Do you retire to bed disappointed condemning yourself for another day lost? Week and even month wasted? Do you look back and regret how you have lived the past years with nothing to show for it?
Well, you have spent enough time beating yourself up. It’s time to correct the mistakes and live a more meaningful and fulfilling life. The good things is that you have enough time ahead of you to achieve your goals.
The problem you have been facing has to do with your time management. It is the most common problem affecting productivity and it has some serious negative results.
It may not be very easy to know when you are not spending your time right. However, when you consider some of the things you usually do, you will easily tell.
If you take some time to think of the habits you have formed, even unconsciously, you will see just how often you waste time. And the truth of the matter is that you usually know it when it happens. At least your sub-conscious mind knows it.
Your mind knows the dreams and aspirations you have and wants to help you achieve them. As such, when it sees you doing things which don’t direct you towards those goals, it sounds an alarm. It is then up to you to exercise your willpower and make the right decision.
“You can have it all. Just not all at once.”― Oprah Winfrey
How you choose to spend your time defines your priorities.
Your commitments can have a significant impact on your time. Take a look at each area of your life and write down all of your commitments.
Seeing it all written down can be quite an eye-opening experience, as well as overwhelming.
While there are some commitments we can’t escape, such as work and family, others we can.
You have the right to allocate your own time.
Begin to cut back on the time you spend helping others get their tasks done and start focusing on what you can do to help you reach your goals faster.
Learn how to say no and decline offers. Accept to work on projects that bring out the best in you and enhance your total well-being.
Don’t feel guilty. If you don’t like the way you spend your time, simply change it. Life is too short to work on anything you hate and everything that takes away your precious time.
If you eliminate the things that don’t bring you joy or value, you’ll have more time for the things that you love.
Taking time away from the normal day-to-day not only gives you the opportunity to have new experiences and bond with friends and family, but also it helps you reduce stress and gain perspective. Studies show that skipping vacations could put you at a significantly higher risk for developing heart disease or having a heart attack; a nine-year study of 12,000 men at high risk for coronary heart disease found that they were 32% more likely to die of a heart attack if they didn’t take an annual vacation (and were at a 21% higher risk of death from all causes). Relaxing is serious business. Be proactive in your vacation planning. Request time off at the beginning of the year instead of waiting to make a plan later. Otherwise, when “later” comes, you’ll again find yourself never leaving the office because you always feel like there is too much to get done. In 20 years, you’ll end up with a lot of “I always wanted to…” sentiments, instead of a treasure trove of “I’m so glad I did…” stories.
Getting enough sleep, eating healthy foods, and exercising regularly dramatically increases your happiness on a daily basis. And in 20 years you’ll feel a whole lot happier and be in a lot better shape. Avoiding trips to the hospital, medicine, surgery, and chronic pain helps you to savor life instead of simply trudging through it. Make the decision to builds habits now for exercise and a healthy lifestyle. A little time now can pay off huge dividends later in life.
If you want to be truly effective in figuring out where your time goes, write it all down. No matter how small or insignificant you think an activity is, write down what you’re doing. Carry a little notebook with you so that you can keep an accurate record.
Anytime you start a task, write down what you are doing, and the current time. When you switch to something else, note the time you stopped, and figure out how many minutes you spent. As you do this, you will start to notice patterns in how you use your time.
You will also see how much time you really spend on certain activities. It might be surprising to find out that the 10 minutes you spend playing Candy Crush five times a day adds up to almost an hour. Even more surprising might be when you said you’d just check Facebook “real quick” and discover that 45 minutes have gone by. Nothing quick about checking Facebook.
You can also use this method to evaluate how effective you are at business activities. Do you find yourself spending a lot of time on items that don’t provide a lot of value? Are there things you could outsource? Could you better use your time focusing on the essential items in your business?
Keeping track of your time use can be an eye-opening experience that allows you to honestly recognize what’s going on with your time and your effort. Whether you wish you had more time to spend with your kids, or whether you wish you could spend more time building your business, you might be shocked to find that you already have the time.
All you have to do is track how you use your time, recognize where there is waste, and then eliminate those activities, while focusing on what really matters.
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