What are you willing to give up to have the life you want?
Right now, I am willing to give up some comfort (vacation, eat outs, shoes, expensive things, etc.). I have to or I won’t be able to move forward. Delay some gratification. Slow down on spending for the now and save for the future.
I’m working on this.
When you have a goal, you should do everything in your power to be as productive as possible to get to your goal. As humans, it’s not always the case. We procrastinate, we get distracted by a noise here, and the next thing you know, you spend 4 hours watching videos of people arguing about vegetarian foods trying to convince you about their benefits.
Ugh. Let’s restart.
Things I have started to cut:
- Game time – I have significantly lowered playing games on my phone or PC. I noticed that I have spent the equivalent of one to two 8-hour days working per month. That adds up. CUT.
- Show time – Netflix, and other media companies, have become so good at getting you to spend time in their app. I have the app still, but not on the home screen. This has lowered my watch time. I am deliberate on what to watch.
- Media time – I have a hard time with doom scrolling. Once it starts, the scrolling just keeps going. They have gotten so good at keeping your attention.
The lesson: know what gets your attention, then cut the ones you don’t want to keep or are not productive.
Audit Your Time
Here’s a small exercise I’ve been doing to know what to cut. I look at my day or week and reflect on the things I did per week.
We only have 24 hours per day and 6-10 hours of that is spent sleeping. And 2-4 hours of that is spent on personal time (lunch, breaks, shower, in the toilet). That leaves us with 10 – 14 hours to work on our goals.
Many of us, myself included, have some form of 9-5 job. And if our job is not our goal or moving our career forward, then that leaves you with 3-5 hours left in a day.
If your only free time is on the weekend, then that gives you with even less hours to work on your goal.
Now, do you feel the need to audit your time and cut out the unnecessary?
Spend at least 10-15 minutes to list out the things you do in a day. From the time you wake up to the time you go to bed. Go back for the whole week. And don’t lie to yourself. You are doing this to help yourself.
After each listed item, from a range of 1-10, put the number you feel most engaged or in the flow. This will indicate what activity you are interested in.
Then after each item, put a start on what needs to be done. Some things need to be done because that is your job. This is also where you will see other activities you are doing but not moving you forward.
You will now start to see that you do have some time for other productive activities. Things that will be moving you forward.
Fix Your Time
You don’t have to change everything right now. Many will see this exercise as a waste of time because they think they know what they are doing. If most people know how they spend their time, why are most people not successful?
So be deliberate about cutting your unproductive time and spending it for productive time.
I gotta make more changes for myself also.
