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5 Powerful Questions To Design Your Time More Effectively

Summary

This episode of Developer Tea focuses on using powerful, introspective questions as a tool for designing one’s time more intentionally. The host, Jonathan Cutrell, presents five questions aimed at fostering self-awareness and aligning daily actions with personal values and goals.

The first two questions revolve around discerning between activities one genuinely cares about and those one merely wishes they cared about. Listeners are encouraged to examine their daily actions and identify tasks performed out of obligation or a false self-image, emphasizing that time is our most precious resource and should be spent on what truly matters.

The third question is a ‘pre-mortem’ exercise: asking what one will wish they had done differently by the end of the day. This is designed to combat autopilot behavior and prevent end-of-day regret by proactively identifying a meaningful accomplishment. The fourth question, ‘Who needs my energy the most today?’, often reveals that the answer is oneself, highlighting a common tendency to give energy away to others at the expense of personal development.

The final and perhaps most crucial question is, ‘What stress can I let go of right now?’ The host describes this as a daily mindfulness practice to locate the source of stress, which is often disproportionate to its cause. Simply identifying the source can be a resolution in itself. The episode concludes by stressing that conscious choice about time use requires intentional investigation and mindfulness in the present moment.

Recommendations

Communities

  • Developer Tea Discord — A free online community for engineers to connect, share powerful questions, learn from more experienced peers, or try mentoring less experienced engineers. The host encourages listeners to join to continue the conversation.

Tools

  • Split — A feature management and experimentation platform that allows for faster, safer software delivery by using feature flags. The host promotes it as a tool to ‘reimagine software delivery’ and safely deliver features up to 50 times faster.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:33 — Question 1: Distinguishing real care from wished-for care — The host introduces the first powerful question: ‘Am I doing things that I care about or things I only wish I cared about?’ This challenges listeners to examine if their actions are authentic to their true values or if they are perpetuating a false self-image. The discussion acknowledges that some necessary tasks may not be inherently valued but serve a greater purpose, yet emphasizes aligning time with genuine care as much as possible.
  • 00:04:04 — Recap of first questions and introduction of the pre-mortem — After a sponsor break, the host recaps the first two questions. He then introduces the third question: ‘When I go to bed tonight, what will I wish I had done differently?’ Framed as a daily pre-mortem, this question is a tool to avoid autopilot and end-of-day regret by proactively identifying a meaningful accomplishment for the day.
  • 00:05:32 — Question 4: Directing energy intentionally — The fourth question is posed: ‘Who needs my energy the most today?’ The host points out that the answer is often oneself, as we frequently give away our energy (time and effort) to others who ask for it, while neglecting to invest in our own development and well-being. This question prompts a conscious decision about where to focus one’s limited resources.
  • 00:06:44 — Question 5: Identifying and releasing stress — The host presents the final and emphasized question: ‘What stress can I let go of right now?’ He describes this as a daily mindfulness exercise to locate the source of internal stress, which often stems from unmet needs or accumulated small tasks. The act of identifying the source can itself reduce the stress, as it is frequently out of proportion with the actual cause.
  • 00:09:30 — The importance of mindfulness and conscious choice — The host provides a key takeaway: time is passing right now, and becoming mindful of how we spend it allows for drastic improvement. Making a conscious choice about time use is not difficult but requires the intentional recognition and investigation of how time is currently being spent. The episode concludes by noting that answers to these five questions often overlap, reinforcing their interconnected purpose.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2022-10-05T07:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:11:27

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] We say it on the show all the time, questions are powerful.

[00:00:13] And in today’s episode, I’m going to ask a few powerful questions for you to think about.

[00:00:20] It’s a very simple concept here today, but hopefully these will be helpful, enlightening for you.

[00:00:27] We’re going to ask five questions today. We’re going to jump straight in. First,

[00:00:33] today am I doing things that I care about or things I only wish I cared about?

