Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”
― H. Jackson Brown Jr.
we all got 24 hours each day, but how do we use them is different from one person to another, my ideal time allocation would be every week go to the gym, practice piano, do MOOC courses at night or in the morning before going to work.
but sometimes, things happen in life, like it’s a rainy day, and you just don’t want to go to the gym, and the other day might be the broken AC needed repairing, and in the workplace is the same thing, you are working on some project, but someone come by and talk about something else with you for thirty minutes, and when you return, you find yourself is already out of your “flow”. and smartphone is another time killer, when we got mental fatigue, we tend to go to our phone to find some comfort and distraction, it’s a really bad habit.
but luckily, there are also a lot of strategies to fix it and get our time and efficiency back,
1.Prioritize things better
for me, this is the most important one, you need to list out your tasks at hand, and ask yourself why do you do what you do, and what is the end result? how does that help me get to the next level, and based on that information, you can sort them by its importance, and identify one thing that is the most important. the 80/20 principle-a minority of causes, inputs, or effort usually lead to a majority of the results, and you don’t want to major in minor things. tackle the first piece of domino until it falls.
2.Block time
once you got your one thing figured out, you need to go full throttle, and focusing on one and only one thing at a time, and by doing it, the other things might not be important or necessary anymore. you need to block a huge amount of time each day to make sure you have enough time to push your one thing forward in a significant way.
Be like a postage stamp stick to one thing until you get there
– Josh Billings.
you don’t want to multitask. because it will give you this illusion that you achieved a lot, but multitaskers were just lousy at everything. block out a portion of time like 3-5hours each day to dedicate on your one thing, don’t just go back and forth, focus!
3.Built your bunker
find yourself a physical place that is away from your bed, and away from all the distractions, phone included if you are addicted to all the notifications and new alerts, maybe it’s your kitchen or Starbucks downstairs anywhere that you feel comfortable and easy to focus. you got be responsible for your own time at first place, and make your stand, so others will know when do they find you and when do they need to leave you alone.
get some water and food if needed, because you need to stay there for a while, and you don’t want to go out and find the water, because that will introduce more unpredictable intrusions. and distractions.
and there are still a lot of strategies that will help us use our time more wisely and effectively, but these are some key elements that by implementing them will “expand” our time dramatically.
Word count 598
Reference:
Keller, G. (2014). One thing. John Murray Publishers Lt.