Set relationship goals

People are a good use of time

From time to time, someone will write or announce that “you spend most of your waking hours at work.” Mathematically, this isn’t actually true for most people.

(168 hours minus 40 for work and 56 for sleep leaves 72 hours for other things. Work 50 hours and you have 62 hours for other things.)

That said, work can certainly feel like it takes the bulk of our time. In many years of writing about time management, I have pondered why this is. It’s not that work is synonymous with drudgery — even people who love their jobs often feel like work consumes a bigger proportion of their hours than it does.

So how to explain this puzzle? I think the explanation is that we give work time structure. We set goals and work toward them. Because the time is planned and given a purpose, it seems to expand in our minds.

A little more structure elsewhere

The rest of life shouldn’t be exactly like work. But this realization suggests an obvious way for making personal time feel more weighty. Adding more structure to our personal lives might make this time feel more memorable and bigger.

This is particularly true for time spent with other people — which tends to be the time we wish would feel bigger and more expansive!

So today’s tip is to set real relationship goals. Think about the people you enjoy, and think about ways you might add projects and habits to your time with these people.

For instance, if you normally read to young children at night, you could take this time more seriously by working through all the Caldecott award winning books, curating seasonal book flights, and taking your kids to the library regularly to pick up some new fodder. Maybe you could even come up with some stories together and self-publish a book of your favorites!

If you and your spouse both generally like to exercise, you might sign up for a half-marathon and either train sometimes together or at least compare training notes. You could plan a get-away at a destination race as the reward at the end of all this.

If you’re looking to chat with a friend more regularly, you could try a “limited engagement” where you watch a TV series together (FaceTiming each other at the same time perhaps, if you’re not in the same place) and then discussing it together afterwards.

Put it on the agenda

Any of these goals will inspire you to think about the time you spend with the person outside the time you are actually spending together. You will make plans. You will put things on the calendar. Perhaps that seems like a lot of bother, but it is precisely this “bother” that makes work seem as big as it is.

Now to be sure, one can go overboard with this. Part of any relationship is just spending relaxed time together. But life is a balance, and if we over-structure work, we probably under-structure everything else.

I believe other things in life can feel substantial too. Creating some relationship goals can change how we perceive time.