Many executives join Ford Health because they know outsourcing their health management to a personalised team of medical and health professionals is smart time management. And it is smart time management that is at the centre of society’s “busy” dilemma. Ask most people how their lives are and their response will be “busy”. A state of being that is almost worn as a badge of honour in our modern, pressure-cooker, lives.
However, being busy is much more than a side effect of life in the digital age, it is now a significant health concern for people of all ages and professions. The “busy” conversation usually arises when our medical team discuss a patient’s work / life integration. Work / life integration is the process of reviewing a patient’s prioritising of work (business / career / professional development) versus lifestyle (family, physical and mental health, spirituality, leisure and pleasure).
When the mix isn’t right, patients’ health and wellbeing suffers. People will cite over-scheduled, jam-packed lives which leaves them no time to add anything else into the mix. Which is when we like to review exactly how they use their time. There is a simple but effective tool to help us, help our patients, manage this all important asset. A personal time audit that provides patients with an honest insight into their lives.
“Time management audits usually focus on our careers, looking for ways to improve success and productivity in our working lives, whereas the 168 time audit is a based on an individual’s life.”
The 168 Time Audit.
The 168 time audit is based on a simple premise. “Everyone has 168 hours in a week – how do you use yours? “
The first step in the 168 Time Audit is for people to monitor an average working week – add up their hours of work, including at the desk, at home and travelling, such as commuting to and from the office as well as moving around for work such as flying to
other cities.
Then record your sleeping hours over the same period. Subtract your work and sleep components from 168, which leaves the time that often becomes the measure our lives.
This time, which I refer to as life-time, can be divided up as follows –
Us Time – time reserved for friends, family, activities and community. This includes such things as time with your children, grandparents, neighbours, clubs, community, sporting groups etc.
We Time – time spent with your significant other or primary relationships of importance.
I Time – time spent on, with, and for ourselves.
“A 168 time audit will often reveal surprising discrepancies between the way
patients spend their time and the way they think they spend their time.“
It’s also a general wake-up call that we may all want more time – but it’s what we use worst!”
Once the 168 exercise is completed, the patient upon reviewing their results, not only usually has a lightbulb moment around their use of time, but is more self-aware and self-motivated to create a more balanced life-time score card.
Time Management
“Here’s where we should reengineer our thinking around time management. “
You may think multi-tasking is the solution to maximising efficiency, but we now know this to be untrue. The human brain is simply not equipped to do multi-tasking – it wastes time, causes stress, reduces work quality and adds to the up to 50% distraction workers now face in offices that are either open plan or highly technology supported. In fact, most multi-tasking is actually sequential tasking in fast forward.
By this I mean that a person’s brain may be thought to operate in multiple layers and transactions at the one time. This is particularly evident in the female brain because of their increased connectivity between right and left side which allows them to cross link sets of data and complete several seemingly unrelated tasks at the same time. Unfortunately, such practice does not guarantee efficiency or sustainable accuracy because attempting multitasking is a form of distraction loading in a person’s day.
Perhaps what might be a safer way to think of it is that many of us have become adept at speeding up the time intervals between chopping and changing tasks, particularly, if the tasks are a stream of action relating to one purpose, chopping vegetables, talking on a phone, watching kids playing etc. “We recommend that when people actually work out how they are using their time – they label it. “
Labelling is important as it can determine exactly how we are using our time, so that we can understand our personal priorities and determine if they are the things that should be important to us.
Labelling Vs Prioritizing
When the 168 time audit is complete, I encourage patients to review not only the time allocated to each area, but their reasoning behind each action, to ensure they have an accurate labelling of how they are using and prioritizing their time.
A 168 audit will usually reveal a shocking lack of I time, particularly for working mothers who are often the primary carer in their family structures, and for those who must work to create an income which is either supplementing or fully underpinning a
family financial structure.
Furthermore a 168 time audit will often reveal just how effective We Time and Us Time is (or not!) for the individual.
“Labelling becomes important as some of the actions may appear to be work
related, when in fact they are important Life Time activities.”
For example, a patient who chooses to study for a new qualification, could label this as I Time. In the same vein, work can be a large scale social exchange which is important We Time. Or taking a lunch break at work with a spouse is having Us Time.
When I was a younger Dad, I felt that is was difficult to find Us Time, as a lot of time doing work around the house seemed to be another form of Work Time, preventing time for other more important things such as We Time, Us Time or I Time. However, unusual as it might seem, a simple relabelling in my mind that some of the domestic chores of Work Time, were actually opportunity to work while reflecting became I Time.
Example – mowing our lawn with no one able to come near me (quite a wild mowing man I am!) is I Time/Work Time, or washing up at night after dinner, Work Time was actually occupying a time period for contributing to our domestic servicing, was seen
primarily as We Time is now labelled as We Time + I Time. Commuting to work is now Us Time or We Time if I call say my mother, my brother or my wife, or I can sit and use it as I Time. So, get thinking and start labelling your life, and see what happens to you having no time!
Self Management
“Depending on where you are in your life’s cycle, is usually how aware you are of the value of time.”
If you live to 80, you will have approximately 4000 weekends on the planet – a statistic which may prompt you to immediately consider your own lifestyle changes to improve quality and fulfilment! Given that some of Australia’s top executives and entrepreneurs outsource the management of their health and wellbeing to Ford Heath, the “busy” conversation is something our medical teams are more than familiar with.
“Our team recommend the 168 time audit to give an individual an accurate sense of where they spend their time and the daily decisions that will directly impact their quality of life.“