How to find time for everything you need
The 21st century gave us speed, comfort, and convenience. But why do so many people feel the constant lack of time? We lose it in traffic jams, on the Internet and other daily routines.
For children, time seems endless because each of their experiences is new. All impressions are for the first time ever. Adults, on the contrary, repeat the same actions every day, that’s why they feel that time flows through their fingers. So the first tip is: fill your life with new experiences. Travel more, meet people, try to do something new every day. You will notice immediately how the time structure will start to change and the days will become longer.
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I foresee a skeptical question: “And where do I find time for all this?” My answer is: you will not be able to find time, because you need to make time. Just like you reserve a table at a restaurant to guarantee your dinner, you need to reserve time for self-development, recreation, communication with your family and everything else that is important to you.
Here are some other tips to help you gain control of your time and your life.
1. Conduct a “time audit”
If you don’t understand where your money is going, start writing down your expenses. If you don’t understand where your time is going, do the same. Write down what you spend it on. Do it for a week. At the end of the week, look at your notes and analyze them. For example, it turned out that you respond to emails every day for 2 hours. Can you cut this period in half and dedicate the saved hour to something else?
2. Do the most important and difficult tasks in the morning
The first U.S. President George Washington woke up at 4 A.M., sat down to work, then had breakfast at 7 A.M. and worked more until noon. I don’t encourage you to get up at 4 or even 5 in the morning. I agree that this might not be an ideal schedule for everyone. But even if you’re used to waking up at 9 or 10 A.M., don’t waste your most important morning hours on liking and commenting the posts on social media. The first few hours after waking up are the most productive time when your brain is most active. So control how you spend your morning hours.
3. Avoid buying things you don’t need
If you work too much, my question is: why? People often respond: “To ensure a high quality of life.” It’s an admirable goal, but sometimes it means “making more money to spend more money”, that is, buying a car, a country house, dressing up in expensive boutiques, etc.
Living in Moscow, I easily get around without a car and genuinely do not understand why someone needs it there. Spending precious hours in traffic jams or in the eternal search for a parking spot – is it really worth wasting the time of your life on that? Think about the purchases that steal your time (monthly shopping, eating out too often, etc.) and decide whether you are ready to give them up or spend less time on them.
4. Live in the now
To learn this, I recommend a great book by a German writer and philosopher Eckhart Tolle “The Power of Now”. The idea is that we stop noticing the time when we are obsessed with fear for the future or regret for the past. If you learn to live in the present, you can stop this eternal race: attempts to correct the past and shape the future.
Did you know that…
In the languages of some Native American tribes, there is no future or past tense. There are no words that indicate the past or the future either. The Indians are simply not interested in these concepts. The introduction of linear and mechanized time is the “merit” of our modern civilization and its scientific progress. That’s why we worry more about time than we control it. This can be changed only by learning to live in the present.
5. Learn to meditate
Some people consider meditation a suspicious religious practice, so they treat it with distrust. These are vain fears. To meditate, it is not necessary to be a believer or enter an altered state of consciousness. During meditation, you learn to control your attention, stop the inner dialogue and get rid of anxiety. Start doing this every day, and in a few weeks, you will feel that the mind has calmed down and the time has expanded.
6. Organize your space
Put everything in its place, both at work and at home. When you know exactly where everything is, you find it quickly and save a lot of time. The same applies to files and programs in your gadgets, as well as to the contacts of the people you meet. By the way, I always recommend scanning business cards using a special application, such as ABBY Business Card Reader, to transfer them directly to the memory of your smartphone. That way you will quickly find the right person, without having to recollect where you put his or her card.
7. Make a to-do list for the next day
It is better to make it the evening before so that the morning after you can immediately start doing the things from the list. Write down all the tasks that come to your mind. Then prioritize what should be done first, second, etc. In this case, the next day will be filled with comfort instead of a time crunch. Of course, no one is immune to the “attraction of distraction”. You can find some tips on how to stay concentrated in my article “Staying focused. How to conquer distraction at work”.
8. Make the most of your commuting time
Commuting can be very productive. For example, I have a friend who always reads in the subway and thus finishes at least three books a week. Instead of surfing the net on the road, you can listen to useful podcasts, develop a new project or learn a foreign language. Then commuting will become a way to save time instead of a time killer.
9. Do not neglect sleep and exercising
When a person is too busy, the first thing he or she sacrifices is sleep and sports. This is a big mistake. These are the things that give us the energy to implement all our plans. Try to get enough sleep every day, and if you absolutely do not have time for an hour yoga class, go for a 30-minute jog or a walk instead.
Managing time is not an easy task but it’s achievable. Start building this skill today, and let these recommendations help you:
- Fill your life with new experiences: travel more, meet people, try to do something new every day
- Allocate time to what is important to you
- Conduct a “time audit”
- Do the most important and difficult tasks in the morning
- Avoid buying things you don’t need
- Live in the now
- Learn to meditate
- Organize your space
- Make a to-do list for the next day
- Make the most of your commuting time
- Do not neglect sleep and exercising