“I don’t have enough time” is clearly the greatest lie a human can utter in his or her lifetime. I can preach all day on how everyone has 24 hours, and it all boils down to how you use it — but you’ll probably ignore my advice. It’s okay. After you read this article, you’ll know why you are actually lying when you say that you don’t have enough time, because I’m going to lay out three reasons to prove it.
You don’t track time
Tracking time is probably the greatest thing you can start today that will help you improve yourself. How you use your time relates closely to how you fuel your self-growth. Those who track their time are those who have a good grasp on what they are capable of doing every day so, it’s easier for them to optimize their actions. There are many techniques and applications you can use to track time, but my two favorites are the time-blocking technique and Rescue Time.
Not enough time? Track your time and you can see what kind of activities are sucking your hours away. Act on that, and you’ll have even more time in your life.
You are wasting time on non-beneficial things
Every few days, Twitter and Facebook soak up a billion hours of ‘spare’ time. Where did that time come from? What did we do before social media was here? Weren’t we busy five years ago? – Seth Godin
The quote above captures eloquently the reason you claim that don’t have enough time. Time won’t tell you if what you are doing is beneficial or not. It’s up to you to be aware of it. But sometimes, we’re aware that we are filling our time with meaningless activities. An example would be mindlessly using social media and watching TV. Don’t get me wrong: Social media and TV can be good catalysts of change, provided the content is good. But I believe you know that’s often not the case nowadays.
Let’s take the example of using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Do you think that you’ll get any benefit if you fill your time reading pointless status updates? Wouldn’t it be great if you used the time to do something more beneficial — such as reading a book or watching TED Talks — and posting about what you’ve discovered? By doing that, you are improving yourself and using social media wisely.
To avoid wasting time on non-beneficial activities, you’ll need to act with purpose, and create something out of your consumption. You’ve seen how you can tackle the first 2 points, and now you’ll learn how to create something out of your consumption. Consumption is simply the taking in of information, and creation is the act of doing something as a result of it.
You don’t set priorities
Seth Godin, a brilliant author, said that those who claim “I didn’t have time” are actually saying “It wasn’t important enough.” Think about it. If you really inspect how you manage your time, it’s all a matter of priorities. There are two problems with most of us in terms of setting priorities: we either have little or too much priorities. Rarely do I meet people who have focused priorities.
So, here are action plans for the issues on priorities:
Find one thing you think is the most important for you to pursue in life. Don’t find two, three, or more than that. For at least a month, focus only on achieving that one.
Conclusion
If you read to this point, you should now know why you are lying if say that you don’t have enough time. Now, reflect on how you use your time. Track it, optimize it, and make sure to focus on one thing at a time.
Featured photo credit: TIME by Fabiola Medeiros via flickr.com
