Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time & Live a Happier Life
Ashley Williams
Harvard Business Review Press (October 2020)

“Happiness is not the subject of this book. It’s the product.”

Do you value time more than money or money more than time? That’s a question easier to ask than to answer. Which is it? We’ll come back to that in a moment.

What we have in this book are the results of wide and deep scientific research that guides and informs the insights and counsel that Ashley Williams provides. Whether you favor money or time, she already knows a great deal about your core values, attitudes, and patterns of behavior, including waste.

Of greater interest to me is her explanation of why it is important (if not imperative) to develop what she characterizes as a time-centric mindset, one that promotes dimensions of happiness, social connections, relationship satisfaction, and job satisfaction that [begin italics] money cannot buy [end italics].

Obviously, as Williams is well aware, there are other benefits in these dimensions of satisfaction that [begin italics] only money can buy or make happen [end italics]. One of her key points is that those with a time-centric  mindset are self-motivated primarily by emotional or spiritual rather than by material incentives. This is what Williams has in mind when asserting that “being time-centric is [begin italics] prosocial [end italics], which is the word academics use to describe actions that benefit others.”

I agree with her: “Happiness is not the subject of this book. It’s the product.”

In this scientific research-driven book, Wiilliams guides her reader through a multi-stage process that begins with a brief but precise examination of Six Common Time Traps, then she explains how to avoid or overcome them. She includes “Time Poverty Diagnostic Tools” and a Self Evaluation.

Next, the journey of personal discovery continues as she walks her reader through a series of five “steps to finding and funding time,” a section that also includes practical advice measuring the value of time (whose currency is “happiness dollars”) while accounting for expenditures within a Time Balance Sheet. I was especially impressed by Williams’ inclusion of a “Fine Time: Create a Time-Afffluence To-Do List.” She devotes Chapter 3 to “The time affluence habit.” Be sure to check out the eight strategies when determining appropriate priorities, an exercise of top-line priority itself. The last two chapters (5 and 6) focus on “The Long View” and “Systemic Change.”

I have just provided an overview of Chapters 1-6. Details are best revealed within the narrative, in context. The same is true of Ashley Williams’ concluding thoughts. However, no spoiler alert is needed when I suggest that one of the most valuable checklists in the book is in the “Conclusion” (Page 151). I highly recommend re-reading this material once or twice before setting priorities. (Pages 71-87).

Here’s another recommendation: Have a lined notebook near at hand when working your way through the book so you can record in it your comments, questions, page references, etc. Write only on the front side of each page so that you can use its back to record recorded material nearby.

One final point: Yes, there are many sources of happiness that money can’t buy but there are many other equally legitimate sources that can only be experienced after an investment of both time and money. In my opinion, here’s the key point: Don’t waste either time or money. Manage both thoughtfullyy.

If you become time smart, you will also become money smart. Let Ashley Williams help you to make that happen. Absorb and digest the material in her book, complete all the exercises with meticulous care, apply what you learn while filling a lined notebook with your own thoughts and feelings, and then (let’s say, every six months or so) re-read both her book and your notebook. And then….

Congratulations! Your mission’s accomplished!