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

Clarify your purpose — and stop wasting time. The new year gives us an opportunity to reflect on who we are and who we want to be. As we set resolutions and prepare for evolutions, this special four-part series on communication, happiness, and well-being explores practical ways to enhance our lives through better communication, deeper connections, and more meaningful choices. As Cassie Holmes https://www.fastersmarter.io/guests/cassie-holmes/ knows, how we spend our time has a big impact on our happiness and well-being. For her, that means focusing on the things not just immediately in front of us, but those that most closely align with our purpose. "When I say purpose, what I mean is what really drives you," explains Holmes, a professor at UCLA Anderson School of Management and author of Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most http://fastersmarter.io/happierhour. Living a happier and more fulfilled life, she says, rests on using purpose to drive our decisions. “Once you clarify for yourself: what is your purpose? What is your why? Then you can use that as a filter [for] where you should be spending your time.” In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, https://www.fastersmarter.io/ Holmes and host Matt Abrahams explore practical strategies for being more purposeful with our time. From email management to relationship building, Holmes shares research-backed approaches for achieving greater happiness through intentional choices. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at BetterHelp.com/ThinkFast http://betterhelp.com/ThinkFast and get ten percent off your first month. Episode Reference Links: Cassie Holmes https://www.fastersmarter.io/guests/cassie-holmes/Cassie’s Book: Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most http://fastersmarter.io/happierhour Connect: Premium Signup >>>> Think Fast Talk Smart Premium https://www.fastersmarter.io/premium/Email Questions & Feedback >>> [email protected] Transcripts >>>Think Fast Talk Smart Website https://www.fastersmarter.io/182-stop-chasing-time-and-start-owning-it-communication-happiness-wellbeing/Newsletter Signup + English Language Learning >>>FasterSmarter.io http://fastersmarter.io/Think Fast Talk Smart >>>LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/think-fast-talk-smart/,Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thinkfasttalksmart/, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6caGRBUYZCmgDGM2RK6mxKB9jG_ccmm3Matt Abrahams >>>LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/maabrahams/ Chapters: (00:00) - Introduction (03:31) - Defining Purpose (05:54) - Time Management Strategies (08:26) - Time Tracking for Insight (12:49) - Consolidating Tasks (14:41) - Presence and Happiness (16:44) - The Final Three Questions (21:17) - Conclusion ******** Become a Faster Smarter Supporter by joining TFTS Premium https://www.fastersmarter.io/p/premium/. Take advantage of our Sponsor offer from BetterHelp https://www.betterhelp.com/thinkfast

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  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.

• 0:26Matt 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 365 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.

• 1:10Matt Abrahams?

  Therapists from BetterHelp can help you write your story. I believe everyone should leverage the support of therapists and coaches. Visit betterhelp.com/thinkfast to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, dot com slash thinkfast.

• 1:31Matt Abrahams?

  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.

• 2:02Matt Abrahams?

  Cassie, I am really excited for our chat. Thanks for being here.

• 2:05Speaker 00

  Thanks so much for having me. I'm really happy.

• 2:08Matt Abrahams?

  Yeah, I would expect that. Shall we get started?

• 2:11Speaker 00

  Let's do it.

• 2:12Matt 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?

• 2:27Speaker 00

  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.

• 3:12Speaker 00

  And it is so helpful because what it does is it clarifies where you should be investing your efforts. 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 in the service 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.

• 3:57Speaker 00

  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. 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.

• 4:34Matt 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?

• 5:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it's a really important question because we all struggle with time management. We only have 24 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

• 6:03Speaker 00

  because you have that absolute satisfaction. Action, sense of fulfillment from spending time in that way. The problem is it's so easy to move through our weeks without spending time on even the work tasks that are truly, that truly matter to fulfill your purpose. It's much easier to respond to emails who 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.

• 6:48Speaker 00

  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.

• 7:06Matt 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.

• 7:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:43Matt Abrahams?

  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 trade offs.

• 7:50Speaker 00

  Absolutely. So one is that purpose filter, which we already covered.

• 7:54Matt Abrahams?

  Yeah.

• 7:54Speaker 00

  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 work day, 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

• 8:35Speaker 00

  that activity, rating on a 10-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? As helpful 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

• 9:16Speaker 00

  is, is it an activity that really gave you a sense of connection? Or for some people, it's like, oh, 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. Right. Like so much time on email, is that worthwhile?

• 9:59Speaker 00

  But then going back to what we were talking about before, purpose. Right. 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 spent 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

• 10:44Speaker 00

  Line or contribute to your purpose. Those other emails that do none of those things are absolutely identified for me as a waste of time. 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 here are 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.

• 11:29Matt 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. 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.

• 12:11Matt Abrahams?

  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.

• 12:27Speaker 00

  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.

• 12:56Matt Abrahams?

  Right.

• 12:56Speaker 00

  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've 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.

• 13:21Matt Abrahams?

  A lot of this podcast is therapy for me. I learned from Katie Milkman, this notion of temptation bundling.

• 13:26Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 13:26Matt Abrahams?

  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?

• 13:54Speaker 00

  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?

• 14:34Speaker 00

  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. 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.

• 15:17Matt Abrahams?

  So looking for connection, making sure that you're present and communicating in a way to demonstrate that and seek that out.

• 15:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:24Matt Abrahams?

  Very important. Before we end, I 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?

• 15:32Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 15:33Matt 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?

• 16:03Speaker 00

  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.

• 16:48Speaker 00

  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 busyness 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. 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.

• 17:33Speaker 00

  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.

• 18:04Matt 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.

• 18:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:28Matt Abrahams?

  So question number two, who is a communicator that you admire and why?

• 18:33Speaker 00

  Michelle Obama.

• 18:34Matt Abrahams?

  Excellent.

• 18:35Speaker 00

  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.

• 19:02Matt 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?

• 19:23Speaker 00

  Presence, being there in that time wholly and fully, listening and showing up authentically.

• 19:33Matt 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.

• 19:54Speaker 00

  Thanks so much for having me.

• 19:57Speaker 03

  Thank you for joining us for one of our Think Fast, Talk Smart, Communication, Happiness, and Well-Being 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 produced by Jenny Luna, Ryan Campos, H. Ash, and me, Matt Ibrahams. 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 Haley Muse and Travis Morningstar. Please find us on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us.

• 20:38Speaker 03

  Also, follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram, and check out FasterSmarter.io for deep-dive videos, English language learning content, and our newsletter. Please consider our premium offering for extended Deep Thinks episodes, AMAs, Ask Matt Anything, and much more at FasterSmarter.io/premium.

• 20:59Matt Abrahams?

  Before we wrap up, I just want to say thank you for listening. It really means a lot to hear how people all over the world are using these ideas in their own lives. It inspires me and the whole team that brings you this show. If you want more episodes and resources, feel free to follow, subscribe, and explore past conversations. We're grateful for your support of Think Fast, Talk Smart.