like, this is an opportunity to disseminate knowledge about what makes people happy. So yes, I will drive across town and have this wonderful conversation.

[00:04:34] Matt Abrahams: Right. And so people know we're in Los Angeles. So a drive across town is not necessarily an easy thing to do. Thank you. Because I was going to ask, what is your purpose? And hearing that example, I think really helps. I have based on interviewing lots of people to talk about things like purpose, I've really tried to reflect on mine, which is really to help people hone and develop their communication skills. And like you, when an opportunity comes, I ask myself, will this help with that purpose? However, like many people, I struggle with time management and balancing what I have to do, with what I'd like to do, with what I'd prefer to do. What are some of the key time management strategies you recommend individuals can use to maximize doing what they want to do versus what they feel they have to do?

[00:05:19] Cassie Holmes: Yeah, and it's a really important question because we all struggle with time management. We only have twenty-four hours in the day. How do you allocate it in ways that are fulfilling and that you don't feel that burnout from just filling your time with things that you want to do? There are several steps, and I think the most important is, and it's sort of around this idea of time blocking, but how do you do that? What are you blocking time for and in what ways? The first step, which is so important, is carving out and protecting time for those activities that bring joy, for those activities that do fulfill more directly your purpose. Activities that end up being joyful because you have that absolute satisfaction, sense of fulfillment from spending time in that way.

[00:06:10] The problem is it's so easy to move through our weeks without spending time on even the work tasks that are truly, um, that truly matter to fulfill your purpose. It's much easier to respond to emails to show up to meetings that aren't necessarily worthwhile. And it is so easy to move through our weeks without having protected time for those activities that bring joy, and sometimes that can be within your professional sphere. Very often it is outside of the professional sphere. And so we can talk about how do you identify those activities that bring joy. Once you identify what those are, putting them into your calendar, blocking the time for it. So not only do you protect the time for it, but when you're spending that time you can be fully immersed and get the most out of that time. 

[00:07:06] Matt Abrahams: So it sounds like several things. One is you have to identify the tasks that bring you joy and that are in alignment with your purpose. And I'd love to get some insight into how to figure out what those activities are. Once we do that, we have to then figure out what is the best time for us to be doing that. And then we actually block time on the calendar. And what I heard you say is a block on the calendar also means disconnecting from some of the things that distract you, like your phone and like your email. How do we tell what those activities are? Some I can clearly understand, but I might not know, you know? Or something might come up that could really help me with my purpose, but might take a lot of time and mean I have to make tradeoffs. 

[00:07:50] Cassie Holmes: Absolutely. So one is that purpose filter, which we already covered. Another is, it sounds so tedious and so, of course, but it is very helpful. And that is time tracking. And this is something that I have my students do. And it's something that folks are like, surprises come out of it and really insights come out of it in terms of sources of fulfillment and joy. So what time tracking is, is over the course of a week writing down for each half hour what you're doing and being much more specific than work, and like time with family, but within your workday, what is the work activity? What is the work task? As importantly as writing down what the activity is, is as you're coming out of that activity, rating on a ten point scale, how do you feel, how positive, satisfying, fulfilling, versus not. And while it is tedious to track your time and how you're feeling coming out of the activity, it is so helpful because at the end of the week, you have this fantastic personalized data set that you can look across your week and be like, okay, what are those activities that got my highest ratings.

[00:09:03] As helpfully, is what are some commonalities across those activities that get your highest ratings so you can pull out, for instance, it's not oftentimes like work versus not. Really it is, is it an activity that really gave you a sense of connection or for some people it's like, it's really about being outside in nature, or it is about making progress on something that really matters to you. And you can also see not just what are those activities that produce the most satisfaction and the least amount of satisfaction. You can see just how much time you're spending on these various activities. Which can also be quite revealing of like, holy cow, I had no idea I spent that much time. For me it's always like email. Like so much time on email. Is that worthwhile, but then going back to what we were talking about before purpose. 

