By Jeff Davidson

Let’s consider the life of a fabricated man named “Bill.” Instead of dawdling for half the day, Bill could contemplate what he’d like to achieve. If he had upcoming meetings, he could consider some of the points he wants to make.

He might visualize having a pleasant lunch with a coworker. He might play some classical music to ease his mind during the otherwise unforgiving rush-hour traffic.

Each day Bill has many choices in his career and life on how he spends the daily pockets of time. So do you.

A Cumulative Impact

Suppose that you graduate college at age 22 and work until age 70. Here’s a quick way to see that you need to drop unproductive activities (or delegate more): Any activity in which you engage for only 30 minutes a day in the course of your 48-year productive work life will consume one solid year of your life.

For example, if you clean your house, on average, for 30 minutes a day, in the course of 48 years you’ve spent one solid year, nonstop, cleaning your house. This tells you that if you can’t stand cleaning your house—or engaging in anything else that you average for 30 minutes a day—stop.

I don’t suggest letting your house become filthy. Either hire somebody to clean for you, clean it yourself less often, or find some other alternative. Why? Because the time in your life is being taken up. The cumulative impact of doing what you don’t like to do is that your precious years are being consumed. You cannot reclaim consumed time.

You might say, “Well, it’s fine to pay somebody to clean the house but ultimately, I’ll be paying people for all kinds of things I don’t like to do, just so I can have more time.” Yes! That’s my point exactly.

Identify those activities you currently do yourself that could be handled some other way. What can you list as those things that you know you need to stop doing because they are taking up valuable time? Here are some suggestions:

• Checking Facebook throughout the workday to see who “likes” what you’ve posted.
• Reading the daily newspaper every morning.
• Cutting the grass or doing yard work.
• Fixing your car.
• Cooking.

Also droppable:

• Reading junk mail because it’s addressed to you. (I know people who feel compelled to read junk mail, who think, “Hey, somebody took the time to send me this.”)
• Reading too many of the e-mail messages zapped to you.

Know What You Can’t Stand

If you enjoy engaging in some of these activities, keep doing them. Perhaps you can do them a little less. Your goal is to delegate or eliminate those activities you can’t stand. Also, never manage something that you can otherwise eliminate.

For me personally, when my contact lens routine became a bore—taking them off, cleaning them, lubricating them—I investigated having vison correction so that I could have good vision all the time. Instead of having a system for handling my contact lenses, I sought to eliminate the need for them altogether.

During the interim, I was able to save several minutes a day by switching to a new type of contact lens. My new lens is thinner, requires no maintenance, can be worn 16 or 18 hours a day with no irritation, and can be thrown away after several days.

Yes, it costs a little more for disposable lenses, but the quality of vision and the freedom I have each day has been worth it.

So, what have you been putting off that you know would simplify your career and your life?

Jeff Davidson, MBA, CMC, is principal, Breathing Space® Institute, Raleigh, North Carolina (www.BreathingSpace.com or Jeff@Breathingspace.com). An author and presenter on work-life balance, he holds the world’s only registered trademark from the United States Patent and Trademark Office as “The Work-Life Balance Expert.”®