Be Protective of Your Time. It’s All You Have.

There are a few things that become very evident as you get older, one of these
being that you will have many more obligations to tend to. Most are adaptable, however.
Others need a bit of work. But one thing that also becomes evident is how little time
we actually have.

If you haven’t given much thought as to how you spend your day, chances are you’re
not alone. Our routines get in the way of clear thinking and the next thing you notice
is how a week has gone by, a month, a whole year. It seems the older we get the faster
time moves along. Now is the time to inventory where exactly you’ve spent your time.

It’s simple to say that you should spend less time doing what you don’t want to do and
more time doing what you do want to do. In short, less work and more play. This may
be the best case for you and it’s certainly worth advocating for. The better way to
think about your time is that of an investment. You have limited time to make the most
out of it that will make you feel fulfilled. What can you do with this block of time
that will better yourself or someone else – and in turn giving you a feeling of
fulfillment?

There are a lot of time consuming activities that we have the choice to partake in on
a daily basis. Our morning rituals take time, our evening rituals take time, and our
work itself takes time. Almost all of these are necessary and in many cases crucial for
us to complete to feel as if we had a fulfilled day. What we don’t realize, however, is
the opportunity cost of our choices. In other words, what was the alternate to a choice
that you made?

One big problem with giving your time away to trivial things lies in the act itself,
where you’re telling yourself it’s ok to spend time doing something that has no impact
on your wants or goals. This isn’t to suggest that some things you’d rather not do
aren’t worth doing. If you find yourself in a situation like this, the chances are
likely that this activity will benefit you in your health, wealth, or general well-being
for you or someone you care about. But don’t try to rationalize every impedience on your
time. Some things are not worth it and you should fight hard against using your time
on them.

Every day you can find someone or something who wants your time and they want to use it
for free. Do you have a boss that has a habit of asking you to work more time than you
are paid for? Maybe there’s a friend that always wants you to do something for them.
We need to evaluate the benefits of saying yes to everyone’s requests and if the benefits
just aren’t adding up for us, we need to know how to say no to all of these demands on us.

The time that we can free up by doing what we want to do will ultimately improve our
well-being. The way an investment of money works by growing over time is the same principle
that applies to our lives – by learning how to become efficient time managers by saying no
to the meaningless and yes to meaningful – we can improve the way we live and not be trapt
by the outside demands on us that bring no positive impact to our lives. Your time is
valuable and we should treat it that way.

Think long and hard about giving your time away to meaningless affairs. We let our
weekly cycles roll on and not give much thought into the direction we’re going but by
starting now you can jump out of the spinning wheel and spend your time where you
want and need to spend it. While we ultimately do not know how much time we have, let’s
protect what we do have while we have it.