Ep 129 - The Calendar Tells All

Quick question. If a stranger looked at nothing but your calendar and your screen time for the last month, what would they say you care about? Hi, this is Jordana, the CEO of the Recon Network and host of the InBrief podcast. And today we're going to look at time as a mirror. See, we all carry a list of stated priorities: family, health, growth, faith, work. But then there's a second list written in actual hours that shows what what really gets our attention. Today is about comparing the 2 lists honestly, without shame or discouragement, and closing the gap on purpose. This is In Brief. Let's get to it. What if your priorities aren't what you say they are? Now hear me out, because my theory is this: what we say our priorities are is great. They show who we want to be or even who we view ourselves to be. But saying and doing are 2 different things, and our true priorities are shown up in what we do repeatedly. Now economists call this the revealed preference. It's an economic theory stating that people show what they truly value through their choices and what they purchase rather than what they say they prefer. That means that while someone may say, I'm going to buy that hamburger, the reality is they still like the other one better, and when they purchase it, it tells you which one they want. Taken out of an economic lens, that boils down to something like, ignore the survey answers, watch the behavior. And time is the cleanest behavior measurement there is because unlike money or words, everyone spends exactly the same amount Every day. The only variable is where it goes. So if we look at it this way, your calendar becomes a kind of testimony. If health is a top 3 priority and the record shows zero recurring hours pointed at it, the record is telling us something. It's not that you're a hypocrite— that word is too harsh and really not useful. It's just that there's a gap between the story you're telling and the ledger that you're living. Usually this is because of structural issues like obligations that you can't walk away from or seasons of life where everything gets cut. The other thing about the gap is that almost everyone has one. The size of it is the interesting part. So here's a quick audit you can do to identify your time gap, and it takes about 20 minutes. And I bet now that you're thinking about time, that 20 minutes just got really important, didn't it? Great. So first, before looking at anything, write down your top 5 priorities, what you would say matters most to you right now. Do this from memory and be as honest as you can with yourself. Once you have that list, then pull up the last 2 normal weeks on your calendar, look at the screen time report on your phone, and use your own recollection of evenings and weekends and roughly tally where the discretionary hours went. You can do this in one of 2 ways. One, not using locked hours like sleep or work since they are largely fixed, and for most people that 3 hours open that you have a day. Or a different way that's a little bit more time intensive is the way that I do a time audit. And usually I do this when I'm incredibly overwhelmed or I'm wondering why nothing is moving even though I feel like I'm working constantly. So I'll include work and sleep hours because if I'm being honest, I might say that my bedtime is at 10, but in reality I'm laying there doom scrolling for at least an hour or two. Now, when you've done both of these tasks, compare the lists. You'll probably notice 3 things which are pretty typical but always seem to pop up. First, at least one stated priority received close to 0 hours. Something that you said was important to you is getting nothing. The second thing is something that isn't on the priority list at all, and it's usually a screen, received 10 or more hours a week. Yes, clock it. And if you're doubling that, you really need to reevaluate where you're spending time. Third, and this is the one that stings in a really productive way, the missing hours aren't usually stolen by other obligations. They leaked. Nobody starts off their day with, I'm going to spend 11 hours doom scrolling online. It just happens in 90-second increments or 5-minute increments that were never part of a formal or conscious decision. Now, that last finding is actually the hopeful one, because if the gap were caused entirely by hard obligations, closing the gap would require renegotiating your entire life. You would have to figure out, what can I drop in order to make time for the things that are important? But if a meaningful chunk of it is due to leak— time spent by accident rather than by choice— then the raw material for your stated priorities already exists inside your schedule. It's just unclaimed. It's like free territory, just waiting for something to fall into it. Now, if you've done this exercise and you're worried about how to get back on track, don't stress about it. See, the priorities that lose are almost always ones without appointments. Work wins the calendar war because work schedules itself. You have to be there on time. Meetings have times, deadlines have dates, but those things like family dinner, the gym, the side project, or the phone call to your mom. Those things live as intentions, and intentions lose to appointments every single time. It's not because they matter less, but they were never given a slot or a place to defend or remind. Which points to the fix, which is so easy it's almost anticlimactic. Whatever you claim is a priority gets an actual appointment, a recurring block with a date and a time defended with the same mild stubbornness you would use for a work meeting. But keep in mind, this isn't aspirational. I'll work out more, but concrete by design. I will work out on Tuesday at 6:30 for 45 minutes. The test of whether something is really a priority isn't how strongly you feel about it. We all feel strongly about certain things that we haven't been able to move forward because of this time link. So it's not really a priority on how you feel. It's whether it exists on the calendar in a form. That can survive a busy or hectic week. So to start moving, just start with one. Take the priority with the biggest gap, the one that you keep claiming, but that keeps receiving nothing maybe, and give it 2 protected hours this week. 2. That's roughly 2% of your waking time on average, taken mostly from the leak rather from anything that will miss it. And if 2 hours can't be found for your self-described top priority, That's worth knowing too, because it means either the list needs editing or your life does. Now, in a month or so, come back and rerun the audit, not to grade yourself, but to remeasure where you stand. The gap between stated and lived priorities never fully closes. Life keeps moving and the lists keep drifting apart. So the practice isn't about perfection. It's about periodic honesty, looking at the record, Noticing the drift and making a correction, then repeat. Here's the reason it matters. Because the long arithmetic behind all this is that a year from now, your life will be the sum of what the hours actually did, not what the list said. The time will tell the story of where you go from here, not all of the things and intentions and plans that you say you want. And all of your goals and plans and intentions mean nothing if they never see the light of day.

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