👨🏻‍✈️ Dean Barnes' military secret for time management

This weekend we played slip’n’slide kickball at my in-laws.

Basically it’s kickball, but leading up to every base is — you guess it — a slip’n’slide! But then every base is a mini pool. So you kick, run like crazy, slide, then SPLASH into the pool before they tag you with the ball.

It’s an absolute blast and I’m pretty sure 10/10 doctors recommend… as long as you’re okay pulling a muscle like multiple of us did 😂

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While living in West Virginia 33 years ago, my dad was a volunteer missionary for our church.

The mission President there at the time was Dean Barnes, a retired time constultant for the US military.

What in tarnation is a time consultant?

Imagine every time you…

• Get dressed

• Eat breakfast

• Tie your shoes

• Make your bed

• Sit on the toilet

• Brush your teeth

• Have a conversation

• Walk from here to there

• (You get the idea, basically everything)
  

…you’ve got this big burly mustachioed man with a stopwatch tracking how long everything takes, down to the nearest milisecond.

Seriously, this is how much he revered the sacredness of time.

But not just that - he believed in being accurate about how we talk about time.

Like when you say, “Yeah I’m coming, just gimme a second”, you and everyone in earshot knows deep down you’re lying.

Have you ever actually gone in one second when you said “one second”?

• It might be 7.2 seconds.

• Sometimes it means 12 minutes.

• Or if you’re my toddler, it usually means “good luck trying to get me to come, silly human”
  

But it isn’t just when we say “one second”, is it?

Whether we guess a task will take 5 minutes or 5 hours, we’re usually wrong.

It’s called the planning fallacy, and Daniel Kahneman believes every homo-sapien that can fog a mirror is sick with it.

Apparently it doesn’t matter how many times we’ve done the task before - most of us are chronically terrible at predicting how long it will take next time.

We’re a little too over-optimistic, when what we really need is to be realistic.

Why’s it so hard to guess how long things will take?

This is why Dean Barnes timed everything.

He theorized that if we could just be accutely aware of how long things actually take us, we’ll be empowered to make better estimates for the future.

Which will help us plan better.

Which means we’ll avoid overcommitting, and be able to manage our own (and others’) expectations.

Ultimately, we’ll avoid so much frustration.

For example:

My parents make plans for their saturday.

They’ve got:

• returns,

• a few groceries to pick up,

• and my dad needs a new pair of shoes.

They’ll go out and my mom will say “we can probably do all these errands in an hour or two”.

My dad, because of what he learned from Dean Barnes, has already been timing how long errands actually take.

He knows to plan at least 60 minutes per errand.

There’s always unexpected interruptions.

• Traffic

• Running into someone you know

• Remembering something else you need

Even though his estimates often initially seem exagerrated (“there’s no way it’ll take that long!”)…

…he’s usually right.

But because they’ve started to adjust their plans from 1-2 hours to more like 3+, they avoid the frustration of being late to their afternoon plans or constantly feeling behind while doing errands.

Be honest and realistic with your time, and it will reward you with peace of mind and plans that work.

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So:

1. Pick 1 regular activity in your life.

2. Track how long it takes each time for 1 week.

3. Refer to those records next time you’re planning for it, and see how much more accurate you can be in your estimates.

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This has been my daughter’s jam this week. Also happens to be sung by my good friend and freaking-great-musician, Patch Crowe. Enjoy!

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Her: “What would you do if a tiger took your marshmallows and climbed a tree and didn’t give them back?”

Wife: “I’d ask it nicely to give them back, I guess!”

Her: “Well you need to ask nicely and then share the marshmallows with the tiger then you can be best friends forever!”

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Thanks for reading!

- Kody

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P.S. Back in September of 2022, I started this newsletter as a passion project. I still make exactly $0 from it. In fact, I’m losing money every month on it for the sake of helping you with your habits (and hopefully giving you the occasional laugh).

My goal from the beginning was to help 1,000 people build better habits through this newsletter within the first 12 months.

I’m now just 80 away!

If everyone who reads today’s issue shared it with just 1 person, together we’d pass this goal before next Tuesday.

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