Time is money – recent research by Philip Zimbardo and magnifymoney.com shows your time perspective determines how you spend or save money, with some surprising results.

Your time perspective predicts your attitude to risk-taking and planning, so when it comes to your finances, it’s important to know whether you’re mainly Past, Present or Future orientated.

It turns out people who think about the Future – and who are better at planning, might be buying too much insurance. And whilst they understand the maths and are more financially literate, that doesn’t necessarily equate to healthy finances.

Conversely, people who live in the past, especially Past Negatives base their financial decisions on memories (and bad memories, at that) , not predictions. That means they take less risks and are more prudent. They might miss out on the boom times, but they’ll still be there when everyone else is bust.

It’s the people who like to live in the Present that I most feel sorry for. The credit card companies love their impulsiveness and the way they like to indulge themselves and their friends. But they’re heading for a life of debt and poverty if they don’t re-balance their lives, as well as their finances.

So Benjamin Franklin was right, time is money.  And with all three of these profiles, the way that you’re hard-wired determines your attitude to saving and spending your hard-earned cash. Unless you do a spot of rewiring, your choices and strategies are going to be limited, aren’t they?

So how do you rewire your attitudes?

Step 1 is to find out where you are. You can do that by completing a Time Intelligence Report. Click this link to find out more.

Step 2 is to start getting a bit more of what’s missing in your life and re-balance. If you’re stuck in the past, or the future, bring yourself up to date by allowing more pleasure into your life, here and now. Stop and smell the roses. Pick a few. Give them to someone you care about. If you’re too present, drag out an old photo album and trigger some good memories, get nostalgic.

Step 3 is to repeat Step 2 until you’re equally good at being in the past, the present or the future, when you want and when the time is right.

You might even save yourself some money.

I’ve just updated an old post about dealing with a negative past. While I was revisiting my past, I realised there’s another group of people who don’t necessarily have a negative past, but who are stuck there anyway, and might want an update as well. You probably know someone who hasn’t changed their hairstyle since forever, who still only likes music from the era when they were a teenager, and whose memories are focussed on a particular period of their past. Psychologists call this the Reminiscence Bump. Memories of our formative years, between 15 and 25 are more vivid and accessible than those from any other period in our lives, and they persist over a long time.

“did you know that nostalgia means “homesick” and that the original sufferers were Swiss mercenaries in the 17th century?”

Philip Zimbardo’s Time Perspective model has two different aspects of the past – Positive and Negative. If you have either or both of these Time Perspectives, you like to hang out in the past a lot more than other people. If you’re Past Negative, you’re regretting past mistakes. If you’re Past Positive, you’re nostalgic about the good old days. By the way, did you know that nostalgia means “homesick” and that the original sufferers were Swiss mercenaries in the 17th century? Doctors supposed that they were prone to the blues because the sound of cowbells had damaged their brains and eardrums during their youth.

“That didn’t work last time we tried it”

Nothing much wrong with being nostalgic, is there? It’s a harmless past time. In fact, having a positive past is a good predictor of well-being generally – you have deep roots, close family ties and a strong sense of how tradition binds us together. That’s all good, and makes you very resilient, but the flip side is less rosy. Resistance to change is the most obvious negative – you will hear your colleague saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and “that didn’t work last time we tried it”. They may well be right, just don’t expect them to be the driving force behind any innovation in the team. They like to stay in the same place.

It’s only a personal theory, but I suspect that past positive people also tend to collect more stuff around them as they go through life. Memorabilia. Souvenirs. Photographs. 10 yard swimming certificates. That kind of thing. And they would tend to stay in the same place – the place where they’d set down roots – so they wouldn’t get the chance to clear out the loft every time they moved house.

Full disclosure: on average I think I’ve moved house every four years, so I like to think I don’t carry much stuff around with me. But I’ve just looked over at my vinyl record collection – most of which is clearly at least thirty years old, that I hardly ever listen to. And my books, which also come with me, wherever I go.

Guilty of a positive past, m’lud.

It’s a New Year. Time for a change. A new job. How can you use psychology to give yourself an edge?

“The VIA survey will give you brilliant material for an interview. You’ll have a scientifically validated list of the qualities that make you unique.”

A really good place to start is the VIA survey of character strengths – It’s free, you just have to register to use it. I like it because it makes you think about who you are, not what you do. You’ll get a list of your signature strengths, like Love of Learning; Fairness, Equity and Justice; or Judgement, Critical Thinking and Open-Mindedness. You can read more about it in the Martin Seligman book “Authentic Happiness”. Seligman was the founding light of Positive Psychology, which shifted the focus from a “What’s Broken?” model to “What’s Great” frame. That’s an excellent jumping off point when looking for a new job, you can play to your strengths. Otherwise it’s easy to waste a lot of time rectifying or concealing your “weaknesses”. The VIA survey will give you brilliant material for an interview. You’ll have a scientifically validated list of the qualities that make you unique.

