Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hey there billionaire. Yep, I'm talking to you. If you expect to live another 31 years, you're already a billionaire. Not in money, but in the real measure of wealth, time. That's because 31 years is roughly a billion seconds. But most of us waste time in ways we'd never waste money. The currency of time billionaires is micro moments, the 90 second to 15 minute gaps hidden between the structured parts of your day. This podcast is about reclaiming them with quick, research backed ideas to help you feel more creative, productive and alive. Welcome to Time Billionaires. Let's make your next micro moment count.
[00:00:38] Thanks for joining today's episode of the Time Billionaires Podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Shadix and there are two experiences that I want to share because I think they're pretty broadly relevant to how we spend time in ways that we may not be consciously realizing our decisions. The first is a realization I had getting my 14 month old daughter ready for her first gymnastics class class. I was reading through all the instructions, all of the appropriate lack of footwear, the attire she would need, and the suggestion was to have a leotard. I thought, okay, fine, perfect, I'll get a leotard. I combed in detail all of the options to get a 14 month old one leotard. They aren't that ubiquitous and so I had to comb pretty extensively to find ones that would even fit her. Lots of returns, lots of orders, lots of frustrations, lots and lots of hours spent on this.
[00:01:28] And as she's at her first gymnastics class, I'm looking at her and realizing this is just a onesie. This leotard that I've just spent a stupid amount of time and money on is really the same as something that she's already had the utility and the equipment for since she was born. We have dozens and dozens of cotton onesies that fit her great and work well. But because we were starting a new activity, I assumed we needed new equipment, even though we actually already had all of the equipment we needed for her to have a good experience.
[00:01:59] And when I was reading the instructions, they really weren't meant for her. They were meant for older kids. And a lot of the advice that we receive on anything from how to spend our careers to decisions that we can make about our personal lives, to even moves really aren't good or bad. They're just contextual. They're based on the frame and the context of the person who's speaking, which may or may not reflect our reality.
[00:02:21] And I realized that all of this was Just wasted time that looked like productivity, which is the worst form of pseudo productivity that a lot of our lives and workplaces are really subjected to now.
[00:02:32] So I didn't really have a problem. I had a new experience, but I already had the equipment that I needed, but I assumed that I didn't because it was new. There are lots of things like that in our lives. We already have the equipment for the solution for in our day to day lives and how we already are choosing to spend them. But we assume if it's new, we need something big or bold. And the simple solution isn't going to be as good as the complex one. But that's almost never the case. A simple solution that's in front of us, that doesn't require a lot of time or attention or even downside to experiment with is almost always better than something complex and novel, even if it feels more exciting.
[00:03:09] So that was a big one. And now I'm going around looking, especially in the age of AI, asking myself, is this just a onesie? Is this AI workflow, AI tool, new, novel, whatever, just a way of automating or making more complex or more simple, something I already do and already have a solution for that's kind of been revolutionary as I'm looking at these different things that make me kind of feel behind all these AI tools, these new buzzwords, these new plugins and integrations. And I wonder, do I need something new? Because the technology is new.
[00:03:42] But if there's not a problem with my current workflow, maybe I don't need to integrate Claude and Gmail, unless I'm actually looking for something specific that I can't currently do, or I want a different way of experimenting with something. But just because there's advice out there that somebody else is buying a leotard, buying an AI tool doesn't mean that my onesie, my current workflow, isn't actually working. And I've taken this healthy dose of skepticism to cut out a lot of pseudo productivity ever since. It saved a bunch of time from things that I didn't need to be investing in, but felt like I was falling behind because there was something new that other people were talking about.
[00:04:17] Is it just a leotard? Is it a onesie? Can you swap it out?
[00:04:21] And the second realization came from having a conversation with this brilliant doctor and lawyer who now works with indigenous people on a remote part of Vancouver Island. He's originally from England and trained as a doctor, then became a lawyer, then went back to being a doctor serving rural communities. Adam Sindel is fascinating. Highly recommend checking out his substack. Great work. And we were talking about the fact that a lot of the advice that people get of figuring out if something is a good career, deciding to quit or not, comes on bad days. But there's no job that has no boring parts. There's no hobby that feels great all the time. There's no place to live or partner that feels perfect 100% of the time. So there's always going to be some downside.
[00:05:08] And deciding whether to quit a job or leave a job or whether it's a good use of your skills and talents really needs to go beyond the boring parts of it to the bigger parts, the best parts of it. And from somebody who's pivoted a lot, he definitely is an expert. And he used this analogy that he made up on the spot that I'd never heard before. But I'm applying to a lot of things now. Even on the best vacations, you still have to go to the bathroom. Meaning there's no perfect, ideal, optimal world situation, life, job, relationship that doesn't have some downsides. And we were also reflecting that the vacations that we liked the most, the most memorable ones, the most meaningful ones, have often had the worst bathrooms. Backcountry camping I've enjoyed far more than the perfectly pristine marble bathrooms of Italy. I would be much quicker to go on another river rafting trip than I would to go back to the same hotel that I knew was perfect and clean and pristine. And that is life. A meaningful life isn't as comfortable. It isn't always optimizing for the path of least resistance. The best bathroom, sometimes the worst bathroom is on the best vacation, and sometimes the most meaningful life, and the most interesting work comes with the most discomfort. And if we're seeking to minimize anxiety or minimize discomfort, we're probably giving up a lot of very meaningful paths for the sake of a better bathroom. When really the best vacation is what we should be striving for.
[00:06:34] I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you have a chance to reflect on this or incorporate any of this into your day to day life. Whether you're deciding is this just a onesie about a new complex tool that may not be adding to your life or looking at a situation and deciding whether you're calibrating the downsides as bigger than the upsides, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
[00:06:55] Thanks for spending this micro moment with me. If you found it valuable, share it with a fellow time billionaire and give us a rating to help others discover the power of micro moments. For more ways to reclaim your time, check out timebillionaires.org and follow me. Rebecca Shattucks on LinkedIn. See you next time.
