How Many Hours Are In Your Day?
Theoretically speaking we all have 24 hours in a day. However, what determines how those hours count is what we use them for. How many hours do you sleep, and how many do you work? How many do you spend with family, and how many do you waste away on social media? After all that is done, how many hours do you spend doing the things you are passionate about?
How to Have More Hours in Your Day
The most common phrase with people who have 9-5 jobs is, “I hardly get time”.
However, if you ask someone to account for their day you will be surprised that in the midst of them hardly having any time, they can afford to spend 2 hours on social media. 2 hours are more than enough for you to daily work on your dream. If you choose to do something with those two hours, you will be amazed at what you can achieve.
You need to be an accountant and at the same time an auditor of your own time. Make your own introspection on whether you genuinely do not have time and what you can do to make your time count. You can do this by
1. Planning your day
This may feel old school but always ensure you never embark on a day without writing down all the things that you need to do during that day. Because as you progress with your day, distractions are going to sway you from your normal course and you are going to forget about everything else.
I would advise you to plan fewer tasks and ensure that you tick all of them off. If you start with a long list of things to do, chances are you will get overwhelmed and not even do one of them. It’s better to under-commit and do everything than to over-commit and do nothing. As you move forward, you can add one more task at a time and see how it goes.
2. Account for your day
When you are focused, every minute and every second counts. Never ever spend a second without being conscious of what you are doing. As you keep track of your day you shall notice that it is easier for you to get distracted by certain unplanned things. 2 hours of daily social media amounts to 14 hours of time that you could have used elsewhere productively. You need to define your priorities.
3. Audit your own time
Until and unless you do a proper check of how you have used your time previously against what you would have loved to use it, you will keep telling yourself that you don’t have time. Where have you been spending your time, how have you been spending your days, doing what? Ask yourself these questions; What was worth doing? Did I do what was worth doing? How did I deviate from that? How can I improve tomorrow?
4. Implement your own change systems
After doing a careful analysis, implement proper systems that you can follow to manage your time. Allocate time to each and every activity that you would like to do on any particular day and ensure that those systems are followed by you. I won’t lie to you, it’s gonna require discipline but in the end, it will all be worth it.
Following systems helps you to not get distracted by unnecessary things. It is a bit difficult to start especially on complex or difficult tasks but as long as you don’t start, they will never be done. Rather break them into smaller and easier tasks and start working on them. If something is worth creating space for in your life, it’s worth your full attention.
5. Do not give yourself a choice
If only our commitment was as solid as our plans, we would reach far. Often times we have these great plans and maybe we even write them down but when it comes to action, there is zero commitment. We act upon them for one or two days then the third one we drop everything.
The reason why most people don’t succeed is not because of a lack of planning but because of a lack of action. Make this year the year that you will be fully committed to your plans and you will thank me later.
I used to laugh at one of my friends some time ago because of his way of doing things. At that time he seemed too rigid to me but now I appreciate things about him that I hadn’t learned at that point in time.
At that time he was like a robot to me. Everything about him was programmed and being who I was at that time, I found it very hard to understand. Every day he would wake up at the same time, go to the gym the same time, and take a bath the same time, start working at the same time.
We used to argue a lot especially when I tried to divert him from his plans. I felt that he couldn’t sacrifice for others, on the other hand, he felt that I didn’t respect his program. Now that I reflect on it years later, I realize how much he had mastered the art of self-discipline and how to account for his day.
I would love to hear from you on how you master your days so please, leave a comment for me below, and if you found this useful kindly subscribe to the site and share it with others.
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