Life is finite — extremely short.
The trouble is, many people think they have time.
Time unfolds and fills the spaces we provide for it in our lives; how you spend your time is how you spend your short life.
“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life,” Charles Darwin once said.
The sense of time is one of the most abstract and complicated concepts for humans. The way we experience time is different from person to person and changes throughout our lives.
Some people value time more than others. The sense of time is directly related to our level of productivity.
If you ask someone how busy they are, they probably won’t have a clear answer. The reason is that the concept of time is different for everyone.
For example, a highly efficient manager is likely to experience time differently than a digital nomad.
The sense of time is also critical for productivity. People with a poor sense of time are less productive than those with a good sense of time.
The meaningful use of time isn’t so much about how we spend our time; it’s about what we choose to do with time.
Many people think that time is a constraint and that there isn’t enough of it to go around. Don’t convince yourself that time is short or you don’t have time to do important work — what you should do is reduce your commitments.
Long to-lists don’t work; they only make you rush. When you pay attention to too many things, you become overwhelmed, stressed and unproductive.
“The harder you struggle to fit everything in, the more of your time you’ll find yourself spending on the least meaningful things. … The reason for this effect is straightforward: the more firmly you believe it ought to be possible to find time for everything, the less pressure you’ll feel to ask whether any given activity is the best use for a portion of your time,” writes Oliver Burkeman in his book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.
The truth is that time is a resource that we can all manage better. The more we get done in a day, the more time we have to do the other important things.
Understanding how to make the most of our time can help us to be more productive and allow us to do more in less time.
With the never-ending stream of emails, social media alerts, and texts, it can be hard to find the time to focus on what’s important.
Our busy lives have left many of us feeling overwhelmed and unproductive. But, by being more strategic about the time we spend on our tasks, we can make the most of our days again.
To win time and make it work for you, pay yourself first: prioritise what brings out the best in you
“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” — Carl Sandburg
To be more productive, we need to identify how we can spend our time more meaningfully.
That is to say; instead of spending our time on unimportant things, we should spend it on the activities that are going to make the most of our time.
“Time is what we want most, but… what we use worst,” William Penn said.
In the age of information overload, so many things compete for your time and attention, making it challenging to find the things that truly matter. The importance of practicing time inventory cannot be overemphasised.
If you ever feel like your life is just going through the motions, you’re not happy at your job, your relationships are struggling, or you don’t know what to do with your life, review the many demands on your time.
List some of the most important things that mean a lot to your happiness and start allocation time for them.
As with most things in life, the key is to find what you are curious about. Do you have a particular skill? Maybe you would like to learn to play the guitar? Or how about learning to play chess?
Whatever your interests and abilities, there is probably a way to make time for them and make your life more meaningful.
To make your life more meaningful, you should spend time with people who make you happy and make a healthy plan to spend more time doing what brings out the best in you.
“You can find something truly important in an ordinary minute,” Mitch Albom said. There will always be too much to do; you can’t completely escape the time and productivity trap.
What you can do is define your priorities (no more than three) before the day starts and commit to those things, experiences or tasks. And for every use of time, be completely present.
Life is a never cycle of expectations; things to do, experiences to have and events to attend.
You can never have everything under control, but you can control how you spend your time and what gets your attention.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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