It’s also good to find out what your motivations are for leaving your current job (assuming you have one). I love Daniel Pink’s book ” Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” . I love it because research shows that what we think motivates us (money, shiny things, big houses) isn’t what motivates us. What we really seek is Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. Very different to the carrots and sticks usually on offer in the workplace. You might want to buy your old boss a copy as well. Did you know that having a bad boss is the most common reason for wanting to get a new job?

I’d also modestly suggest getting a Time Intelligence Report for yourself. It will tell you how you score on Motivation, Planning, Execution and Reflection, as well as the all important Time Perspective. Why do you need to know these things? Well, if you’re looking for a new job, you need to change from your current negative state of disillusionment with the past (old job) to a more optimistic, future-orientated state of optimism. The Time Intelligence Report will get you there, with a personal diagnosis and list of positive actions to take.

The Time Intelligence Report is only £1 until the end of January.

You can get it here

Paying attention

Paying Attention. Focus. Being Present. Mindfulness. Whatever you call it, people think we have lost the ability.  They say we’re more easily distracted, because there are so many more distractions than there used to be. I’m slightly sceptical of these statements about the hectic pace of modern life. Mostly because people have been making them for 2000 years. Here’s a quote from Marcus Aurelius, a Roman emperor who ruled from 160 to 180 AD, I guess in response new papyrus technology, or recent increased chariot performance.

“Confine yourself to the present”

So how do you actually do that? What’s the instruction manual for being present? There’s been an upsurge in courses and writings on Mindfulness, because of the perceived benefits in treating depression`and anxiety, and reducing stress. It’s a bit of a mash-up of different Buddhist teachings, with a 21st century spin, and it seems to work. But for me, being able to pay attention to your own thoughts, and not judge them, isn’t being in the present. If your mind wanders off, wondering “What’s for Dinner?” , and you consciously attend to it, that’s being in a present that feels a bit irrelevant. I’m probably missing something, because it’s becoming big business –  Google are running courses in it for their employees. Note to Google’s HR department, being present is different to presenteeism…… but they probably already knew that.

Here are some really easy tips for not only being present, but showing other people you are as well. I know they work, because my clients tell me they do:

1. If you find your mind wandering while someone else is talking to you, you can keep yourself on track by silently repeating their words to yourself.
2. Any form of exercise gets you back in touch with Now. Including sex.
3. Become a good listener. Stop yourself from formulating snappy responses in your head, while someone else is talking. Just attend to what they’re saying, tune out those voices in your head.
4. Do one thing at a time. However great you think you are at multi-tasking, you’re actually crap. You can’t check  email and pay attention to your kid’s football match at the same time. You’re actually micro-switching from one task to another, and doing neither very well.
5. Be spontaneous. Get comfortable with unpredictability. Learn improv,  tell jokes. Take up a sport where you have an opponent, or a whole team of them.
6. Stop making numbered, ordered lists.

Good Luck and let us know how you get on by leaving a comment.

We humans are really bad at forecasts.

“Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law” 

Daniel Kahneman literally wrote the book about the Planning Fallacy. He won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002, even though he’s a psychologist. He’s as smart as you can get. But he still fell into the very trap he himself identified.

“But we did not acknowledge what we knew. The new forecast still seemed unreal, because we could not imagine how it could take so long to finish a project that looked so manageable.” Daniel Kahneman. Thinking, Fast and Slow

The problem is, thinking about the Future is hard. It’s a long way away for most of us, particularly Present Hedonists. It’s so far away, we have to construct it by airlifting the present and plonking it down in the general area. Maybe we’ll embellish it a little, but it looks a lot like today.

However, the Future is not more of the Present. It’s not today delayed by 12 months. When you finally arrive in the Future, it’s definitely not like it used to be. You find that your forecast failed to factor in an economic downturn; a change in management; contractual disputes; specification changes; mission creep; illness; holidays; bad weather. Plus it was just plain over-optimistic, because you needed a good business case to get your project authorised.

 So what can you do?

Tip #1. Phone a Friend. Once you have your forecast. Double it. Double it again. Then throw away your forecast and ask an experienced colleague who’s not connected to your project. Before you ask them, get them to bring to mind similar projects they have done in the past. That way they draw on real-life, rather than joining you in your over optimistic fantasy world.

Tip#2. Do a Pre-Mortem. I’ve written about pre-mortems before, here. They’re brilliant for eliminating group-think and the euphoria that pervades the early planning stages of any project. They force you to live in a dystopian future and explain how you got there. You wouldn’t want to live there, but it’s nice to visit, once in a while.

