Tools for Thought

We usually think of clutter as something physical. But clutter is anything that obstructs you from moving forward. Clutter can be stuff that prevents you from walking across the room without tripping, but it can also be behaviors that fill up lots of time, preventing you from making progress in more meaningful areas of your life. These behaviors are sometimes called crutch activities, but for now I’ll use the term coined by Julie Morgenstern, habit clutter.

Most time-stealing habits are pretty obvious when viewed objectively. But to the extent that habits are more or less automatic behaviors, like breathing, they can be hard to notice without a conscious effort, and harder to intervene.

Habit clutter is not limited to “bad” habits

Many habits, like smoking, are easy to identify because they’re already understood to be unproductive or unhealthy. But some habits are “good” behaviors either done in excess or for the wrong reasons. I used to be a compulsive reader, devouring a mininum of three books a week, usually four, and sometimes a book a day. Because I read “good” books, this habit got a lot of social approval from others, but I recognized that I was reading to fill time and live vicariously.

Natually, bad habits are habit clutter, but it’s important to pay attention to any habit that doesn’t manifest a meaningful outcome, or that involves any amount of time that you wish could be applied more fruitfully. Whenever you find yourself wishing that you had more time, see if there’s a pattern of behavior that, if eliminated, would free up that time. Here are some principles to keep in mind when hunting down these habits.

Look for patterns, not just individual behaviors. Consider the so-called “latte factor” frequently discussed by personal finance experts. Forgoing a single latte, or doing so occasionally, would have too little impact on your finances to be motivating. But the compound interest from an extra $100 a month might change things. Ask yourself how much time, energy or money would be freed up if a certain behavioral pattern were dropped out of your life entirely.

Identify the things within a habit that you look forward to doing. If you have 40 feeds in your RSS reader, but only look forward to reading 25 of them, eliminate the ones you “should” be reading that, frankly, are dead weight. If you watch several hours of television a night, see if some of those shows are being watched because there’s “nothing else on.” Find the one or two shows you look forward to watching and eliminate the rest. You’ll probably find that you enjoy the those one or two shows more, once the experience is no longer diluted by obligatory viewing.

Eliminate through substitution. Getting rid of a habit creates a void. Without a new pattern of behavior to take its place, anxiety will probably compel you to revert to the old habit for lack of anything better to do. Ask yourself, “What would I like to do if I had more time?” Going to the park with your kids, studying jazz guitar, learning to draw, volunteering, starting a blog, getting a pet, joining a meetup group, or starting a side business are some possible substitutes. Right now I’m replacing my morning cafe ritual with jogging. Before eliminating a habit, get an idea of how that previously committed time will be used.

Look for old momentum. Many habits that are now clutter started out as worthwhile activities, but are now past their timing. Magazine subscriptions, forums, and certain conversational topics might have been useful to engage in at one point, but are too familiar now to give you enough new information to justify the time spent. These habits take time and energy, but require more initial effort to stop than they do to maintain. Recognize that putting in that up-front effort is worth that long-term gain in time and energy.

Look for clutter in ostensibly productive activities. Wasted time often hides itself in what might otherwise be useful behavior in a different context, or to a lesser extent. Going to Staples to buy a printer cable turns into a half-hour browsing of laptops and digital cameras. Checking email becomes a reflex action when at a loss of what to do. More time is spent downloading software than using it. Because these habits could be productive, it’s important to realize that only you can judge for yourself whether or not they actually are. You can fool other people, but you can’t fool yourself.

Focus on outcomes. Look for what a behavior is intended to accomplish. It’s fine to be idle, but idling (doing “stuff” with no meaningful outcome) just consumes energy without providing anything in return. The goal is to use time, not fill it.

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