Chris Guillebeau
speaker
120 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard 12 Jun
Chris Guillebeau’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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And you'll probably start saying no to more of them.
Yeah, it's ultimately just a perception because obviously time is constant. But if you think about when we're kids, everything is unfolding. It's a great pace in some ways, but it also feels very slow.
Like the time between significant moments, you know, when you're waiting for your next birthday or you're waiting for, you know, to go to middle school or high school or all these milestones, you know, getting your driver's license, graduation and so on. It just feels like so far off, right? And your parents feel so old, like you can't possibly relate to them.
And then as we get older, right, we notice, we perceive, you know, that the time is passing a lot quicker and there are fewer of those milestones. So we begin to kind of appreciate time more. And I think this is just something that, this is just one of these interesting natures, interesting characteristics about time, that as we become more mindful of time,
then perhaps we might think more about how to use it. One thing I noticed in the research, I was talking to lots of people, different ages and backgrounds, and there was a lot of commonality. A lot of people would use the same phrasing. People would say, there's something I should be doing right now, but I don't know what it is, and I have this low-grade angst about it.
Another thing they would say is, I feel like I'm too late for something, like I have missed something in life. And we tend to associate that with people who might be older. By older, I just mean adults or middle age. But even people who, you know, people in their 20s, people in their late teens, they would say almost exactly the same thing.
And so for those of us who are older, it's easy to say, well, you have your whole life in front of you, you know, you're in college or whatever. Um, but it's a very constant thing of feeling like I've missed my chance somehow, or I wish I could go back and do something over.
Um, and so I think it's important to maybe consider, you know, some relief for that as well, to understand that this is somewhat universal. Like we all have a certain amount of regret in life and you know, what matters is not what lies behind us, but what we can do with the time that's to come.
First thing is to start paying attention. Just start paying attention to how you spend your time. And so today, tomorrow, this week, notice like, where does my time go? How do I respond to different requests? When I have free time, how do I spend it? And by doing this, you don't actually have to make any decisions differently. You're just noticing.
You can also ask this question of more of this, less of that. What do I want more of in my life? What do I want less of? And again, by doing this, you're probably going to make some different decisions even without getting really strategic about it. It's a very low pressure, easy thing to do. Another thing that I think is important, especially if you're feeling really overwhelmed,
Um, because people often want to kind of like rewrite their whole lives and that's, that's difficult. Like when you're in the midst of stuff. So something to do is, uh, start by giving yourself more time. Like what can you do to give yourself more time? Um, you know, there's this whole decluttering thing and I think that's great in some ways.
Um, but I think it's actually more helpful to practice time decluttering, like rather than just cleaning out your closet or your sock drawer. It's like, what can I do to look at my calendar over the next few weeks and can I remove just going to challenge myself to remove two or three items.
And as you do that, notice how it feels and don't just immediately fill that time, but clear that space and consider what do I what do I want to do and how do I want to kind of spend this time? And so for most people, like buying back their time or just giving themselves time in some way, it tends to feel pretty good. So those are some things you can do like right away.
And then, of course, you can get more detailed later.
I wrote this story in the book about this guy from Amsterdam who every Wednesday for 20 years would take a trip and he would go to Schiphol Airport and he would fly somewhere in Europe. He'd fly to Stockholm or Barcelona or somewhere and he would just wander around the airport and he would fly back the same day.
Basically, Wednesday was his day to take this little day trip and he never really went outside the airport, at least on those trips. And I thought that was such a really interesting story because, you know, a lot of people would say, well, what a waste that is. And like all that traveling without any real travel. But the point is he had found something that made him happy.
It was a pretty simple and easy thing. There's all these budget airlines, you know, costs less than $100 every time he did it. And he did it, you know, as I said, once a week for most of his life. And so if you can find something that makes you happy, even if it seems kind of weird or odd to someone else and practice doing that, then I think that's a good start, whether it's scheduled or not.
Yeah.
Right. There might be something unusual that you like to do. I'm sure there is. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
I really enjoyed it.
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