Time Smart

There's an 80% chance you're poor. Time poor, that is.

Four out of five adults report feeling they are time-poor: they have too much to do and not enough time to do it. The consequences are severe. The time-poor experience less joy each day. They laugh less, are less healthy, less productive, and more likely to divorce. In one study of 2.5 million Americans, time stress produced a stronger negative effect on happiness than unemployment.

How can we escape the time traps that make us feel this way and prevent us from living our best lives?

Time Smart is your playbook for taking back the time you lose to mindless tasks and unfulfilling chores. Author and Harvard Business School professor Ashley Whillans provides proven strategies for improving your 'time affluence.' Sometimes you can find time lost to thoughtless activity, such as mindlessly checking your phone. Sometimes you can find time by buying your way out of time-consuming, unrewarding tasks, for instance, by paying for a ride to work. The techniques Whillans provides will free up seconds, minutes, and hours that, over the long term, become weeks of freed up time you can reinvest in positive, healthy activities. Time Smart doesn't stop at telling you what to do. It also shows you how to do it, helping you achieve the mindset shift that will make these activities part of your everyday regimen.

At every step, Time Smart provides assessments, checklists, and activities you can use right away. Before you've finished reading chapter 1, you'll be accounting for your time and thinking about ways to change. Whillans knows what works. A leading voice in time and happiness research, she's worked with groups as diverse as large consulting firms, couples, the US military, and women with limited means managing vegetable stands in Kenya. The strategies she presents are proven through research and brought to life by the stories of people making the shift—or trying to make the shift—to create happier, more fulfilling lives.