Have fun, and please let us know how you get on with your forecasting, in the Future.

New Year Resolutions, anyone?

September is a New Year for anyone who has kids, or works in education. There’s a huge sense of time passing, as you watch your child move up a class, or make a bigger transition to a new school, or college. Time passing feels a little more tangible than it does in December (or whenever you celebrate your New Year).

September’s my favourite time of year – but it’s often tinged with melancholy at the sense of time passing, and a rare chance for me to reflect on the past year and what’s to come.

I often make my New Year’s resolutions around now, by having a conversation with my future self. It’s not just me talking to him, he gives me a clear idea of what’s needed so that he can exist, and I’m not just chasing rainbows. Or pavements, if you’re Adele. Pavements?

I’ve let him down on occasion, but I’ve also surprised him, big time, when we have our review in December.

There’s still a whole four months to go to make plans and move forward with things. Okay, three months, because no one does anything of any importance whatsoever in December any more. But if your January resolutions petered out earlier in the year, now is a great time to get some momentum going again. I believe that motivation is the engine that drives us forward, so we need to understand them first. But a period of reflection, and maybe even a course correction, can ensure that we’re looking where we’re going, and we’re going where we need to go.

When I have the next conversation with myself

As you’ll see. I’ve changed the layout of this site. We now have a twitter feed and a new email sign-up box. If you sign up, you’ll get automatic updates to your inbox, and won’t miss a thing.

More than that…. you can get a free Time Intelligence Report, worth £30, if you join the mailing list in September. We’ll send you a code to give you free access.

In the next 3 months I’ll be focussing more on the list and will be offering exclusive free content and one to one coaching to list members. Exclusive means it’s not available to non-subscribers.

So feel free to sign up, and follow us on Twitter @TimeIntell.

Even better, if you have a New Year’s resolution, please leave a comment and let us, and your future self, know where you’re headed.

Believing is Seeing

I gave a presentation titled “4 tools to smash time management” to a local Enterprise group this week. The main take away was “We live in a visual world. Use visual tools”. I borrowed the idea from Kanban, where you use a board to track the Backlog/Doing/Done phases of your tasks or projects. It’s an upgraded To-Do list, because you get a sense of movement as a task moves through the three phases, and accomplishment when it’s in the Done column. With a To-Do list, it’s either To-Do, or crossed off/not on the list. Kanban is also a great way to share information quickly within teams. You don’t have to go searching for files in cabinets, or files on a system. It’s there, for everyone to see.

The other examples I used were a Yearly Wall Planner, an egg timer and our Time Intelligence Report (TIR). Year planners work really well for people who can’t see further ahead than the next couple of days. The whole year is laid out in front of them as a picture. The egg timer was for the 45 minute sprints I talked about here. Again, you can see how much time has elapsed, and how much is still to go.

My business partner, Alan, used to be a graphic designer, and he’s done a great job with the TIR. The scoring information is all visual, and we use this spider diagram to show scoring on your Time Perspective 

Past, Present, Future

It’s a lot more digestible than the raw data, which is just columns of numbers. I’m proud of how the TIR looks, and the great job it does in making complex information easy to understand, just by looking. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a million digits.

Simplify your time management by using visual cues for yourself, and to communicate within your team. It will save you time!

I have a feeling, not backed up by any science at all, that knowledge workers get stressed about workload because they can’t see it, it looms over them as a weight and a presence, but has no physical form or appearance.

What do you think?

Business thinking about Time Management needs updating.

Did you know that we all have a preference for the way we think about time? It’s called our Time Perspective, the concept’s been around for 25 years, with tons of top-quality cross cultural and longitudinal research. People who are Future (F) orientated make sacrifices now, that they think will benefit them in the long-term. They have career plans, pension plans, insurance plans. They’re about plans. Present Hedonists (PH) get distracted by immediate gratification. They’re good at being in the moment, and live for today, who knows what tomorrow will bring? Present Fatalists (PF) feel they have little control over their destiny, someone else is in charge of their life plan. Past Positives (PP) have a rosy, nostalgic picture of the past, the good old days. Past Negatives (PN) are, well, negative about their past, and the past in general.

“Every picture tells a story”

These 5 perspectives explain how we go about our daily lives, and how we make our choices about time use throughout the day. They’re fundamental to how we use our time at work, but also to how we do our work. Let’s have a look at the diagram above. How will this character behave at work?

They’re high PH. Reactive, present, personable. Combined with Low F – not so good at making plans or being proactive. Easily distracted by something interesting that grabs their attention, so maybe not a good finisher. Low PF – they believe they’re responsible for their destiny, won’t blame things on “the management” and will manage their own development. Medium PP and low PN – they won’t have much time for the people who remember how Project X went wrong in June 1987, or who like to reminisce about when we were a start-up working out of a garage.

