How to win back time
Have you ever had something stolen from you? It actually it sucks. We live in a generation that is letting our time be stolen from us! A lot of us have lost perspective of how important time is and are just floating through life and letting time slip away from us. One day ALL of us will breath our last breath and will be remembered not by what things we attained but how we spent our TIME! No longer can we let our time be stolen from us but we must WIN back our time and look to make the most of the time that we have!
We all live different lives, all of them unique and we are in different seasons of life. There is a common thread in all of our lives though, we all have 24 hours in a day and all of us have 7 days in a week. The question is how do we spend these 24 hours and 7 days?
1. Spend time wisely.
When we understand and realise the truth that we all have the same amount of time in the day but we all use it differently I think it affects how we live our life. Barrack Obama, Richard Branson, your local GP, the homeless man down the road, your high-school teacher and YOU all have the same amount of hours in the day but spend them very differently!
We must view time as a precious resource that all of us have. How do we spend it? Do we just go through the motions of life doing the same old thing or are we looking to spend our time wisely and make a mark on our generation with the time we have.
You can’t get back lost time. Spend the time you have doing what is important and valuable. I want to be the kind of person that when I breath my last breath I know that I made the most of the time that I had and made a difference with the time that I had on earth. No matter what your career or occupation is we all have the same amount of time, let's use it wisely.
“We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.
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2. What are your priorities?
Often we will say I just don’t have ENOUGH time in life. I heard a great quote recently, “It’s not that you don’t have time, it is that your priorities aren't in the right order.” As we said before we all have the same amount of time but make excuses saying we don’t have ENOUGH time to do certain things. Well I would propose that it’s not that you don’t have enough time but that it is not a priority. You see if something is a priority to you, you will make time to do it. For me going to church is a priority and whether I want to or not I will be in church every weekend because it’s a priority. For some people they will make an excuse that I am too busy to go to church. Our priorities determine how we spend our time.
You can apply that thought to everything. We fill our time with what is a priority to us whether we like it or not. For some Xbox is a priority so they spend an unhealthy amount of time on it. Could I encourage you to write out a list of what is a priority to you and then set your time accordingly to that.
For example for me: reading the bible, a date night with my wife, going to church, sport, working, writing, exercise and friendships are all priorities to me so I set time for all of these. We must be intentional about how we spend our time. There is a lot going on in life so know your priorities and set your time accordingly.
“My favourite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.”
3. Choose productivity over busyness.
Being busy is kind of a sexy word in our culture today. “If you are busy then you are successful.” We fill our time with so much stuff and get so bogged down with sometimes-meaningless things that it restricts our ability to be productive.
When a V8 super car does a burnout how it makes a great scene with smoke filling the air and a loud piercing noise. At the end of a burnout the car has made absolutely NO progress or traction in the journey. Often I think our "busy" lives can look like this. We make a lot of noise and commotion but make little progress.
Productivity on the other hand is like a V8 super car travelling at a crazy speed doing what it was designed to do – drive fast! Being productive does not mean that you don’t have a lot going on but that you are making the most of the time that you have. Having productivity as the goal changes the way we manage our time. When productivity is the aim you live with a filter asking the question, "is this going to be worth my time and will it help build what I am trying to accomplish?"
Our aim should not be to be busy but rather be productive/effective. We can waste a lot of time on things that are not important but we must choose to be productive in what we do.
Time is ticking away. Life is short and eternity is long. Let's live with perspective and living with purpose. Remember to enjoy your time. Have fun, dream big and love people.
Let's win back time! Use the time we have wisely, set our priorities and look to be productive over busy! The clock is going to keep ticking, so let's make the most of the time we have.
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