The secret to time management is at hand

When it comes to getting things done, much less is more, says Rob Long

If you're wondering what's draining your time, look at your hand. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

I have a friend who is a good and decent father, but he’s no one’s idea of a “detail person”. For example: I have seen him drive off with a full bag of groceries on the roof of his car. I have seen him suddenly look up from his lunch and remember that he hasn’t yet filed his taxes for the previous year. He has arrived at the airport more than once, ready to board an expensive international flight, only to discover that his passport is still at home on the kitchen table, with a little sticky-note attached to it, reading: “Don’t forget me!”

Last week, he told me, while his wife was at work, he went out to pick up some food for dinner like a “good, thoughtful husband”. (His words, not mine. You make your own decision.)

He got home, unpacked his items and was just starting to cook when it dawned on him.

He had left his son at the shop.

There were now two crises to deal with: one, race to the shop and hope his son was still there; and two, have it all resolved before his wife got home and found out what he had done.

When he got back to the shop, he found his son happily wandering around the fruit and vegetable section, utterly unaware of his abandonment. My friend was overjoyed: first, because his son was safe and unharmed; second, because his son had no idea what had just taken place which meant his father didn’t have to bribe or plead with a three year-old to keep quiet about the whole mess. Three-year-old children are easy to bribe but difficult to trust. In that respect they are identical to adults.

But how, I wanted to know, could both of them be so oblivious? He left the shop without his son; his son never noticed. How is that level of absent-mindedness even possible?

Simple, he told me. “I was on my phone for most of that time, texting with a colleague, and he was on his iPad playing Fruit Ninja.”

According to a recent study, this isn’t so hard to believe. Internet usage on desktops and laptop computers has been fairly stable for the past seven years. Surveys suggest that people using computers are internet-connected for about two-and-a-half hours per day, which seems low to me, but then we all know that people lie to survey-takers.

What has zoomed up, of course, is mobile internet use. The number of people now walking around, eyes glued to their web-connected mobile devices, is now roughly equal to the number of folks sitting dead-eyed at a computer terminal. In sum, the average internet-enabled person spends about six hours looking at stuff online, on whatever machine is closest.

Six hours! Add into that eight hours for sleeping, two for personal things here and there, four for meals – that’s 20 hours spent emphatically not slaving away at some tiresome occupation, leaving only four hours per day for doing the tasks for which most of us are drawing a salary. And even the French don’t have the temerity to suggest the value of a 20-hour work week.

Well, they probably do. But they’re outliers in this respect.

So my friend, eyes stuck his phone, and his son, similarly distracted, are emblematic of the way most of us are these days. We’re often so wrapped up in our smartphones, with their blinking and buzzing promise of splendid distraction, that we barely function as employees. Or, some of us, as parents.

Since it's a new year, it's time for personal resolutions. Productivity experts like Tony Robbins – the energetic and irrepressible motivational speaker and author of Awaken the Giant Within – and David Allen – author of a terrific book about effective personal management, Getting Things Done – each have carefully researched blueprints for reaching your personal potential. I've read and studied much of what both have written, and they each have a lot to teach.

The trick to making a proper to-do list, the way to get yourself enthusiastic about a task, how to maintain focus and concentration – these are all hugely useful skills to develop.

But if I’m being brutally honest with myself, none of them really solve the problem, which is that I spend too much time idly staring at my phone.

So, in the spirit of the new year and new beginnings, let me recommend the most effective and foolproof productivity tool on the market.

It’s called Freedom and it’s available as an app for your phone or a piece of software for your computer. What it does is deadly and effective: it cuts you and your device off from the internet for a specified amount of time. Totally off. No email, no Twitter, no Facebook, no text messages.

Of course, you can always circumvent the program by rebooting your device, but after two weeks of putting it to the test I can honestly say I’ve never taken that drastic measure. Freedom keeps you safe from the most distracting and productivity-killing thing in your life, which is you, with a smartphone. And it may even make you a better parent.

Rob Long is a writer and producer in Hollywood

On Twitter: @rcbl