[00:00:41] Think about this for a second. Am I doing things that I care about or things I only wish

[00:00:47] that I cared about? If you have ever tried to do a values definition for yourself,

[00:00:55] this might feel familiar. What do you value and what do you wish you valued? These are two

[00:01:03] different lists. Sometimes there is overlap. Sometimes we are happy with the things that

[00:01:08] we are actually valuing in our lives. Other times we have some idea of who we would like to be

[00:01:16] that is in conflict with some reality about ourselves. And this specific question

[00:01:24] is about how you’re actually acting this out. Are you doing things today to perpetuate

[00:01:31] some kind of picture of yourself that isn’t true to who you really are? This is a maybe a difficult

[00:01:39] question to ask and it may be a concept that you’ve never encountered before. So spend some time

[00:01:45] with it. It might make sense to journal on it to consider that as a variation on this same question

[00:01:53] you can ask what did I do yesterday that I didn’t actually care about doing? What did I

[00:01:59] choose to do yesterday? What did I spend my time doing yesterday that I didn’t really care about

[00:02:06] and why? Now there may be answers that say well I did something that I didn’t care about doing

[00:02:13] because it got me something that I do care about. Some of the work that we do we may not

[00:02:19] necessarily care about as much as other work that we do but for one reason or another it’s

[00:02:25] necessary. It’s necessary for us to continue doing a job. It’s necessary for us to get the money that

[00:02:31] we need to keep living our lives or whatever the thing is. But it’s important to face this reality

[00:02:37] because time is our most precious resource and so the way that you’re spending your time as much as

[00:02:43] you can align that with what you care about the better. We’re going to take a quick sponsor break

[00:02:50] and then we’ll come back and talk about the other three questions. Today’s episode of Developer Tea

[00:03:00] has been brought to you by Split the feature management and experimentation platform.

[00:03:06] What if a release was exactly how it sounds? A moment of relief, an escape from slow painful

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[00:03:42] trial and create your first feature flag at split.io slash developer tea. That’s split.io

[00:03:49] slash developer tea. Thanks again to Split for sponsoring today’s episode of Developer Tea.

[00:04:00] We’ve got three more questions to talk about today. The first question

[00:04:04] was am I doing things that I care about or are things I only wish I cared about?

[00:04:09] The second question is kind of a variation on that. What did I do yesterday

[00:04:13] that I didn’t actually care about doing and why? The third question today is when I go to bed

[00:04:20] tonight when I finish my day what will I wish I had done differently? This is kind of a pre-mortem

[00:04:28] and we’re keeping this scoped to one day although you can apply this and do another variation on

[00:04:33] this that says in a week from now what will I wish I had done today? But I find that at least

[00:04:40] for me even thinking about just a short jump to this evening tonight what will I wish I had done

[00:04:48] today? What do I want to accomplish if I get to the end of this day? What is one thing that will

[00:04:55] make me feel good make me feel accomplished for the day? This question is so powerful because

[00:05:02] we often have an answer to this. We often know what is important. We often know what will be

[00:05:08] rewarding to us. What we want to do but we haven’t asked ourselves that question and so we might go

[00:05:13] on autopilot and just start doing whatever’s in front of us to do and then time slips away

[00:05:19] and the end of the day comes and we are disappointed with the way we spent our time.

[00:05:24] This question is one tool in the tool bag to help you avoid regretting the way you spend your time.

[00:05:32] The fourth question today who needs my energy the most today? Who needs my energy the most today?

[00:05:41] Sometimes the answer is a co-worker. Sometimes the answer is your boss. Sometimes the answer is

[00:05:48] a report of yours. Sometimes the answer is somebody you don’t even know but the answer I want you to

[00:05:55] pay the most attention to is when the answer is you. Interestingly we often give away our energy,

[00:06:04] energy in the form of time or in the form of effort. We give it away to other people who are

[00:06:09] just simply asking for it. They may not need it as much as we assume they do but they’re asking for

[00:06:17] it and we give it away freely and simultaneously we’re not investing in ourselves. We’re not

[00:06:24] spending that same energy on our own development, on our own problems. Who needs my energy the most

