Feb 06 2008
Time Keeps On Slippin’, Slippin’, Slippin’…
… into the future. And one of the most counter-productive things we can do is waste the precious time we have. How many hours a day do you spend watching TV? How about surfing the internet? Are you wasting your time reading celebrity gossip, or are you reading quality content that could change your life? Wandering through a shopping mall? What could you be doing with that time to move you closer to achieving your goals?
Let’s take me for example. I already know what I want to do with my life. I want to write novels. My hope is to get to the point where I can make a living solely by writing. I’ve mostly written (about 2/3 finished) THREE novels now so I know I’m capable of doing it, it’s just a matter of, well–doing it.
Knowing what my goal is, if you were able to look at a journal of how I spent a day, you’d expect to see a lot of time dedicated to writing, wouldn’t you? Well, you’d be wrong. What I’m about to share with you is really embarassing (and I hope, eye-opening). Here’s a journal of how I spent yesterday:
6:20am: Woke up. I had planned to get up and run, but decided to go after work. (I didn’t.)
6:20-6:35am: Did hair and makeup.
6:35-6:45am: Made breakfast and packed lunch.
6:45-7:10am: Ate breakfast and read the news online.
7:10-7:15am: Dressed for work.
7:15-7:35am: Drove to work
7:35am-3:00pm: Work. (I had to leave early to take our cat to the vet.)
3:00-3:20pm: Drove home.
3:20-3:50pm: Tried to get cat into cat carrier. Failed miserably. Cancelled vet appointment.
3:50-6:30pm: Caught up on blog reading, answered email, etc.
6:30-7:00pm: Cooked and ate dinner.
7:00-10:00pm: Watched TV while playing Spider Solitaire (I know, how depressing is that?).
10:00pm: Went to bed.
Wow. There’s approximately SIX HOURS I could have used for writing (or exercising or anything else that was remotely productive). I’m allowing surfing the web and watching TV to literally STEAL MY DREAMS. That’s not what I want, so why am I living my life this way?
A big part of the answer is fear. If I don’t ever finish a novel, I can’t fail, can I? If I never put myself out there and try to get a book published, then I can always hold on to my dream of being a novelist. By filling up my days with mindless entertainment and claiming that I “don’t have time” to write, I get to stay in a safe, failure-proof zone.
“I don’t have time” is a dreadful, poisonous phrase. Yes, we do. We DO have time for our dreams. Of course, many of you have responsibilities I don’t have to deal with–children or multiple jobs or caring for a parent. And honestly, I don’t know how you keep it together from day to day, let alone find time to pursue your goals. But I guarantee that if you sat down and wrote a detailed log of how you spend your day, you’d find some small amount of time–maybe 10 minutes here and 5 minutes there–that you could reclaim.
What are your major time-wasters? Let’s make a promise to each other that we’ll spend ONE HOUR a day working on something related to one of our life goals. Just one hour. If you honestly can’t find one hour, try 30 minutes. I promise that it will be time well spent.
This article was featured in the Personal Stories of Change Carnival and the Balance Your Life Carnival–stop by and check out the other great articles!
(Cross-posted at BlogHer)
This is such a great point. People are always saying they don’t have time, that they’d like to do such-and-such. But they don’t think about all the time they spend just sitting around, watching TV, surfing the internet (I’m guilty there!), etc.
Such an aggravating topic, time, isn’t it? My problem is that the SIX HOURS are spent on writing rather than video games or studying.
Nice post
[…] Wife presents Time Keeps On Slippin’, Slippin’, Slippin’… posted at Semi-Charmed […]
[…] Wife presents Time Keeps On Slippin’, Slippin’, Slippin’… posted at Semi-Charmed Wife, saying, “How time management can boost your productivity and […]
[…] Jen at Semi-Charmed Wife wants to write a novel, and she realizes that the phrase “I don’t have the time” just isn’t true – and her advice could apply to any situation. [O]ne of the most counter-productive things we can do is waste the precious time we have. How many hours a day do you spend watching TV? How about surfing the internet? Wandering through a shopping mall? What could you be doing with that time to move you closer to achieving your goals? […] […]
[…] Wife presents Time Keeps On Slippin’, Slippin’, Slippin’… posted at Semi-Charmed […]
Great post and great to see you so revealing of your personal time spent. I absolutely agree with you, so many people are wasting their time on things that they don’t necessary want to be doing when they truly think about their priorities, yet they don’t know how to change or choose the things that matter most to them.
Its valuable to practice your technique though of analyzing your time one a week or month to really see what you CAN eliminate. its easier to kill if you know how much time is spent doing that activity.
[…] “I don’t have enough time.” How am I ever going to work full-time, get my runs done, do my strength training, get some writing in, spend quality time with my husband, have some kind of social life with my friends, maintain my blog, stay up to date on my daily blog reading list, clean the house, cook healthy food, stay in touch with my family, and retain some semblance of SANITY??? I just kept telling myself that there’s not enough time. (And we all know that’s a big fat lie, don’t we?) […]
[…] most effective method I’ve found so far is keeping a detailed time log. I think I’ll reintegrate that practice into my life (I may or may not post my logs here […]