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| | | | | Not having enough time has become a ‘badge of honour’. It’s a sign that we’re busy (and, reading between the lines, ‘important’). Being exhausted has become a status symbol.
We constantly refer to time as if we’re the victims of it:
- I can’t fit that in
- Where did the time go?
- I haven’t got time
- We’re running out of time
We think of time as our ‘limiter’, when in fact it’s us in charge of time.
Gay Hendricks, author of ‘The Big Leap’ challenges us to drop these ‘Time Complaining Conversations’ with ourselves, one by one. He wants us to take ownership of the fact that we manipulate time by choosing how we spend it. This explains why, when we all have the same amount of time available in a day, some people are many times more productive than others.
Using a concept called 'Einstein Time', you can experience a major surge in your productivity, creativity, and enjoyment. The shift takes place the moment you embrace one profoundly simple truth:
'You’re where time comes from'
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| | | Crazy thought? Not really…
Einstein explained relativity with the following simple example: an hour with your beloved feels like a minute; a minute on a hot stove feels like an hour. Depending on what we do, time seems to slow down or accelerate.
We create time OR we create time pressure, by deciding what actions to take in the time we have.
When we say ‘I haven’t got time’, what we often mean is ‘I don’t want to do it’. What we often do is procrastinate, ‘do overwhelm’, go slow, avoid, choose other things or make excuses. The result is that we’re stressed and unproductive.
Make a choice, today, to check on your relationship with time. Do you speak as though you are a victim of it? Listen to the number of times in a day that you speak of time as if it’s the enemy. As if it’s scarce. As if you’re unable to control it.
What’s really going on here is that we’re annoyed at the thought of having to do things we don’t like instead of things we enjoy. We spend a lot of time ‘not doing’ the unfavourable tasks, wasting valuable time that could be spent on the enjoyable ones.
One way to experiment with this is to schedule the ‘FUN STUFF FIRST’. ‘Bookend’ your day with things you enjoy — meeting a friend for coffee before work, a jog at lunchtime, a movie after work, team sports, book clubs — whatever floats your boat.
Then work towards the deadlines you’ve set to do other things at lunch time and after work. Having less time available sharpens the way you take action. With somewhere fun to be, or something fun to do, you’ll become more efficient, with more ease than if ‘being more efficient’ was the end goal.
Make a decision to live this week as the SHAPER of your time, rather than the victim of it, and see how much more productive and enjoyable life becomes.
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