Tag Archives: Time

Wait

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I spent my early years looking forward to summer breaks, movie releases, Christmas and vacations. I would wish my life away until the events came. Sometimes, my wish would come true and time would blow by. Other times, the waiting period would drag on and time would turn into my enemy. The older I get, the more I appreciate how finite time is. I don’t like wishing my life away anymore – it already moves too fast as it is. Before we know it, we’re all old and wishing for time to slow down. Wait for things you can’t wait for. Enjoy time while you’ve got it.

Sitting on a puzzle you can’t solve? Sometimes all you can do is wait it out and take a stab at it later. Passing time builds perspective. Wait a week and look at the puzzle again – perhaps by then you’ll have the experience and fresh eyes to solve the problem. They say patience is a virtue and time heals all wounds. I think both patience and time are valuable resources that, if budgeted correctly, can enable a fruitful, productive and fulfilling life.

Scheduling Love

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Busy people often struggle to make ends meet with their loved ones. Life gets out of hand. Before you know it, you miss every meal with him or her and spend no time together except asleep at night. If left unchecked, this can tax your relationship to a bitter end.

If your relationship is truly important to you, you must carve out sacred time for it. One of my teachers in Hollywood, Bruce Botnick, upholds a rare feat in the entertainment industry: he and his wife have been happily married for 43 years. Beyond a pact to stay the uncompromising individuals they each fell in love with in the beginning, a large part of their success as a couple comes from sacred time together. To this day, they still go on dates and get to know each other. Bruce’s stories are a charm to hear – and he spouts them like a giddy schoolboy. A man in true love.

Spending time together is one of the keys to keeping a union healthy. Many forget or neglect it, especially couples that have been together forever. As unromantic as it sounds, you must schedule time for love. Make those blocks of time sacred and let no one take them away.

Meet the Better Day

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Waking up early has advantages. First and foremost, rising early awards you the time to prepare for your day rather than straggle to work or school having dragged yourself out of bed. A leisurely pace in the morning is much healthier and less stressful than a race against truancy. You can make yourself breakfast (the most important meal of the day) and squeeze in some exercise. You have time to get extra work done (like posting to your blog) and enjoy peace & quiet enough to do it. If you get out of the house early, you can beat the rush and save even more time getting to and from. Charged with all of these benefits, you are better-equipped to have a better day.

Don’t Censor Yourself

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Let the words flow. If you have something you’d like to say, say it. Do not be afraid what other people will think. Permit yourself to say something wrong. Stay open to criticism and feedback – it’s the only way to refine your voice and position against millions of other voices.

When I started this blog, posts took around an hour per day. I was afraid what people might think, so I spent a lot of time on them. A year later, I care less about the craft of my posts and more about the ideas I want to communicate. Now, with a few exceptions, posts take me no more than 20 minutes per day. As soon as I surrendered my preoccupation with perfect writing, the thoughts flowed more freely, and it demanded far less of my time.

Censoring yourself not only compromises your character, it can compromise your time. Do not fail yourself or your ideas with perfectionism. Spit it out, fool.

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Optimize the Commute

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Commuting is a bitch. Last month, I spent 29.3 hours in my car driving to and from work. That’s a full day out of my month lost to driving. There are so many things I could do with that extra day. Worse, there were times in Los Angeles where I spent as much as 4 hours in my car going to and from work for a 24-mile round trip (that’s 6mph in traffic on the 10 freeway!). I dare not do the cumulative math on that one.

As a society, we lose so much time getting to work every day. To put things into perspective: if Denver’s average commute time is 23 minutes one way and working population is roughly 600,000, the city as a whole loses 52.5 man years per day to the streets. From another angle, that’s 57,500 eight-hour work days vaporized per day. Can you imagine what businesses, communities, and our government could accomplish with that much time?

When it comes to personal productivity, public transportation can work for people who find ways to use that time effectively. But when it comes to driving you’re own car, there’s not much you can do except sit there. I tune into NPR and make phone calls to catch up with people, but I wish I could get more done. Siri and other dictation applications are a step in the right direction, but they still have a long way to go.

A world without commuting is a utopian fantasy. Without question, people should live where they want to live or where they can afford to live. Working from home is a pleasant solution, but difficult for collaborative work. And while it was nice for me to walk to work every morning in Hollywood, there were also downsides to living so close to the office (like 2am phone calls from people who forgot their keys). Regardless, it’s worth extra money for me to live close so that I can help save that full day per month. I will hopefully make that change again soon. I just have to decide how much a day of my life is worth.

If you are forced to commute, do what you can to make that time worthwhile. For my fellow commuters out there, what do you do to make that time worthwhile? I need ideas.

Agree to Disagree

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Is it really worth the time to win every argument? Wars are expensive, untimely, and leave most people on both sides confused. Arguments are the same way. They arise when you least expect it. Sometimes stakes are involved. Most of the time, however, only your pride is on the table. What’s more valuable – your time or your pride? You don’t have to win every argument. Take pride in knowing you save yourself a few minutes of precious time.

Time Flies

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Pay attention to the moments in life where you lose track of time. Most signify passion, joy, or discovery. Take note of the people, activities, and environment; cherish and hold them close. The variables of these moments should be tracked, preserved, and repeated as often as possible. Only within moments so rich can you defy the power of time itself.

Overtime Pay Is Unhealthy

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Time and a half or double pay was designed to compensate you for working unreasonable hours. Depending on the rate, it can even make extra hours appealing. That’s a problem. Why?

Money does not actually compensate you for the added stress and sacrifices. Money does not buy you your time back. Money does not keep your health in check or award you sleep at night. Overtime pay does not give you your life back. So what’s the point? Just call it a day and go home.

Only work as many hours as you need to get the job done well enough. Do not be seduced by the extra cash to compromise your well-being. You’ll burn out, and it will not be worth it long-term. Cut yourself off, quit for the night, and come in fresh the next day. It is the only sustainable course of action.

The Time Management Paradox

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Spending your time wisely and time management are two completely different things. All of us want to make the best use of our time. Some people are better at it than others and do so naturally. Spending time wisely can be an intuitive art. But without some system for tracking or assessment, intuitive time spenders really have no idea whether or not they are optimizing their time in the best way possible.

Time management helps time spenders keep track of their time utility. By creating sorting and tracking systems, you can get a really strong insight into the way you live your life.

The ironic paradox? It takes time to manage your time. Setting up spreadsheets, data input, note-taking, categorization, calendars, chronicles, time-sheets, reading, reports, etc. Depending on how accurate you want to be, you might even waste time while “managing your time.” I am guilty of this. I know many people who are.

It will take passive tools – perhaps in our phones, browsers, and cars – to help us better-understand our lives without wasting precious time.

What Happens When You Don’t Have Enough Time?

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You prioritize. You cannot make more time, time is finite. You chose what to do with your time. If working a day job to make money is how you chose to spend your time, so be it. But you are the only one accountable for that decision. Do not complain. If you feel like complaining, it is time to get creative and find another way to accomplish your goals. Find a better way to spend your time.

Easier said than done when you are too busy to think – too busy to prioritize. But that’s another blog post altogether.