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How to Start Taking Time Into Your Own Hands

September 18, 2009

Post by Justin Dixon Follow me on Twitter Photo Courtesy of Robbert van der Steeg

Time seems to go by faster every year, and with the world growing faster, and more and more things grabbing our attention how can we keep up with up with everything? The fact is that there are a few things that you can do that will put time in to your hands.

Don’t give up on looking for time. The first thing you have to do is stop telling yourself that there is no time. Any time you tell yourself that there is not enough of something for you to find it your mind stops looking for it. However if you have told your mind that there is plenty of time, and that you  just have to find it, than your sub-conscious mind will kick in and start pointing things out to you. One example of how this works is if you started looking for all the blue things in the room. Just the act of looking for the blue, makes the blue things in the room jump out at you, but how many yellow things did you find while you were looking for blue things? You probably found a few, but could you tell me how many there was without looking again? Chances are that you can’t because your mind was focused on blue. Let your mind focus on finding time, not on finding things to fill it.

Take an inventory of where your time is going. It is really easy to lose track of where all the time goes. At work most of the time we are just hoping it will go quickly. Pay attention when your mind starts doing this. Is there something valuable that you can be doing with this time? Is there something you have been wanting to take care of, but just haven’t been able to do? This is a good time to focus on that. The fact is that just being aware of where your time goes can show you exactly where you save more time.

Take your full breaks. Your work will be there when you finish your break. On top of that, when you take your full break, you let your mind recharge. In order to take your full break, you have to learn when it is okay to let things go for 15-30 minutes. This is important as you can not take care of everything at once, and a big part of time management, is just setting things aside for a few minutes. When you come back to your work you’ll be able to focus better, and that will actually end up saving you much more time than your break took.

Focus your actions. Make a list of the most important things you can do today. Keep the list in between 1-3 things, in order of importance. By limiting how much you do each day to 1-3 things you will force yourself to give more attention to those things. If you complete all 3 items you can always add more. Just the act of writing this list, will help you focus, as you will have thought everything out in order to write it down.

Cut out television. Does this mean that I don’t want you to watch any tv or sit down with your family and enjoy a show together? No. But there are some things you should think about in regards to the boob tube. Your brain is more active when you are asleep than it is when you watch tv. That can’t be good for you, but even worse than that is when it starts dictating your schedule. Most television shows these days are online. You can usually just do a search for watch “(insert show here)” latest episode, and you can likely find fan websites that will have the episode posted in a format that you can pause, or view whenever you like. Even just 30 minutes a day set on your own time can make a huge difference. So save the tv when your mind and body both really need a break.

Make more out of the time you have. There is a movie about a man who had all the time that he wanted. Its called Cast Away, and the time just about drove the man insane. If you can take anything from that its that having more time, is not necessarily the answer to your problem. Before you ask for more time, you need to ask yourself, what you are going to do with it, and before you ask for more time, ask yourself if you are really using all the time you already have?

Do less. Ask yourself the following question about anything that you find yourself doing. Does it add value to your life in comparison to the time it takes? If the answer is no, than stop doing it.

Don’t worry about time unless you have to. Set alarms for significant times that you need to know, but cover up all the clocks in the house. The fact is that if you are constantly looking at a clock than your mind is going to be focused on how limited time is. You don’t want this mindset. Instead don’t worry about the clock, instead focus on being fully present with what you are doing. You may find that time isn’t moving as swift as you think it is.

Now I don’t expect you to do all of these things at once, and sometimes things like taking a break really won’t be available. Don’t worry about the times when you can’t help it. Focus on what you can do. See if you can work on one thing a week to get just a little better with time. Even if you only get a little more time free if you keep trying, you’ll continue to get those little bits, and those little bits will add up.

What are some things you do to save time? How do you get the most out of your time? What is the best way you can remember ever spending your time?

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