How To Stop Being A Renter of Your Time And Your Mind: Andrew McConnell (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of Andrew McConnell’s talk titled “How To Stop Being A Renter of Your Time And Your Mind” at TEDxAtlanta conference.

In this talk, Andrew McConnell emphasizes the importance of actively managing one’s time and mental focus, drawing from a personal experience at a poker game. He discusses the prevalent issue of individuals not fully engaging in the present moment, as evidenced by research showing people spend a significant portion of their time thinking about unrelated things.

McConnell highlights the parallel between managing time and money, advocating for a proactive approach to both. He introduces the concept of a zero-based budget for time and mind, encouraging listeners to prioritize activities that truly matter to them. McConnell also stresses the need for regular self-audits to align daily activities with personal priorities. He acknowledges the challenges in maintaining this discipline but underscores its necessity for truly owning one’s life.

McConnell concludes by asserting that taking control of our time and thoughts is the key to transforming ourselves and, by extension, the world.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

The Poker Game Reflection

Four years ago, I was at a Saturday night poker game with some friends, and I got there a little late, and the music was really loud, so it wasn’t easy to talk to the people across the table. And as a result, I ended up spending most of the night speaking to the guy sitting on my right, who I didn’t know terribly well before that evening, but we at least knew each other’s names, so that was something.

And I don’t know if it was the terrible hand I had just been dealt, or maybe that I was feeling a little on the outside looking in, having gotten there late, but when P.J. asked me how things were going, I didn’t answer him with the usual, “Great, how about you?”

Instead, I told him the truth. “You know what? I’m not doing that well.” Now, this would have been an obvious time for P.J. to get up and take a break from the downer sitting next to him, or maybe have me kicked out of the game for violating the cardinal rule of small talk and answering his empty question with a real answer, but to his credit, P.J. did neither of those things.

Instead, he listened. P.J. listened as I lamented the hours I was working, the work I was doing that I didn’t think made the most of what I could offer, how I felt I was missing out on my daughter’s childhood and rarely ever got dinner with my wife anymore, and how even on those times where I managed to escape from work, it seemed like my mind was still back at the office. P.J. just listened, and then he nodded, and he said, “It’s your life. If you don’t like what you’re doing, then change what you’re doing.”

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A Life of Constraints

Before that night, here’s how I was living each day. I had all these things that I wanted to do, and I tried to squeeze them in and fit them in around days that were already filled with things I felt I had to do. Making matters even worse, on those rare occasions I managed to flip something in I really wanted, you know, like a Saturday night poker game with some friends, more often than not, I found my mind was still back at the office, and I don’t think I’m alone in this. Have you ever felt stretched thin and unable to do the things you most wanted?

Have you ever been like me at that poker game where you’re with your friends or your family, but your mind’s still back at work or somewhere else entirely? Look, I know it’s not just me. Harvard researchers have found that on average, we spend 47% of our time thinking about something other than what we’re doing, 47%. We’re not there for half of each day, and our lives are just the sum of our days. If we aren’t doing what we want, and we’re not thinking about what we want while we’re doing it, we aren’t owning our lives.

Think about your home. You would never let someone walk through your front door, sit on your couch, and start eating all of your food uninvited. You wouldn’t put up with it, but with our time and our mind, we constantly do this.

We hand the keys to our most precious and our most finite assets, to our friends, our family, our colleagues, to complete strangers. We live as tenants, not owners, and it’s not even just you and me. Back in 2019, the CEO of the company that created ChatGPT saw enough people around him at the center of the tech universe not owning their own time and mind that he tweeted, “Don’t let jerks live rent-free in your head.” And it’s not just tech geeks.

The Struggle of Ownership

The single most insightful philosopher of our own time has struggled with this, personally. That’s right. Taylor Swift thinks about how she gave an ex free rent, living in my mind. Even Taylor struggles with this. So does that mean it’s hopeless? No. There’s a way to address it, and that way is to start treating our time and our mind like we do our money. With my money, I had a budget. I managed to it.

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After that conversation with PJ, I realized I needed to start doing the same with my time and my mind. Think about how you treat your money. Is there anyone here who would feel comfortable dumping your life savings in your front yard and just coming back at the end of the day to see what’s left after everybody else took what they wanted from it?

Do you know a single person who wakes up in the morning, opens their wallet, and just starts handing out 47% of whatever’s in there to anybody who walks their way?

No. With our money, we actively decide where and how we want to spend it. We can and need to do the same with our time and our mind. What are those things that we value most, that we want to build around?

What are those things, and I’m not going to name names of my own proclivities like binge-watching Tiger King or slipping into a TikTok time suck, but what are those things we only let slip in after we’ve already addressed everything we care about? I’m not even saying any of these things are bad. I’m just saying we need to be the ones deciding how much of our lives we give to them, not some algorithm.

Implementing a Zero-Based Budget for Time

As we go through this process, we’re building what’s known as a zero-based budget, one where we build from the ground up, a budget from scratch, not based on the past, not based on someone else’s design. The zero-based budgeting is a concept from finance. It was developed back in the 70s. It’s been used by businesses and investment firms to reap huge financial riches. Implementing the same process with our time and our mind can reap mental riches of even greater value to us. But as we build it, we have to make sure it adds up.

We all get 24 hours a day. Bezos and the newborn baby are the same in this respect. If we’re over, we have to do some budget cutting. This can be painful, but it’s also incredibly insightful because it forces us to be clear on our true priorities. For example, do you actually value freedom and flexibility more or stability and structure?

Going through this process has taught me how, at this stage of my life, I think about more money versus more time. I realize the window’s fast closing where my daughter’s excited to see me at her school. And so it’s made volunteering for lunch duty and field trips the things I build my budget around, not try to squeeze in later. But it’s not enough to build a theoretical budget. As my wife likes to say, “You’re not perfect. Why in the world are you on stage talking to people about this?” She’s right. I mean, she’s always right. I slip.

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We all slip, which is why as part of my budget, I allocate time every Friday to audit the upcoming week. I check to see, does the calendar match the budget I created? If not, was I long on my priorities? Or more likely, do I need to reallocate my time before the week begins?

I also check to see if I set myself up for success during those times. I’ve learned the hard way that if I cram things too tightly, I might physically make it to the next appointment, but my mind will stay behind on what came before, start running ahead to what’s coming up next. As you build your own budget, make sure that you’ve built in the breaks and transition periods you need to make sure your time and mine transition together. And then as we live it, check in.

The Importance of Checking In

Again, I have set reminders throughout my day to make sure I do this. Check to see if I’m sticking to my budget. Did I stop streaming after 30 minutes, or did I let autoplay start to steal from my family budget or my sleep budget? I check to see if my mind’s there with me. You know, there are times that I’ll get an email from a client right as I sit down to dinner, and I realize I’m not going to be present until I resolve it. I have to shift my time to match what’s in my mind.

Most of the time, though, it’s enough to notice in order to bring my mind back to the present, back to where I’ve chosen to be. The question remains, am I owning my time and my mind? A wise man once said, “Owners are different than tenants.” We can all own our time. We can all own our mind. But none of us will own our lives until we own them. And this is how the world changes. No, this is how we change the world, by starting from zero, by building a budget and a life of our design, not someone else’s, by being owners and not tenants. That is how we all rise.

Thank you.