[00:10:03] For me, I identified, I am not happy when I'm spending time on email, which I saw in my own ratings, but recognizing that some of those emails are with research collaborators, and that actually is about creating knowledge about what makes people happy. Some of those emails are with my students. That's about disseminating knowledge about what makes people happy. So having identified your purpose is not only helpful in filtering what activities you spend your time on, but for those activities that aren't necessarily so fun, they become more enjoyable. They feel more worthwhile because you can see how they align or contribute to your purpose. Those other emails that do none of those things are absolutely, I identified for me, as a waste of time.

[00:10:55] My students often find that they had no idea they spent that much time on social media, they had no idea that they spent that much time watching TV and hear folks who feel like they have no time to do all the things that really matter. And the clarity that comes out of the time tracking helps them realize, like, actually, I do have available time if I capture it from those activities that aren't necessary and don't bring satisfaction. And then you can reallocate it and protect time for those activities that really do matter. 

[00:11:29] Matt Abrahams: I think this notion of a time audit is fantastic. I learned it from your book. I did it, and email is the bane of my existence too. It is a way, I love connecting with people, I love interacting and learning from people through email, but I found not only how much time I was spending doing it, which was a lot. But I noticed patterns of how I was doing it throughout the day, and what I have put into practice, and I thank you for this, is I now consolidate when I do it. So it's not all throughout the day, it's twice a day, and I prioritize the ones that I respond to based on my purpose.

[00:12:04] So there is still a chunk of time where I'm dedicating things to doing email that aren't bringing me pleasure. But it's much more concentrated, and I noticed that there isn't this emotional inertia that I was carrying throughout the day of just this dread of, oh, I'm falling behind on my emails and I have to respond to that. So I personally thank you and for anybody listening, doing a time audit while tedious it was, it was very insightful. 

[00:12:27] Cassie Holmes: Yeah, and you were using yet another strategy when you talked about time management and time blocking. It is, there's also value in consolidating the activities that you don't enjoy doing so that you don't have that dread, so that it's not always carrying over. And we're most sensitive to our experience in an activity at the beginning. So it's like by spreading it out, there's more beginnings that are quite painful. Whereas when you spread out the good stuff, it gives you an opportunity to look forward to something coming up. So I love that, that consolidation of the chore like activities into a time of the day for me, I actually save it to the end of the day when I don't have a lot of energy and it's like, okay, this is the time I'm doing it and I just sort of move through it. It doesn't pervade all the other activities because I know that I've protected time for that. 

[00:13:21] Matt Abrahams: A lot of this podcast is therapy for me. I learned from Katy Milkman, this notion of temptation bundling, where I allow myself a little treat and that treat comes at the end of doing the email block. So there's something to look forward to. I love that there are techniques to help us be more efficient and more focused on our purpose. And thank you for sharing some of those. I know that relationships with others can also help us focus and feel happier. Do you have specific advice and guidance, especially when it comes to communication with others that can help us bolster our happiness and fulfillment?

[00:13:54] Cassie Holmes: Such an important question because that sense of connection, belonging, those relationships are the necessary biggest contributor to our satisfaction in life. And also in the time tracking, you will see that your happiest times will often be those that feel most connecting. And that can look different. Some people, their connection comes from one on one conversations and some it's being in big groups, but the time tracking can help you identify those activities that really make you feel connected. Now, in terms of communication, how do we really foster and cultivate those relationships that are so important. Protecting that time when you are with someone else, as carving it out and protecting it for just that being. With that other person.

[00:14:47] So it's really about presence. And with that presence, that time where you have removed distractions, distractions either from your phone or even in your head of like thinking about what's next, as opposed to just being here in the moment. And that presence allows you to listen better. It allows you to show up better and be more authentic. That's where you get that true connection that then fosters that relationship and cultivates it. 

[00:15:17] Matt Abrahams: So, looking for connection, making sure that you're present and communicating in a way to demonstrate that and seek that out. 

[00:15:24] Cassie Holmes: Yeah. 

[00:15:24] Matt Abrahams: Very important. Before we end, I'd like to ask three questions of everyone. The first question I make up just for you and the other two I've been asking for years. Are you up for that? 

