How Do You Use Your Weird Time?

David Allen, one of the world’s most influential thinkers on personal productivity and author of Getting Things Done: Mastering the Art of Stress-Free Productivity, claims that most people’s thinking just isn’t set up to take advantage of weird time. There are lots of opportunities during the day that people waste. According to Allen, weird time is when we get 15 minutes—and sometimes only 5 minutes—between meetings and phone calls.

What to do about it is to turn it into a game, asking: How efficient can I be? Sometimes the most appropriate thing to do with five free minutes is to water the plants, or make a quick phone call.

Learning to set boundaries is incredibly difficult for most people. First determine what’s the very next thing that you need to do. Until you decide on that, there’s a gap between where you are and where you need to be—a big black hole that can suck you in. That big black hole is unproductive, wasted time.

Once you know what you’re doing, productivity becomes your one true competitive edge. There’s an elegance to how you work and live; it’s not just about running faster, it’s about utilizing your time efficiently. You can do anything—but not everything. Just control your aspirations.