Pop quiz: What is your most valuable non-renewable resource? What is the one thing that you spend all day long every day and yet you can never get any more of it? The answer of course is your time. Do you know anyone that can create more time? I didn't think so (but I was hoping you might!)
One of the most intriguing aspects of time is that humans regularly waste it despite it being a non-renewable resource. Don't we? Most people spend their lives effectively trading whatever time they have for money in order to hopefully create a situation where they have 10 or 20 years of "free time" at the end (i.e. retirement). The great goal in mind is that we get to 60 years old and we get to be free and spend our lives as we please from then on! That's pretty much the deal isn't it? The only problem with this plan is that you will be old when you have created some lengthy "free time" and there's absolutely no guarantee at all that you will make it to 60 - or that you will have enough money to stop time trading even if you get there!
Can this be right? Do humans really just spend their lives filling time in the belief that time will never end? How can this happen? Well it's simple - for some reason we just think life will go on forever. We just think time is basically endless. We think that there is plenty of time to do whatever we want to do. Every day we wake up and there's more time right in front of us. Another 16 hours of time before bed! The problem of course is that this is a completely flawed belief. The only time you really have is right now.
So how do you spend your time? Have you been wasting it? Or do you spend your time wisely? Whilst we now know we can't get more time, we can always save time can't we? We can work faster or we can work smarter and by doing these things we can save time. When we save time we create more free time. We all like free time don't we?
Free time is the best time of all. Free time is time that you can choose how to spend - rather than others telling you how to spend it or you feeling obligated to spend it a certain way. We all want as much free time as possible don't we? We want you to study less and relax more. That's right, we want you to spend less of your time studying, and much more of your time doing whatever it is you love to do! Does that sound like something that would interest you? So what are two things you can start doing today that will create heaps more free time?
Number one: Add lots of short breaks into your study schedule. Four 15-minute breaks each night is one hour of free time. If you do that from Monday to Friday that's five extra hours of free time this week! If you don't take breaks regularly your mind will wander anyway and you will be in a "junk time" phase - where no work is being completed but you are still "studying". If you feel like you've lost focus always take a break.
Number two: Be aware of your dead time and use it wisely. What's dead time you may ask? Dead time is when you are not doing anything productive but it is also not really free time. For example, you may be out and about walking the dog, you might be riding a bike, you might be waiting for someone to pick you up after soccer practice, or you might be driving a car (these are merely examples). Dead time is any time that isn't really used for anything at all - so start using this time to get ahead.
Perhaps you could read over some notes, look at some flash cards, do any reading you need to do (not if you are driving!), listen to a recording you made of something you need to learn, practice a speech or watch a video? The point is that we all have a great deal of dead time in our lives. We don't really notice it, it just happens. But it happens every day. The point is that if you can spend 30 minutes of dead time getting ahead, you are 2-3 hours ahead each week. That's worth thinking about isn't it?
It's time to start valuing your time more than you ever have before. Remember, your time is always coming to an end. You just don't know when that end point is. I hope for you that it's still 100 years away. But there's a good chance it's less than that. Much less! So make every minute count. Save as much time as you can and spend your life doing something meaningful to you. Good luck.
One of the most intriguing aspects of time is that humans regularly waste it despite it being a non-renewable resource. Don't we? Most people spend their lives effectively trading whatever time they have for money in order to hopefully create a situation where they have 10 or 20 years of "free time" at the end (i.e. retirement). The great goal in mind is that we get to 60 years old and we get to be free and spend our lives as we please from then on! That's pretty much the deal isn't it? The only problem with this plan is that you will be old when you have created some lengthy "free time" and there's absolutely no guarantee at all that you will make it to 60 - or that you will have enough money to stop time trading even if you get there!
Can this be right? Do humans really just spend their lives filling time in the belief that time will never end? How can this happen? Well it's simple - for some reason we just think life will go on forever. We just think time is basically endless. We think that there is plenty of time to do whatever we want to do. Every day we wake up and there's more time right in front of us. Another 16 hours of time before bed! The problem of course is that this is a completely flawed belief. The only time you really have is right now.
So how do you spend your time? Have you been wasting it? Or do you spend your time wisely? Whilst we now know we can't get more time, we can always save time can't we? We can work faster or we can work smarter and by doing these things we can save time. When we save time we create more free time. We all like free time don't we?
Free time is the best time of all. Free time is time that you can choose how to spend - rather than others telling you how to spend it or you feeling obligated to spend it a certain way. We all want as much free time as possible don't we? We want you to study less and relax more. That's right, we want you to spend less of your time studying, and much more of your time doing whatever it is you love to do! Does that sound like something that would interest you? So what are two things you can start doing today that will create heaps more free time?
Number one: Add lots of short breaks into your study schedule. Four 15-minute breaks each night is one hour of free time. If you do that from Monday to Friday that's five extra hours of free time this week! If you don't take breaks regularly your mind will wander anyway and you will be in a "junk time" phase - where no work is being completed but you are still "studying". If you feel like you've lost focus always take a break.
Number two: Be aware of your dead time and use it wisely. What's dead time you may ask? Dead time is when you are not doing anything productive but it is also not really free time. For example, you may be out and about walking the dog, you might be riding a bike, you might be waiting for someone to pick you up after soccer practice, or you might be driving a car (these are merely examples). Dead time is any time that isn't really used for anything at all - so start using this time to get ahead.
Perhaps you could read over some notes, look at some flash cards, do any reading you need to do (not if you are driving!), listen to a recording you made of something you need to learn, practice a speech or watch a video? The point is that we all have a great deal of dead time in our lives. We don't really notice it, it just happens. But it happens every day. The point is that if you can spend 30 minutes of dead time getting ahead, you are 2-3 hours ahead each week. That's worth thinking about isn't it?
It's time to start valuing your time more than you ever have before. Remember, your time is always coming to an end. You just don't know when that end point is. I hope for you that it's still 100 years away. But there's a good chance it's less than that. Much less! So make every minute count. Save as much time as you can and spend your life doing something meaningful to you. Good luck.
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