[00:15:32] Cassie Holmes: Sure. 

[00:15:33] Matt Abrahams: So I am curious you are in demeanor a very happy and very affable person. How do you maintain your level of happiness given circumstances, I know you have two children and life happens. How do you manage that? I mean, I feel stressed. My wife and I love to walk with each other and it's a really great connecting time every day, but I feel stressed about scheduling time to make sure I can walk. I mean, so how do you manage those stresses so you can fulfill the happy perspective you have? 

[00:16:03] Cassie Holmes: I mean, the research shows that part of our happiness is disposition. So I'm lucky enough to have a naturally positive disposition, but there are these other circumstances that come into play. Absolutely bad things happen in all of our lives, including mine. And then there are also those day to day stressors. Honestly, it's actually using the tools through my research as well as others of identifying what are those ways of spending time that produce the greatest satisfaction? How do we approach the time that we spend mentally to make the most of it? And then so when I am feeling a little crummy, I can activate that. It helps offset the stress because I am carving out time for the things that matter. And when I'm spending the time, I'm absolutely engaged in it. So when the business of our lives, or when my daughter this morning on the third day of school was like, Mom, I haven't seen you all week. And that makes me sad and feel guilty because I was rushing to get here instead of to school. 

[00:17:13] Someone else got her to school. Don't worry. But it is telling her as well as telling myself, that, okay, we're going to carve out and we're going to have our date later tonight so that we have that really dedicated time to get that connection that we both crave. And again, my phone is away, all the other stresses of things I have to do, I am not thinking about because that is time to show up and connect with my daughter. When it comes to time and happiness, it's not about how much time you spend on any given activity. It's really about how you spend that time to have it have its big effect on your satisfaction, on your sources of fulfillment, and on those relationships that are so important for both satisfaction and fulfillment. 

[00:18:04] Matt Abrahams: I want to put an exclamation point to what you just said for myself and for others, that it's not the amount of time you spend, but it's the quality of the time. I certainly did not mean to bring disharmony or unhappiness with your daughter, but the lesson there is that if we step back a moment when we're feeling that stress or discomfort or not being as happy as we could, to remind ourselves that we have a plan to get things back in balance. 

[00:18:28] Cassie Holmes: Yeah. 

[00:18:28] Matt Abrahams: So question number two, who is a communicator that you admire and why?

[00:18:33] Cassie Holmes: Michelle Obama. 

[00:18:34] Matt Abrahams: Excellent. 

[00:18:35] Cassie Holmes: She does an incredible job of sharing her perspective, sharing her experience, and sharing herself, that authenticity, by showing up in such a genuine way. It allows those of us who may not share the same experience, but absolutely gain her perspective and feel that sense of connection and inspiration.

[00:19:02] Matt Abrahams: She is clearly a very good and effective communicator for the reasons you talked about. Very authentic, very connecting. You feel like you really know her and her position. Speaking of skills for communicators, question number three, what are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe?

[00:19:23] Cassie Holmes: Presence, being there in that time wholly and fully, listening, and showing up authentically. 

[00:19:33] Matt Abrahams: Okay, so presence, listening, and authenticity. Those make complete sense and they make a lot of sense given what you know and what you study, that those are the things that really make the moments that we're happiest, I think, special. Thank you, Cassie, so much for coming in, braving the traffic and the potential family disharmony. Thank you. 

[00:19:54] Cassie Holmes: Thanks so much for having me. 

[00:19:57] Matt Abrahams: Thank you for joining us for one of our Think Fast, Talk Smart, Communication, Happiness, and Wellbeing mini series episodes. To continue to learn more about this important topic, please tune in to our other three episodes in this series. This episode was Jenny Luna, Ryan Campos, Aech Ashe, and me, Matt Abrahams. Our music is from Floyd Wonder. With thanks to Podium Podcast Company and our sponsor, BetterHelp. We recorded this episode at the Spotify Studios in Los Angeles, and we are grateful for the help of Hayley Muse and Travis Morningstar. 

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