New Years, New Gears
For I
am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? Isaiah 43:19a
Wanna shift into high speed this New Year? There is no time like the beginning of a year
to start to think about ramping things up.
Maybe a better way to look at this is not so much in terms of speed but
in terms of shifting gears; shifting into a new gear for a new year.
OK, so 2013 will provide you 8,760 hours, you can only use them once, how are you gonna do it? Of course, there are things that demand your
time. So lets see what they are and then
how much time we actually have…
Most people…
will sleep 7 hours a day which is 2555
That
leaves only 6205
work 8 hours a
day (5 days a week or 260 days a year) which is 2080
That
leaves only 4125
spend 3.5 hours a day eating/doing chores/caring for
others which is 1277.5
That
leaves only 2847.5
spend 2.5 hours per day driving which is 912.5
That
leaves only 1935.5
spend 2.5 hours per day on leisure time (sports, tv,
internet) which is 912.5
That
leaves only 1023
spend an average of 50 minutes each day waiting which
is 304
That
leaves only 719
spend an average of 45 minutes in the commode (genders
vary) which is 274
That
leaves only 445
I’m sure I forgot some stuff and maybe you can even add
something additional but the bottom line is this, WE ONLY GET 445 HOURS DISCRETIONARY TIME EACH YEAR. Yep, that’s
about 18 days. Not much if you think
about it.
WHERE DO I FIND MORE
TIME?
·
ZZZZZZ. Is there a way to only sleep 6 hours and
recoup 2 hours a day? Probably not, we
were designed for 7-8 hours of sleep each day and 1 day in 7 off completely
(think Sabbath). There are also lots of
physical challenges related to sleep deprivation.
·
WORK. Yup, this takes the most the time. If you want to change the world, make your
work count. If you have a job that lets
you change the world those 8 hours, awesome. If not, try to find one. If you are not the world changing type, make
your 8 hours at work be productive and efficient and you can get promoted, make
more money and enhance the rest of your time.
·
QUALITY
VERSUS QUANTITY. An hour is only an
hour in theory but an hour of quality time with someone you love is worth more
than non quality (AWOL* time)
·
BE A
DOER. Don’t be that leisure time
casual-don’t-wanna-change-the-world kinda person, make things happen.
PRIORITIES ARE BETTER
THAN TASKS
Time management is a great thing to keep in mind this time
of year but I recommend thinking more about priorities. If we think more about who we are and what is
important, daily tasks become easier. An
oversimplified version of time management is this: 1, Prioritize and 2, Delegate.
Priorities mean focusing on what is most important. If you are thinking God, Family, etc, you are
right. Here is the catch, most people know what is important but don’t dedicate
a lot of brain power focusing on it or time doing it.
Here is an alliteration I use for my priorities; the first
three are in order, the rest change seasonally.
Faith, family, friends, finance,
fitness, future. These are theory
unless I live them daily and have them impact how I live my life. Its one thing to say that faith is important
but another to love my brother, pray,
help those in need, be patient with my kids or attend a worship service.
MAKE THE MINUTES
COUNT (but think priorities)
When is all said and done there is way more said than done. Above shows how we spend our hours, but if we
start with minutes they add up. Here are
some tips
·
Always think about your priorities and
roles. These focus all other
things. I am a Christian, I am and
Husband, I am a Dad, etc.
· - Krish Dhanam says 15 minutes early to work, 15
minutes not gossiping and wasting time, 15 early from lunch and 15 after
quitting time is an hour gained each day.
That is 260 hours a year or the equivalent of 32 work days.
· - Plan!
Write your goals, tasks, desires and dreams down on paper, they are more
likely to be accomplished when they are in writing.
· - Think relationships. It is difficult to quantify an RIO on
relationships. To be brief, they are
valuable, find time each day to cultivate them.
Like a little seed, they grow into big things.
· - Use your strengths. Some people use too much time refining their
weaknesses and neglecting their strengths.
Refine your strengths into superpowers and no one will care about your
kryptonite.
· - Start small.
10 minutes a day can make a huge difference in things like exercise,
praying or reading, you can reclaim over an hour a week. How many chapters can you read in an hour?
Above all, do
it! Just do it.
Here are some links that helped support this writing, they
are fun and silly but worth a look at.
Average times - http://www.bls.gov/tus/charts/chart1.pdf
Online time - http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/online-time_b22186
* A military term that stands for Absent With Out
Leave. I’ve changed it to Absent With
Out Leaving or being present but not being engaged. For example being at lunch with your child
but being on the phone while they are on the iPad.