“You’re failing to connect the Past, Present and Future”

Why does this matter? Next time you’re driving through a change management project, and you meet resistance, it just may be because people aren’t buying the future you’re selling. You’re failing to connect the Future with the Past and the Present, and not everyone wants to live there anyway.

“Time Management and Productivity used to be the same thing”

Psychologists have been studying Time ever since psychology became a science, yet what they have discovered mostly stays in the academic world. Business  thinking about time is still rooted in Frederick Taylor’s time and motion studies, where efficiency and productivity are still the declared goals. This worked in the 19th and early 20th century, when factory output was, literally, what counted. Time Management and Productivity used to be the same thing.

Today, most people are adding value by using their knowledge, rather than being part of an industrial process, yet we still use the same words to talk about output. This leaves no room for measuring modern concepts like innovation, problem-solving, creativity, strategic thinking, collaboration and team-working.

People who use their brains for a living, which is most of us, need a better framework for managing their time and measuring their effectiveness than working faster, harder, or longer. That’s not Working any more.

If you would like to find out more about your own Time Perspective, please leave a comment below.

You can’t learn from the experience if it kills you

The first time I suggested we carry out a pre-mortem to improve decision-making in the future, the sales director nearly had a fit. We had finally won a very prestigious contract after 18 months. Now here I was, trying to get people to imagine it had gone horribly wrong. Right after he’d done his rousing Henry V speech. Why was I trying to screw things up?

A year in the future, the project has failed miserably, catastrophically.

First of all, what the hell is a pre-mortem? It’s a term coined by Gary Klein in his book  “The Power of Intuition: How to use your gut feelings to make better decisions at work”. Klein has studied decision-making for thirty years, with the military, first responders, emergency medics – people involved in potentially life or death situations. A pre-mortem is held right at the start of a project. At the project kick-off meeting, the project team has to look into a crystal ball. A year in the future, the project has failed miserably, catastrophically. Their job, in three minutes,  is to each come up with ten reasons why it failed.

You can see why the sales director was pissed-off. He wanted them to sing reasons to be cheerful, not group-hallucinate about the whole thing going titsup.

If you’re not looking, unforeseen events are always going to be unforeseeable

We’ve all seen and felt the infectious over-optimism at the start of a project. No one wants anything to go wrong, so there’s a tacit refusal to face awkward truths. No one wants to be the one to point out the flaws in the plan, so instead the Project Manager copies and pastes the risk register from the last project and everyone’s happy. Until things start going wrong and everyone starts talking about perfect storms and black swans. If you’re not looking, unforeseen events are always going to be unforeseeable.

If you give people permission to think the unthinkable and say the unsayable, corporately you have a robust framework for making better decisions. You don’t need to pretend that the future will be the same as the past, plus 10% contingency. A pre-mortem encourages innovative thinking and problem solving.

There’s no need to wait for the patient to die before learning from the experience.

When I was 17, my friend wanted to be a pharmacist. His future wasn’t a dream, or even an ambition, it was more like a fact that hadn’t happened yet. Like an airline pilot planning a flight to Hawaii. He knew where it was, how to get there and how long it would take. I’m not sure why, pharmacy didn’t run in the family or anything, but that was definitely what he saw himself doing. He had a very clear picture of his future destination, which was real and immediate, not out there in the distance.

Mark’s now a very successful research chemist (in pharmacy), he’s exactly where he thought he would be, nearly forty years ago. I guess he’s had different aspirations along the way as well, but he’s achieved his lifetime career goal.

I admire Mark for his focus and vision (notice the visual words we use in English to talk about the Future). He’s very Future orientated.

Our time  perspectives drive how we all manage our time in the macro sense – managing our life time. They’re the dynamo that drives time management behaviour in the micro sense as well – how we manage our days and hours. Can we keep our eyes on the final destination, or are we more prone to deal with what’s appears right in front of us? This affects how and what we instinctively prioritise, regardless of what we think we should be doing, or what’s theoretically number one on our to-do list.

Mark’s goal  may have been way out in the future, but it had two essential qualities. Firstly, it was connected to the present by his sense of purpose. He was highly motivated in the here and now to work towards it. Secondly, the goal was more than just a vision, it was a fully realised thing that he could touch, smell, taste and hear, as well as see. When those two qualities are present, the destination is a real place, worth going to, worth spending time getting there.

So, if you can make your goal real for yourself and other people, and if you can connect it to your inner motivations, you will be propelled towards it, and it will get more real as you draw closer.

Let us know if that’s interesting to you.