Jay Boykin (00:02.444)
Well, hello everyone and welcome to this episode of Just Human. I am Jay Boykin, I'm your host. And it is in this space where we explore what it means to truly be human, whether it's at work, in our relationships, in leadership, and just in life in general. Because no matter where we come from, what we do, we all wrestle with the same things. How do we grow?
How do we connect and how do we live with purpose without losing ourselves? And so today I want to talk about something that we all have, but it's something that we never seem to have enough of and that's time. So I wanna hit you with a number first, 4,000.
More specifically, it's 4,160. But for simplicity, we're just gonna talk about 4,000. Now, you might be trying to figure out what that number represents, but I'm gonna tell you, that is the average number of weeks that you and I get to live. That's it, 4,000. Now, depending on your age,
you might already be halfway through that or more like myself. So that 4,160 is again how many weeks you would have if you lived to be 80. Now if longevity runs in your family you may get a few more weeks but none of those weeks are promised to
any of us. Now, I will tell you that when I first heard that, and I'll get into where that number came from, it really stopped me cold. I had to think about it for a little bit. And it was a bit staggering, not because I'm afraid of getting older. I mean, let's face it, I'm
Jay Boykin (02:27.392)
a 59 year old man who is still trying to figure out all the settings in my podcast studio. But that number really helped to reframe a number of things. was very interesting. So.
I'm not sure the type of things that show up in your newsfeed, in your YouTube feed or other social media. But for me, I get a lot of things, a lot of articles, books, videos that all get millions of views that are all about the topic of productivity.
and what are the things that you can do to increase your productivity, make the most of every day just to dominate your time. Here's some news for you. Father Time is undefeated. He never loses. And it's a battle that none of us are ever going to win. So
We think that we have all of this time, like some resource, but we don't. We have right now and we have to choose. We get to choose what we're going to do with it. Now, this whole idea came from one of those books that I was reading. and it's written by Oliver Berkman.
A very powerful book. It's called 4,000 Weeks and it's time management for mortals. Highly recommend it. And listen, this is not your normal, regular productivity book. There's no 10 hacks to master your mornings. It's more like a bit of a slap in the face that says, hey,
Jay Boykin (04:41.482)
you're not going to get everything done and that's okay. So before we dive into productivity and dive into some of the concepts from the book, I want to talk about all of the madness around time. And I want to zoom out for a second. And I think that really starting with
Where did this whole idea of time come from? Because here's a spoiler. Time has not always ruled human beings' lives the way that it does now. If you think about early humans, for thousands of years, time wasn't tracked in hours or minutes.
They just lived it. They followed the rhythm of the sun, the moon, the tides, the seasons. And time meant when the animals needed to be taken care of, when animals migrated, when your crops ripened and were ready to be harvested or...
you know, when the stars told you that it was time to plant, was cyclical, it was very natural, and it was a community thing. But then you fast forward to about 3000 BCE, and the ancient Egyptians, they invented the sundial, and this was one of the first devices to track the movement of time, and it used shadows.
And that was a big leap at that time. But even then, we weren't measuring time in minutes or even seconds. It was morning and maybe afternoon or night. But then came mechanical clocks. And those first began to appear in about the 14th century in monasteries.
Jay Boykin (07:05.878)
Now you might be asking why monasteries? Well, the monks needed to pray at very specific times and someone decided that they needed to ring the bells at these times in order to keep everyone else on schedule. And so the choice was somebody had to stay up all night and watch the stars and hope that that particular monk didn't fall asleep.
Or they created ways to track that time using devices. Now here was the real game changer. When the industrial revolution came about and more and more people went from working on farms to working in factories. And these factory owners needed a way to make sure that
all of the workers showed up on time. And so they introduced this standardized clock, this method of tracking time. And then suddenly time became a commodity. It became money. So there was no more sunrise and see, well, yeah, there was still a sunrise, but.
you had an alarm clock now, you had to be at the factory before your shift was supposed to start. And so there was now shift work and punch cards and lunch breaks and deadlines. And again, we didn't just measure time, we found a way to monetize time. And honestly, that seems like when everything
shifted. Time went from being something that we just lived inside of to becoming something that we were constantly trying to beat. You know, we had to avoid being late. We had to make sure that we process the amount of work that was expected from us in that particular shift. So it truly became a
Jay Boykin (09:32.142)
change to everyone's life. And you fast forward to today and I bet that if you open up your calendar, just like I can open up mine and our calendars are packed with 15, 30 minute, one hour increments.
