”I have no time.”, is with ”I am fine.” one of the biggest lies, existing in human society. Every time you tell a person you do not have time for him is eloquent to ” I am sorry. You are not important at the moment.”
This is not a big deal. Everyone does that.
However, it is worse if you tell yourself. ”I have no time for the gym, my partner, or my goals.” And you come with some shitty weak excuses.
”I have no time” – is a cheap excuse to close the issue fast as possible. Instead of planning or executing, you close the case with ”I have no time for that.” And this – is the biggest harm you can ever do to yourself.
This is one of our main struggles in life, everyone has problems with how to be more productive or manage their time properly.
So, after minor posts about simple mindsets about self-improvement and about a relationship, it is time to be more serious. Big boy time, ladies and gentlemen. In this 6 series of posts, I will show you how to prioritize your tasks, eliminate tasks, how to delegate your time, concentrate on crucial tasks ahead of you, how multiply your time, or basically how to manage yourself to be more productive and also how to delay your tasks to have more time for the important things of your life. So stay tuned.
Prioritizing – there is always enough time to be more productive
A teacher had a glass full of rocks in front of his class. He asked: “Class, is this glass full?”. “Yes, teacher.”
He pulled pebbles from behind and pour them into the glass, easily filling up the space between the rocks. He asked again: “Class, is this glass full?”. The students nod: “Yes, it is full.”. The teacher pulls again from behind his back a jar full of sand and poured it into the glass, filling the glass with rocks and pebbles. He asked again: “Class, is this glass full?”. Finally, the students are convinced that this glass could not be poured more with stuff and nod: “Yes, teacher!”. At last, he comes up with a glass of another element, water, he poured it into the glass of rocks, pebbles, and sand. Easily fits around. A simple metaphor for time management.
As in life, we often think we can do no more; but when when we push to be creative, we find that there is always room for us to fill.
This metaphor is one of the best descriptions of how you should manage time. The glass is time and as you can imagine it has a limit on storing the rocks, pebbles, sand, and water – your daily activities and tasks.
The goal to be more productive is not to fill the glass with more rocks (tasks). Instead, fill your glass efficiently and maximize the filling of the glass (your time). At the end of the day, what really matters is to produce a better result and be more efficient.
Prioritizing – what is important to you
To summarize, “I don’t have time”, is basically a lie. It is all about the comparison of two activities in their importance of priorities. I can tell you now, that at the end of the series I do not have the ultimate solution to find more time. It is an infinite shifting of fields: family/partner, finances, fitness, fun, faith, and so on.
Even when you try to fit all the things that are important to you in one week, I promise you, one field will come short. Why? By prioritizing tasks over another, we have to sacrifice time for it which means that we come short in the less prioritized tasks of the specific field.
E.g.: If I play video games from 6 pm till 9 pm, I prioritize having fun over working out. Even though we think we made time for gaming, we sacrifice our time working out for pleasure.
And it comes in all kinds of shapes. Think about it. Maybe you are successful in your career, but when was the last time that you called your mother? Oh nice, you are finally ripped and good-looking! But when was the last time that you checked your bank account?
Every task we do and planned to do comes with a sacrifice of another field if not done right. It is totally possible to plan every step of your day, week, month, or even year, I do not doubt that, but I think it is nearly impossible. Because choosing how you spend your time is not logical. Instead, it is emotional.
Summary – How to be more productive
In the end, everyone who tells you they do not have time, means you are not their priority at this moment. In our daily encounters with life, we will always need to prioritize who or what is important for our well-being. This is a lifetime battle you will encounter until you die.
And you will struggle in the future with how you prioritize which is an important task. So, follow in the coming weeks my blog. In the next 5 blog posts, I will show you the 5 permissions you need to be more productive. Stay along, folks.