Perhaps you’ve been so busy lately that you haven’t found any time to do what you planned that day. Or maybe you just want to have more time in your life, and just be more productive. In any case, there is a really important thing that most people aren’t conscious of that can drastically increase the time you have.
Most people assume that “they don’t have time”, but this isn’t true. You DO have time.
Just like everyone else, you have 24 hours in a day.
If you don’t have time, then how come others have even though they might be busier than you?
The answer is simple: they manage time better than you.
Here’s a truth: you probably are spending way too much time on useless things that you even aren’t aware of. For instance, it might be social medias. Some people are able to spend hours and hours on it, without realizing it. Or it might be watching TV, or playing video games. This is the precious time you’re wasting.
Well, I’m not saying that you should not decompress. In fact, I think it’s better to know when you need to relax instead of working. But that doesn’t mean that you should spend countless hours on futile things. If you do that, no wonder you have no time, right?
This is the first thing I want you to realize, as it is the reason why most people “don’t have time”.
In short, the first thing you need to do is to look at what you’re doing on a daily basis.
You could go even further, and start jotting down every single thing you do everyday. That way, you may grasp some little moments here and there you could spend doing something else. For exemple, maybe your notes are telling you that from 12:00pm to 14:00pm, you’re eating.
THAT, for instance, is very interesting.
It tells me that you DO have a WHOLE hour you could spend doing something else.
Why do you need 2 hours to eat? Just 1 will do. If you’re too tired then you could relax a hour and a half. That’s still 30 minutes you could spend on something else! That’s A LOT!
So first, you need to be aware of your daily habits. Once you do that, you can start tweaking around.
Now, although this technique is GREAT and VERY POWERFUL in my opinion (and I encourage you to try it!), there is a problem. Indeed, if I were to say to you to find 25 hours to work on different projects, you won’t be able to.. right?
That’s because you’re on way too many fronts. Let’s get that number a little bit down, shall we?
Now, let’s say I were to say to you to find 4 hours to work on different projects. What would you think?
Pretty doable, right? You could eat faster, spend less time playing, sleep less, or anything you want.
Here’s the problem you might face: you decide to use 1 hour per activity, so you find the time to: work out, read, write and cook. Nice. But what if you wanted to add one more thing? Yeah, I want to work on my business as well! One hour will do!
But wait. It went up to 5 hours now, didn’t it? How do I handle that? Do I sleep even less (not recommended)? Do I eat faster (not recommended) or less (not recommended)?
No.
This is a very easy problem, in fact. But I’m sure that most of you won’t have found the answer by themselves.
The solution to your problem is to PRIORITIZE.
Working out, reading, writing, cooking and working on your business.. right? Let’s prioritize a little bit. Oh, by the way, the answer may differ from person to person, but you get the idea.
If it was me, here’s how I would prioritize based on my life:
Working out: health – very important
Reading: makes me grow as a person – very important
Writing: a skill I want to master – very important
Cooking: yeah.. I like cooking but, it’s not in my priorities for now <= rejected.
Working on my business: make me money – very important
That’s it! Now, I just need 4 hours to get it all done.
Wait.. you want it to be done in 2 hours ?
OK. No problem.
Let’s go through our process again.
Working out: health – I can’t remove that one, it’s set in stone
Reading: I can definitely remove this one, or I can spend less time working out. If it was me, since I really value growth.. I would probably do 30 minutes of reading and 30 minutes of working out.. but I don’t recommend dividing too many things, because you won’t progress anywhere otherwise. So, don’t do like: “5 minutes reading, 5 minutes writing, 5 minutes singing, 5 minutes dancing, 5 minutes learning, 5 minutes working..”
Writing: This one is very important to me, but I could definetely remove it from my to-do list if time was an issue.
Working on my business: It’s, with health, something I can’t remove from my list. After all, without money you have nothing.
As you can see, it’s just a matter of prioritizing what’s most important to you. Once you do that, you get enough time to get it all done. Of course, I recommend you combine this technique with the one about supressing the time you’re wasting.
That’s it. With just these two techniques, you can do whatever you want every single day. You may need to sleep less in some cases, or make other sacrifices, but usually what I shared with you is more than enough. So remember: 1) you need to write down everything you do on a daily basis, and then find moments you can “gain” time. Then, 2) based on the time you have.. you select what’s the most important to you. Therefore, if you have 2 free hours.. don’t spend it on something that’s not a MUST in your life. If you want to be a writer, spend your time WRITING and not SINGING or PLAYING. Not very useful otherwise, right?
In the end, getting more time is just about how you manage your time. You can’t “gain” more time in a sense. You can’t create time (like with a hammer), nor can you store time in a bank (like “I’d like to store 10 hours for later please).. so use it VERY carefully. I’ll finish with this thought: don’t forget that TIME is the ONLY thing that you can’t make more of. You can make more money, items, place, etc.. but you CANNOT make more time. Think of time as a resource that will eventually disappear, so always ask yourself this question: is what I’m doing a proper usage of my time?
The ONE Difference Between Rich and Poor People