Essay on Gaining Control of Your Free Time: Laura Vanderkam

Introduction

I chose the video because it is a study conducted by one of the most recognized time and productivity management expert, Laura Vanderkam. In this video, Laura tries to explain to her audience on ways of investigating how busy women spend their time. In this video, Laura concludes that successful people do not try to create time to achieve what they need. Such that, they identify what they want and set it as a priority.

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In the video" how to gain control of your free time," Laura concludes that making what a person needs should be a priority. She asserts that people need to find time within 168 hours a week to do a task that is important to them. Laura Vanderkam explains that time is a precious commodity; it depends on how someone sets it as a priority (Vanderkam, 2016). In this video, Laura tells her audience that the narrative that someone has no time typically refers that such a person as not set the matter as a priority. She explained these are giving an example of a woman who spent seven hours searching for water in her. However, this woman hardly finds free time to pay. In essence, time is elastic.

Personal Reflection

As claimed by Laura Vanderkam, there are many choices of things that a person can do at their own leisure time. In most instances, people may be involved in going to a movie driving with a friend and going to the gym and so many others. However, the choices have consequences. Such that, some people may spend their time positively while others may spend their time negative. To put this argument into my personal life, I spend almost 3 hours a day going to the gym. Some of the activities that I mainly participated in are visual entertainment, FIFA fanatics, hanging out with my friends listening to music, which approximates to 20 percent of my weekly schedules. The outcome is equivalent to a fifth of 168 hours a week.

I later found out that I spend about 30% of my week sleeping. From this point, I realize that I spent many hours doing nonproductive activities instead of converting them into productive activities. The other parts of my actions are that most of the hours I spend in school activities and tasks. These tasks include walking from one class to another, attending council meetings, doing homework, looking for lunch in a mess, printing research handouts, and sitting in a class. The activities mentioned above takes approximately 25% on my week. The activities equal a quarter of my weekly schedule. By living closer to school proximity, I hardly use much time traveling. Thus, I only go for about 2 to 3 hours a week on a vehicle that accumulates to 2% of my weekly activities. I spend the rest of my free time of the week in doing house calls such as organizing table, cooking, and cleaning. The house chores approximate to 13% all my weekly schedules. From this analysis, I realize that I waste most time in the gym and other physical activities that are unnecessary (Nohria, 2019). While I would like to be the focus on my studies, I hardly find time to finish my assignment on time. From this analysis, I also realized why I become sleepy in class.

In my view, I find Laura Vanderkam's idea of how a person should spend their free time-critical. I relate myself as the woman who claims to have no time to spend while she wastes almost 7 hours searching for water on her base. I feel like the woman in this video, I have realized that I lose most of my time doing physical exercises. I need to allocate that time to my academic hours. I believe I am not set my priority right is, especially when it comes to schoolwork. I agree with Laura Vanderkam that is setting of priority will always create time. I concur with her, but she says that we build what we want fast, then time shall be created automatically (Hesse, 2013). Such that, a person cannot create time by making what they want.

Philosophy

I have always believed that fun has multiple explanations from one person's perspective to another person's perspective. The basis of my reasoning is grounded on the fact that each person has his definition of fun. In other words, leisure also have several explanations. However, as I grew up, I realized that if you want us a fundamental worth to every human. From this fundamental principle, people acquire specific responsibilities (Nohria, 2019). In essence, it is the responsibility that a person set that determine how an individual will spend their leisure time. I have also believed that those who manage their time well have specific tricks.

From this video, I have realized that people overestimate their responsibilities and commitment each week. Most people underestimate the time they spend on leisure. In this video, Laura Vanderkam offers practical strategies to those people who find more time. Such that, they not only use it for self-purpose but also to use in helping people build the lives they want in the time they have in each week.

Outcomes

In this video, Laura Vanderkam, having studied how successful people spend their time. She draws a powerful conclusion that people do not only build their life by saving time but also build the life they want for themselves. Such that, the time, in this context, saves itself. In this video, instead of the woman to solve the problem of water in her basement, she uses more than 7 hours in the process. Initially, she had complained about not having enough time to spend on leisure.

In this video, the challenge is that many people spend most of their time in fun rather than engaging in vital responsibilities such as mentoring, doing research, and study. Laura Vanderkam claims that she is not perfect in managing her time. Such that in one of her presentations, she was late to arrive at the venue (Vanderkam, 2016). To others, the challenge is that they have overestimated their task in every way while leaving no room for leisure time.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there is a need for the women who are addressed by Laura Vanderkam to emulate successful people on how to identify what they want to pursue for time to make use of themselves. The same concept will help the plan on how they can make use of their weakly schedule. Indeed, a person cannot create time to do things they want in terms of career, relationship, finance, and family to be successful. Therefore, by setting priority on what a person needs, time shall save itself.

References

Hesse, E. (2013). How to manage your research time and team. Bone Abstracts.

Nohria, N. (2019). Time check: how to control your agenda so it doesn't control you. IESE Business School Insight, (153), 74-83.

Vanderkam, L. (n.d.). How to Gain Control of Your Free Time. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/laura_vanderkam_how_to_gain_control_of_your_free_time#t-187411