Do you feel like you don’t have the time to accomplish all the things you’d like to? Do you wind up exhausted at the end of a day thinking damn, where did the time go? Perhaps you run down the list of things you’d set out to achieve this month one evening, and lament the brutality of the passing of another month.
I went through a bout of this recently – feeling wound up as the day drew to a close, annoyed that all my free time had evaporated – the many things I wanted to be achieving sat in statis.
So, I fired up the left hemisphere and started slicing up time.
We’ve all heard the phrase uttered by fabulously successful people: everyone has the same 24 hours each day! So, let’s dig in to it, in a completely non-cynical way.
Assuming you’ve nailed the sleep routine and allocate 8 hours to getting-to and being asleep, that leaves you with 16 hours.
If you have an average job you’re probably leasing yourself to someone else for 8 hours a day.
This leaves you with 8 hours.
Now, the sheer magnitude of my mathmatically-inclined intellect aside, 8 hours is quite a long period of time.
- (8 hours × 5 week days) + (16 hours × 2 weekend days) = 72 hours per week
- 52 weeks × 5 week days × 8 hours = 2,080 hours per year
- 52 weeks × 2 weekend days × 16 hours = 1,664 hours per year
- Weekday hours + weekend hours = 3,744 hours per year
- 156 days per year
- >22 weeks per year
And this doesn’t account for any paid time off!
Okay, so there’s actually a hefty chunk of time knocking about here. Bet that makes you feel so much better, right?
Let’s be practical.
Pick a current goal – it’s easier with one you’re already working on – or think of a new one. Need inspiration? It could be…
- Learn Spanish
- Lose 10kg
- Build a treehouse
- Learn to swing dance
- Perform stand up
Now look at how much time you’re spending in service of that goal per week. I’ll go first.
Right now, a major goal of mine is to achieve long-term health by reaching a healthy weight, building cardiovascular endurance, and building muscle. This is my Big Unreasonably Powerful Goal. So, how much time do I allocate to this per week?
- 4 × 1 hour gym sessions focused on muscle building
- 2 × ~50 min runs
- Total: 5.6 hours per week
I’m excluding time taken on cooking food and the like here, because I’m not spending any more time doing that than I would otherwise.
5.6 hours / 72 hours = ~7%
Seven percent of my time. That’s how much time I’m investing in the biggest, gnarliest bastard of a goal I have, and I’m making significant progress towards it.
This really makes me reconsider my answer when people are amazed at spending a slice of 6/7 days of my week on dedicated exercise.
Leave the Junk Time Buffet!
If you’re anything like me, you’ve slipped into habits of gorging on junk time – treating Netflix and YouTube like they’re games to be completed. Or mindlessly scrolling some media, not really doing the activities that you gain energy from.
So, why not ask…
Does your time allocation align with your goals?
Next time you’re reviewing why you’ve not made significant progress against a goal, this is a useful way of assessing whether or not you’re actually spending time focused on getting closer to those goals.
But remember…
You are not a spreadsheet
I don’t want to leave you with the impression that I carefully plan and optimise every waking moment – far from it – and nor do I think anyone should. I’m simply pointing out that we have an abundance of time, most of which we simply allocate to activities that don’t norish us – the equivalent of junk food.