20 Minutes is the New 1 Hour: How to Beat the Four Biggest Time Thieves in Your Day
Most calendars run on autopilot. Meetings last an hour because that’s what the calendar offers. Projects take six months because the last one did. Tasks expand to fill whatever space they’re given, and by Friday the time that mattered most has quietly slipped away.
Fran Hauser has spent her career questioning that “default” autopilot. She’s a bestselling author, a career expert and a former Fortune 500 executive, and she’s now a startup advisor, investor and independent bookstore owner. Her work focuses on ambition, authenticity, and the small decisions that shape a career over time. In her new book, 20 Minutes Is the New Hour, she names four “time thieves” that drain our days: padding, perfectionism, people pleasing, and procrastination.
Procrastination has a bright side
Of the four time thieves, Fran thinks procrastination is the most misunderstood. Some of the best ideas arrive when we step away from the work: in the shower, on a walk, or looking out the kitchen window with a cup of coffee. In fact, that’s where she found herself when the revelation struck to open her bookstore. Letting a big decision marinate can be useful.
Procrastination becomes a problem when it turns into avoidance. A deadline is coming, there’s no plan, and fear starts creeping in. Rather than letting the date approach without friction, Fran treats that feeling as information and asks what’s causing it. If the answer is a knowledge gap, the first step might be a quick call with someone who knows more. If it’s inertia, she starts small: one page, ten minutes, or a single phone call.
Perfectionism and the pull toward control
Through my own career, I’ve noticed that several of the time thieves come back to control. When an outcome feels uncertain, it’s tempting to perfect what we can manage instead, like getting enough sleep, enough coffee or enough uninterrupted time. None of that moves the work forward.
To combat this, Fran says the answer is messy action. Jot down a few bullet points, or journal about what the reader or customer actually needs. Rough work can be polished later, and any momentum beats standing still.
The same instinct shows up as something called “precrastination,” which means doing things long before they make sense. Fran remembers spending her kids’ early years in disaster prevention mode, solving problems that didn’t exist yet — a story most parents, especially of young children, understand exceptionally well. Now she asks whether there’s one specific thing she can do right now that’s likely to affect the outcome. If there isn’t, the concern goes on a “worry list.” Some people, Fran claims, even schedule weekly “worry time” to go back over theirs.
Build internal psychological safety
Psychological safety is usually talked about as a team concept, and Fran turns it inward. Internal psychological safety means creating space in your own mind to take risks, make mistakes, and be imperfect.
For high achievers, she says, the biggest obstacle is usually the voice in their own heads, far more than outside criticism. The practice is to notice that voice, acknowledge it, set it aside, and act anyway. Her test is to talk to yourself the way you’d talk to a best friend who was scared or stuck, with kindness, patience, and encouragement.
The 20-minute mindset
The book’s title came from a small change. Fran cut her office hours from one hour to 20 minutes, and while writing about it, she realized the idea reached far beyond meetings. The 20-minute mindset means recognizing that you can make real progress in a short window and questioning every time default. Shorter containers also work as boundaries, leaving little room to perfect, people please, or procrastinate.
I find this to be connected to a go-to-market idea I call an “acceptable miss.” A 20-minute meeting that sometimes runs over is an acceptable miss. Days that are always padded with wasted time are not.
Padding: the fourth time thief
Padding wasn’t in Fran’s original book proposal. It came up after she signed a bookstore lease in October 2024 and decided to open in time for the holidays. That gave her eight weeks for something that usually takes six to nine months.
The tight timeline forced clarity. She launched with no e-commerce and no event strategy. She signed one distributor contract instead of deals with every major publisher. The logo went out after fewer revisions than she would have asked for with six months, and it was good enough.
Fran still protects breathing room. She recommends at least a ten-minute buffer between meetings, and she plans her days around three natural rhythms: peak performance, creativity, and restoration. For her, that means writing and strategy from 6 to 9 a.m., brainstorming in the late morning, and a reset around 3 p.m.
Questions to ask to declutter your calendar
Through the course of our conversation, I felt myself wanting to “Fran Hauser” my calendar the way people Marie Kondo their homes. Instead, we get to enjoy a playbook that Fran offers up in the form of critical questions to ask:
Is this aligned with my priorities?
If not, does it bring me joy?
If yes to either, is it padded?
I’d like to add one more: If I don’t do this, what happens?
Advice for a 31-year-old self
Time Billionaires is named for the fact that a billion seconds is roughly 31 years. When I think of what I’d tell my 31-year-old self, people pleasing feels especially prevalent. Fran notes the same — she used to say yes by default. Today she keeps a to-don’t list, which right now includes no new investments, no board seats, and no PTA initiatives. Deciding those limits ahead of time makes it easier to say no kindly. In the end, most requests are lower stakes than they feel.
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🎧 Time Billionaires — “20 Minutes is the New Hour” with Fran Hauser
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