I’ve said it before and I’m sure you have as well, “I don’t have time”. Whether it’s the gym, to study for a test, eat healthy foods, or budget your money. When you say you don’t have time you are making a lame excuse as to why you can’t achieve something in your life.
Everyone has the same amount of time every single day 24 hours, 1,440 minutes, and 86,400 seconds. No less and no more. No matter how busy or (lazy) you are, you have the exact same amount of time each day as the person next to you.
The one key thing you must understand about time is it is by far your most valuable asset in life. While you can earn more money throughout your life you cannot earn more time. Time is finite and that is why it is so valuable. You never really know how much time you have left.
When you say you don’t have time you are setting yourself up for failure. Attempting to take the onus off yourself and put it elsewhere. The truth is whether you have time or not is irrelevant. While you can’t “make time” as the saying typically goes, you have the choice of what you do with it for the most part.
If you think you don’t have time for a 60 minute workout 5 times a week your priority for health lies low on your list. It’s your responsibility to set aside the necessary time each day for the things you should do and want to do.
Things like looking after your physical and mental health are of vital importance. These will affect your future health and longevity down the road. Now while I talk about time and how you need to capitalize on each minute of the day, how do you stay on track?
If you fail to prepare you are preparing to fail. Preparation is often half the battle when it comes to accomplishing things in life. With time management it is no different. An empty calendar or schedule is a dangerous one. If you don’t fill your time with what you want to do others will fill it for you.
A classic example of this is when you are at work, putting out one fire after another and before you know it it’s 5 p.m. - time to go home. You wonder what you accomplished that day as other people seemed to take control of your time all day.
Planning or scheduling your time will help you to control it better. This could be through the use of your phone’s calendar function or a physical planner. Planning out your days will ultimately lead to getting more done in less time (figure that one out).
Whether you want to squeeze that 60 minute workout in each morning at 7 a.m. or spend more time with your family once a week, you determine your own schedule so stop blaming "time". Planning and having a general flow to each day will help you look after yourself and feel more fulfilled.
There are many ways to schedule your time. I’ve found through my own trial and error that going over a plan Sunday night works well. This is where you can plan ahead for the week and get everything as organized as possible. Because things like to change daily on us you can also plan the next day the evening prior. This can give you a better chance to figure out what may be going on and filling up your day.
While scheduling your time will be a great habit to install into your life you don’t want to go over the top and plan every minute of every day. This may be necessary for CEO’s and extremely busy people, you want to start with the most important chunks of the day.
This would be your workout, reading, hiking, learning, spending time with friends and family. These would be blocks throughout your day in 30 minute or 60 minute increments. Don’t be afraid to leave some down time between activities to relax.
What are your priorities in life? Do you even know? If your priority is to get into better shape then you will want to be sure you are allotting the necessary time each day towards exercising, eating the right foods, and sleeping.
There is a big difference between your “to-do” list and where your priorities lie. Your priorities are the most important actions you need to take at this time to get closer to achieving your goals. A to-do list is more of things you need to get done like doing the laundry, dishes, cleaning the house, yard maintenance, or organizing your office.
If you aren’t clear on your priorities how will you manage your time? You may have guessed it but you can’t… Without knowing what you want to accomplish it’s extremely difficult to plan to get there.
This being said you want to get really clear about what you want and where you want to go in life. This will aid you in allotting the necessary time each day to each given area. Without knowing your priorities, time management seems to be non-existent.
Well, at this point in time you may be saying, "if I had more time in my day then I could actually do the things I want as well like exercising and hiking, but I simple don't! If my schedule is so packed each day how will I break this cycle?"
The answer to your question is you don’t need more time, rather you need to see where you are wasting it. Yes, everyone wastes time every single day. This could be wasting it through mindless tasks like watching T.V., listening to the news, scrolling on social media, sitting on the couch, over sleeping, complaining you don’t have enough time, or whatever else.
Everyone wastes time at some point or another the real question is how much are you wasting? In order to figure this out you need to know exactly what you are spending your time on. To do this you will need to do a bit of work.
Track each hour of each day for 7 days straight - Monday to Sunday. Don’t worry about each minute but rather the bigger portions like hours. For example if you watch T.V. from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. you would mark this as 4 hours of T.V. that day. By tracking how you use your time you may be shocked at how much of it you are wasting.
While many of us may use the excuse that “I don’t have time”, what we really should be saying is “I waste most of my time”. Even by sleeping 8 hours instead of 9 each night you instantly gain an entire hour every single day! While an hour a day may not sound like a lot, think of it in the long-term. Over the course of a year you will have 365 more hours to spend doing whatever you want.
It’s time to get clear about your time and what you want to do with it. Stop complaining that you don’t have time and do something about it. Find out where your priorities lie and capitalize on achieving them each and every day. Lastly, track an entire week of your life hour by hour. Figure out where your time is actually going. What part of the day can you improve on more positive tasks?
While no one can create more time in life we do choose how we spend it. Spend the necessary time to plan to succeed.
Ready to stop making excuses and achieve everything you want and more?
Chris M Wilson
Chris M Wilson is a career coach, entrepreneur, blogger, author, creator, and doer. He is passionate about helping people leave the job they hate and jump into their dream careers!
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