TASK #4: IT’S ABOUT TIME
“There is never enough time, unless you’re serving it”. Malcolm Forbes
My weekends are a respite from work, sort of. What I want to do is lounge around the house, drink beer, watch sports, go hang out with the fellas, maybe go to the gym…
The reality is somewhat different. There are chores, lots of chores. My wife likes to refer to her “honey-do” list, which was cute the first few times she said it–fifteen years ago–but when I hear the phrase now I have a Pavlovian response–I curse and grab my back like it’s killing me, and she just shakes her head and hands me the snow shovel, or a hammer, or a shopping list, or the car keys, which means that I’m driving the kids to a basketball/soccer/volleyball/flag football/cheer leading practice/game.
My wife will cheerfully say, “chores makes the time go by quicker!” And she’s right, the last fifteen years have flown by, which I find distressing.
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My wife will cheerfully say, “chores makes the time go by quicker!” And she’s right, the last fifteen years have flown by, which I find distressing.
People say, “where has the time gone?” Well, I decided to find out, at least find out where MY time has gone.
I started from the beginning: in one week there are 10,080 minutes. Let me repeat–10,080 minutes.
As you know, once time passes, it’s gone. It ain’t coming back. So how was I spending my 10,080 minutes? Sleeping? Working? Exercising, eating, goofing around, having sex, driving?
So I wrote down what I did for every minute of a week. What I found out was interesting. I spent nearly a 1000 minutes driving, 1680 minutes watching tv. And no minutes having sex. Breakfast–100 minutes a week; lunch: roughly 210 minutes; dinners: about 260 minutes (not much, right?). Work takes up most of the minutes, and I found that I spend a lot of time in the bathroom.
When I looked at the list I decided to reallocate some of my minutes. I think you will too…
TASK
Your task is to introduce yourself to your life. Every minute of it.
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Your task is to introduce yourself to your life. Every minute of it. List every activity that you do in a week, and how much time you spend on each activity, first by hours, then by minutes.
Then, in your notebook, put three columns: WELL SPENT, NOT WASTED, AND WASTED. Then list your activities, and the time spend on them, in the appropriate column.
(NOTE: 56 hours of sleep, or 3360 minutes, goes under NOT WASTED. Any more than that goes under WASTED.)
Pay attention: This is the brick and mortar of your life.
Photos by Joe Doe and Andy Beales on Unsplash