And we've got all of these things that we're trying to cram into those increments. And we've got our phones that give us reminders. We've got our watches, if you have a smartwatch, those buzz. And it's just a constant reminder of everything that we are likely behind on. We've got time tracking software. We've got all of these apps.
We've got all of these different methodologies that people are trying to introduce to us to get us to win a race, to win a battle that we are not going to win. And so when Berkman says in his book that we've lost touch with time, he's right. We've absolutely turned it into a commodity.
instead of an opportunity or a canvas. So let's talk a little bit about why productivity can be somewhat of a trap. So Berkman talks about something that he calls the efficiency trap. Now, we all know this one, whether we know it by that name or not. It's when
The faster you answer all of those emails, the more emails you actually get. The more that you optimize your calendar, the more things get packed into your schedule. So one of the things that he talks about, especially as it relates to email, is that you ever notice the people who have
Jay Boykin (11:53.646)
20,000 unread emails and they don't respond to the vast majority of them because well, they're unread emails. A lot of times people just stop sending them emails. They'll find ways to get in touch with them in another fashion, but they realize that email's not working. Now for me, I'm one of those freaks who tries to hit inbox.
zero as often as possible. I start to twitch a little bit if I get too many emails in my inbox and especially unread ones. And what I have realized is that, you know, as I respond to all of these emails, people just send me more emails. They recognize that, okay, email is the best way to get in touch with Jay. So I'm just going to send him more emails. I'm not saying that
Email is evil. It can be a great tool, but it does create a bit of a trap, especially for individuals like me who feel like I have to end my day, end my week with zero emails in my inbox. And you know, this efficiency trap, we fall for it. We tell ourselves, if I can just get through this week, if I can get through
this day, this month, I'll finally have time to breathe. But here's the thing, here's the truth. Productivity doesn't create freedom, it just creates more demands.
I'll tell you, I'll share this from my personal experience. When I was working for my previous company before I started my own business, and as an accountant, having the opportunity to be a corporate controller, that's almost like a pinnacle title, you know, next level.
Jay Boykin (14:09.12)
CFO, but corporate controller is a big title for accountants. And I had the opportunity to be the controller for a publicly traded company. And publicly traded meant that we had to do our quarterly filings with the SEC. They had to be done by a certain time. And so there were schedules.
the books had to be closed by a certain period of time. Certain things had to be reviewed by a certain period of time. Certain things had to be reviewed by other people at a certain period of time and then reviewed by me and then reviewed by the CFO, the CEO, the board. And so I had calendars and checklist and seemingly checklist for my checklist and.
As soon as it seemed like that quarter was done and that earnings call was over, I feel like I had two days and then it was time to start this over again. Now that's the nature of the job for that type of a position and especially in a publicly traded company, but it was a nightmare. I was exhausted and I didn't feel like
my life was my own. I was trying to do everything and be limitless with a limited life. And so that's what Berkman calls out is our refusal to accept the fact that we are finite beings with finite time. And the lie is
catch this, the lie is, is that if we just hustle harder, if we work harder, we will eventually outrun our limitations. Well, you won't, you can't. There's just always going to be something else that has to be done. Another demand on your time.
Jay Boykin (16:34.926)
Here's a question for you though. What if, going back to thinking about these limitations that Berkman talks about, what if our limitations are not a problem to solve, but a gift to embrace? Berkman argues that our time is valuable because it's limited.
If we had unlimited time, if we were gonna live forever, then you wouldn't have to worry about it. But because we do have a finite amount of time.
Our time is extremely valuable. So choosing one thing means not choosing dozens or hundreds of other things. And oftentimes we get paralyzed by that. I'm going to work on this one project today, but that means that there's 50 other things that I'm not going to get done. And that will work many of us up into a frenzy.
But instead of that being paralyzing, it can actually be freeing. It can be liberating. So think about it, if you've only got 4,000 weeks, maybe you don't have to be great at everything. Maybe you just need to be present with the things that actually count, with the things that matter. And
I believe that this can hit especially hard for many of us who were raised to believe that our value only comes from what we can produce. How many hours we log, the status that we chase and the empire that we build. But what if the real legacy is how we show up for
Jay Boykin (18:43.734)
our spouses, our partners, our kids, our community, and even ourself. That's where the real value is.
Berkman makes this unexpected point. Real freedom is not having endless options. Real freedom is choosing and committing to those things that are truly important in our lives. And look, I get it, that commitment.
