Time Smart

Book excerpt: There's an 80 percent chance you're poor. Time poor, that is. Four out of five adults report feeling that they have too much to do and not enough time to do it. These time-poor people experience less joy each day. They laugh less. They are less healthy, less productive, and more likely to divorce. In one study, 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 keep 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 will give you proven strategies for improving your "time affluence." The techniques Whillans provides will free up seconds, minutes, and hours that, over the long term, become weeks and months that 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 through assessments, checklists, and activities you can use right away. The strategies Whillans presents will help you make the shift to time-smart living and, in the process, build a happier, more fulfilling life.