Want an extra hour in your day? Try expert practices to free up your time

By Kara Alaimo, CNN

(CNN) — Want more time in your day? You can get plenty by managing how you react to challenging situations, author Neal Schore told me.

The trick is to avoid second-guessing, worrying, griping or doing other things that waste time, according to Schore. He details this approach in his new book, “The 25th Hour: How to Thrive (And Gain Ridiculous Amounts of Time) by Getting Out of Your Own Way.”

I spoke to Schore, a Los Angeles-based executive coach who has been an adviser to and chairman of numerous companies, about how to find that extra hour.

This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

CNN: People tend to worry a lot. When we’re worried, you suggest imagining the worst thing that could happen and estimating the chance it will happen. Why?

Neal Schore: I love this because we always manufacture the worst-case scenario, which causes us to swirl. The swirl is when the thoughts take over. We wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it. We think about it the next day. We wind up having conversations with our friends and colleagues about it.

When you stop and think about the worst-case scenario, chances are, in most of these experiences, there is somewhere between a zero and 5% probability that the outcome happens.

It might look something like this: I sent an email to a client, I wasn’t as clear as I could have been and I didn’t properly answer the question. The swirl is thinking my client doesn’t like me, they’re going to call my boss and I’m going to get fired. We create this narrative in our heads.

When we pause and start to manage ourselves, we realize the probability of the client misinterpreting in this catastrophic way is pretty low — maybe 2%. And the probability of me getting fired over this is 0%.

Then we just move on, and we save enormous amounts of time.

CNN: You suggest managing our interactions with other people by stopping to figure out what their intentions are. How is that helpful?

Schore: This is one of the most powerful tools I teach. Often, we’re rushing and not mindful of tone. Also, so much communication now takes place in text and email, where tone can be misinterpreted.

We should pause and think, “What’s the intent? Did that person really mean to offend me?”

I just sent my son a text about a family event he isn’t attending. My intent was to inspire him to think about how family events are really important. His interpretation was the opposite of what I intended. He got defensive and was very offended.

We got on a quick call, and I asked him, “Hey, what do you think my intent was?” Immediately, just by pausing, he realized he misread the text.

We save ourselves all these defensive responses when we clarify intent.

CNN: You recommend we have a place in mind that makes us happy so we can focus on it for a few seconds when we encounter a stressful situation. Why?

Schore: I have a perch in Laguna Beach, California, just above this cliff where the sun sets, and it is just stunning. It’s majestic.

When I find myself in an amplified, hyped-up situation where I need to pause, I immediately go to my focal point, and it relaxes me. Then I can figure out the intent or realize this wasn’t such a big deal or the worst thing that’s going to happen is nothing. We get through things quicker.

CNN: You say it’s good for us to accept blame for things even when they are not our fault and to thank people when they criticize us. Really?

Schore: I acknowledge that the exercise starts out ridiculous and becomes highly applicable. Your colleague made a mistake in a report. You look at that and go, “Well, it’s my fault.” The idea is to think about how it’s possible that it could have been you. Then we build empathy around the concept of fault. When we do that, it makes us better leaders. It makes us better life partners.

Feedback is always really complicated. Many people respond defensively. When someone says something in a critical way, they’re typically trying to provide feedback, and they haven’t found the polite or proper words to say it in a way that is going to land. When we get really comfortable with family, friends or colleagues, we get free-flowing and just say things. The intent of it is not insulting. The delivery of it is. That’s the reason I like to just say “Thank you.”

Feedback is your friend, and welcoming it allows you to be open to it. If you can realize that the point around feedback is perhaps relevant, it avoids that circular negative back-and-forth that uses a lot of time.

CNN: When we’re really upset, you suggest giving ourselves a set period of time to have a pity party before moving on. How?

Schore: Life is complicated. Sometimes things happen, and we feel really badly. We should identify a period of time when we will allow ourselves to feel lousy — maybe two to four hours. In the worst-case scenario, six or eight hours. Nothing more than that.

What almost always happens when I prescribe a pity party is the person realizes it’s a waste of time. Oftentimes, it’s like 15 or 20 minutes. We save enormous sums of time by not swirling — by recognizing that what happened wasn’t that bad or that you’re going to apologize or do what you need to make things right.

CNN: You say we should speak directly. Why?

Schore: It’s important to share how you feel as opposed to dancing around it. We waste 15 to 20 minutes a day when we answer questions with “Well, I kind of sort of think that it would be nice if you did … ” instead of just saying yes or no. Oftentimes, that lack of directness leads into additional questions and extended conversations, because no one knows what I just said, so they have to clarify.

Avoiding all this time suck that comes from not being definitive is just one way of getting that extra hour in the day.

CNN: Can we really save a whole hour a day by doing these kinds of things?

Schore: Unequivocally, yes. When we wind up avoiding the swirls and managing ourselves, it is at least an hour a day. Take it to the bank.

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