[00:06:30] today? Very often the answer is me. Now if you don’t tune into any of the rest of these questions,

[00:06:38] if you don’t spend time answering them I want you to tune in and listen and focus on this last

[00:06:44] question. It’s a very simple one. What stress can I let go of right now? What stress can I let go of

[00:06:53] right now? And perhaps just as important, maybe you said there is no stress I can let go of right

[00:06:59] now. All of it is important. Everything is overwhelming and there’s reasons for all of it

[00:07:03] to be overwhelming. Well ask this follow-up question in that case. What would it take

[00:07:09] to let something go? What stress can I let go of right now and what would it take to let it go?

[00:07:16] I do this exercise almost on a daily basis, this last one. I try to find the thing inside of me

[00:07:25] that is producing the most stress. Locate where that thing is. It feels very much like a meditative

[00:07:32] kind of mindfulness exercise sometimes. Try to understand what is that stressful feeling

[00:07:37] coming from. Sometimes it’s coming from a bad night of sleep. Sometimes it’s coming from

[00:07:47] not having exercised enough this week. Sometimes there’s some loose end that I haven’t tied up.

[00:07:53] There’s an appointment that I need to reschedule or a message that I received in Slack that I

[00:08:00] haven’t responded to yet and that kind of to-do list has accumulated in my mind.

[00:08:07] I haven’t let it out of my brain to any kind of system of record or anything like that.

[00:08:14] And so this accumulation of stress is kind of just under the surface. If I intentionally face

[00:08:22] that stress, if I intentionally figure out what it’s coming from, often the resolution for that

[00:08:28] is simple. Sometimes it’s just scheduling a phone call. Perhaps the most interesting

[00:08:35] and the most rewarding experience is when the resolution of that stress is just recognizing

[00:08:41] what the source is. This happens very often. Once I understand why I’m feeling that stress

[00:08:48] from that particular thing, I can rationalize that the stress is kind of out of proportion

[00:08:55] with whatever the thing is that’s causing it. I’ll give you kind of a hint about these questions.

[00:09:02] Very often, the answers tend to have overlap with these five questions. For example, the answer to

[00:09:08] this last question, what is the source of my stress, is often directly, sometimes exactly the

[00:09:15] same answer to the question of once I go to bed this evening, what is the one thing I wish I had

[00:09:22] done? What do I wish I had accomplished earlier in the day? Here’s one important takeaway for you

[00:09:30] in this discussion. When we think about the way that we spend our time, it’s easy to forget that

[00:09:38] time is passing in this moment, right now, right this second. Time is moving out from under us.

[00:09:46] And if we stop for a moment and become mindful of the way that we are spending our time,

[00:09:52] we can drastically improve how we are spending our time. Making a conscious choice about how

[00:09:59] you spend your time is not difficult, but it does take recognition. It takes an intentional choice

[00:10:08] to investigate how that time is being spent. Thanks so much for listening to today’s episode

[00:10:15] of Developer Tea. Thank you again to today’s sponsor, Split, the feature management and

[00:10:20] experimentation platform that reimagines software delivery. Go and check it out. You can safely

[00:10:25] deliver features up to 50 times faster and exhale starting today. Create your first feature flag at

[00:10:32] split.io slash developer tea. That’s a free trial available at split.io slash developer tea.

[00:10:39] If you enjoyed this episode and you’d like more powerful questions or maybe you have your own

[00:10:44] you’d like to share, go and check out our Developer Tea Discord community. Head over

[00:10:48] to developertea.com slash discord to join today for free. Totally free. You don’t even have to

[00:10:53] tell us any of your personal information. You just sign up through the discord community sign up

[00:11:00] and you are a part of that community. You can learn from other engineers who may be just a

[00:11:05] little more experienced or maybe you want to try your hand at mentoring those less experienced

[00:11:10] engineers. This is a great forum to try that out. That’s again developertea.com slash discord.

[00:11:16] Thanks again for listening and until next time enjoy your tea.

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