It’s time.
Imagine if you had an extra hour in your day.
Instead of the usual 24 hours in our day, you now have 25 hours in your day.
Would you spend that extra time taking care of your health?
Most people would agree that the extra hour would get swallowed up by the never ending to do list.
“I really want to live a healthy life, I just don’t have the time.”
Hard Truth: You don’t have time not to live healthily.
Living a life racing against the clock before you collapse into bed only to start another day – costs you way more in the long run than taking out 6-10 hours a week so you can live a healthy life.
I get it.
Life is stressful.
Going to work so you can provide for your family is a full time job within a full time job. Even if you did have time – which you don’t – who has patience to go to the gym?
Between your job, running a household, getting meals on the table and making sure the kids are safe and alive – there simply isn’t any time for yourself.
These are all true and valid points.
Let me ask you this:
How effective do you think you could be as a person, a mother/father, partner – when you aren’t giving your body the essentials it needs to function well?
Living off a few hours of sleep only to wake up to ride the roller coaster of stress we call life, a diet that consist of 3-7 cups of coffee with a side potato chips – It’s amazing we are able to function as well as we are!
Unfortunately that may be a problem.
A lot of people have caught themselves thinking, “Look at me, I only get a couple of hours of sleep. I don’t eat much and it has been working out for 20 years of my life. Why on earth do I need to do anything different now?”
Some of us have even started to feel like we are invincible..
Just because you are functioning doesn’t mean you are at your best.
Imagine how much better your life could be.
Imagine how much more you can accomplish when you function through a healthy life – A healthy body.
“I get it. I should be taking care of myself but I simply don’t have time. Here! Take a look at my calendar. You see there isn’t a moment that doesn’t have a meeting on it.”
With your calendar booked up till yesteryear it may seem like there is no way you can live more healthily.
There’s hope!
There are a few strategies you can do to help slide in health without disrupting your day.
Those tools and more will be much of what we will discuss now and in future articles.
Today we will cover the foundation to time management. The foundation that is needed in order to make time management strategies work.
A coupe of weeks back we discussed a concept that stated, “the problem is rarely the problem the problem is the way we view the problem”. You remember that?
Anyway, I would like to bring that concept up and apply it to the problem of time.
The problem is not that we don’t have time. The problem is the way we view time.
Most of us look at time as something that is fleeting.
We watch the clock, counting the minutes until we finally get to relax.
Then, there are others who believe that you only get one shot. You better make every moment count.
Both look at the clock as something that is racing past us and there is nothing we can do about it. We are literally competing against the clock.
What if time is more than just a fleeting moment?
What if time is more than something we just watch as everything around us changes?
The paradox that is time is that it isn’t something that needs to be managed.
Time is something that manages you.
From taking care of the family, bringing in an income to pay the bills to putting in the time for personal growth the list could easily rack up to 30+ hours per day.
The problem is that we only have 24.
How do you fit 30+ hours of work in a 24 hour day?
You don’t.
You prioritize.
You allocate time to the things that are most important to you. Whatever else doesn’t fit into your day you either delegate it to someone else, mark it in for the next day (if it takes a high priority), or you simply say “no” to the project.
The problem is that most people don’t schedule their day. They let their day schedule them.
From the moment we wake up till the moment we go to sleep we let our meetings and other people dictate where and what we should be doing.
No matter what stage of life you are in, your time is something that only you have control over.
The reason why it seems like you have no time in the world for anything is because you haven’t made time for anything.
Hey, I understand.
I get the appeal to feeling busy.
You’re important! It’s nice to feel needed. Some even convince themselves that they are being proactive (this is for another day).
Of all the stories you hear about people on their death bed. How many have said “Oh, I wish I spend another hour at work?”
Unfortunately we as humans always wait till the last minute to do something.
Time is the most valuable thing we as humans have.
Don’t wait until there is nothing you can do to take control over your life.
Start to take control over your time today.
As soon as people take control over their time they notice things fall into place with more efficiently than just being “busy”.
The first step in gaining control over your time is recognizing that time is not something that needs to be managed. It is something that manages you and your priorities.