It's scary. It means that you are saying no to so many other things. But it's also the only way that we can really go deep at anything. So let me bring this home. This podcast, for example, Just Human, this
exists because I wanted to choose to go all in on something that aligns with my values. It's not perfectly planned. It's not perfectly scripted. It's not 100 % optimized, but what you do get every episode is real. You get the real Jay and real topics and real guests 100 % of the time. Now,
This comes at the expense of other things. I can't do this podcast and learn how to play the piano, which I didn't just randomly pull that out. I have always thought that it would be cool to learn how to play the piano, but that's just not on my priority list right now. I'm focusing on my business. I'm focusing on my marriage, my relationships and
Jay Boykin (20:49.706)
learning how to play the piano is just not, it's not going to be one of the things that I'm going to focus on right now. So sometimes making those decisions, making those choices, it can be difficult. It can be very hard, but it's worth it. And I feel like I'm finally in a place where I am doing things that, that feed my soul. It's, it feels good.
every day when I look at the things that I've been able to accomplish and not focus on the things that I didn't get done. So let me ask you this, what's something that you've been holding back on because you're trying to keep all these options open, you're afraid of closing the door to some other things and really focusing on that one thing that is very important.
Jay Boykin (21:51.918)
I want to talk about some of the things that Berkman, again in the book, 4000 Weeks, Time Management for Mortals, I highly recommend it. And some of the things that he suggests, and I highly recommend, I haven't perfected any of these things, but I'm trying. But let things fall through the cracks on purpose.
Not everything deserves your time and your attention.
Jay Boykin (22:30.53)
Focus on what matters the most and protect it. Whatever that most important thing is, put that on your calendar first and honor that time, respect that time.
Another thing that Berkman talks about is stop waiting for the perfect time because there isn't one. I can think of a number of times that I've procrastinated on something trying to prepare myself, make sure that everything, the preparation was perfect. I wanted everything to be perfect and to find the perfect time. Well, guess what?
It's just not going to happen. And one of my new mantras is done is better than perfection. So I love being able to check certain things off of my list, recording another podcast episode without necessarily worrying about the fact that, I messed up that line. I stumbled through my opening or the closing wasn't perfect.
I don't think that you guys are too worried about that. And so I'm not going to focus on that either.
Another tip that Berkman recommends is slowing down. Rushing through life just means that you're going to miss life. There are things that you're going to miss because you're rushing and trying to do everything and being all things to all people. the last thing, and this one, ironically enough, I'm going to say is the most uncomfortable, is that Berkman
Jay Boykin (24:21.482)
says to accept discomfort, imperfection, uncertainty, sometimes even boredom. They're all part of the deal. And being okay with the fact that things aren't going to be perfect and things are not going to be 100 % certain, just embrace it and be okay with it.
So each of us needs to remember that we're not machines. None of us are machines. And I want to say this. First of all, if you're watching this on YouTube, thank you so much for taking the time to watch. Leave me some comments. Maybe you'll hit the subscribe button and definitely share this with someone that you think might need to hear this message. If you're listening on your favorite
podcast provider again, thank you for your time. You've got millions of choices out there and I appreciate you taking the time to listen to Just Human.
But you are not a machine, none of us is a machine. You are a human being. And again, that means that you have limitations, but that also means that you're alive. We're all alive. And you have these weeks, these beautiful, ordinary, messy, sometimes unorganized weeks to live.
and to live them in a way that reflects what matters most to you. So don't waste them. Don't waste them chasing things like inbox zero. Chase something that's meaningful. Chase connections. Chase things that provide you some inner peace. I think that that is a beautiful thing.
Jay Boykin (26:30.252)
So as we get ready to wrap this up, I wanna thank you again for spending some of your valuable time with me. Again, it's so ironic that we're talking about time and I just wanna thank you so much for choosing to spend some of your time with me and listening to this particular episode. I hope it helped you to...
Perhaps breathe a little bit easier and to just take a deep breath and release some of that pressure that you're putting on yourself to be perfect and to find the ideal productivity life hack. Again, I'm not saying that you just blow off the rest of your life, blow off your work. We all have responsibilities, but just remember that you can't do
everything. It's just impossible. If this resonated with you, again, please share it with someone who might be stuck in the hustle trap, in the efficiency trap. And until next time, be kind to yourself. You don't have to get it all done. You just have to be present for what matters most. I'm Jay Boykin and we're all just human.
