The clock is ticking. You know in your gut that you’re running out of time.
But there are still so many things you want to do!
- Travel.
- Learn piano. Guitar. Or some instrument.
- Learn a new language.
- Bowl a 300 game.
- Act in a play. Nail that karaoke song.
- Spend more time with your kids and grandkids.
- Build that vacation home.
- Help your favorite charity.
- Finish writing your book.
- Learn to paint or draw.
If you work, you understand all too well that leisure time is so short.
There are regular chores to do. Things that need mending.
If you’re retired, like me, you wonder how you ever worked 8 hours a day and got anything done. Each day races by and you’ve barely begun to make progress on all the things that you want to do – and that need doing.
Then it’s time for bed. Again!
Days turn into weeks. Then months and years. Time goes so fast!
Where did all the time go?
And at this rate, how will you ever find time to make all your dreams come true?
You look at your bucket list. No check marks. No cross outs. Only wishes unfulfilled.
Recently, while sidelined with a back injury, I had some time to catch up on my reading and watching of
successful folks. (I put links to them later in the article for your enjoyment.)
And though I went in search of how to earn more dollars, what I got was infinitely more valuable.
Though I went in search of how to earn more dollars, what I got was infinitely more valuable.
They showed me how to get more time.
Care to learn what they shared?
First off, we have to remember that time is not a real thing, like a dog, a car, or a table.
We can’t see it. Touch it. Smell it. Feel it. Yet it rules our daily life.
It’s not a clock, but we use the clock to “measure time”. Though that’s a made up thing as well. Merely a gauge set up so that all the humans can synchronize around a universally accepted source.
When the boss human says, “Come to work at 9 am” all the employees know what to do. Then, they watch that damn clock all day long – so when it strikes 5pm, they all know to leave work.
The clock synchronizes human behavior, but it doesn’t “tell time”. It’s not time.
Time is a purely human concept. Nothing more than a thought in our head. A reference.
The universe as a whole has no interest in time. Nor do the other animals, insects, plants or fungi that occupy most of this great planet.
To better understand how time is just a concept, think about this:
When we are fully engaged in something fun, time seems to go so fast. It’s over before it’s barely begun. We look down at our watch and realize we’ve been at this for hours. But it seemed like just minutes.
For me, this happens when I’m writing these posts. Or working on some design, or art, in Photoshop. Or practicing my piano.
Conversely, waiting in line at the DMV or supermarket – turns minutes into hours. Or so it seems.
As Einstein pointed out, time is relative. It needs context in which to operate.
Dan Sullivan, in his collaborative book with Dr. Benjamin Hardy, “10x Is Easier Than 2X” referenced Einstein’s theory, stating that time moves slower the faster you go.
Think about the last time you traveled in a car. At first, 65 miles an hour seems fast. But the longer you stay at 65 the slower it seems. You long to do 80! But driving 85 from Las Vegas to LA several years ago showed me even 85 seems slow after a spell.
When you go faster, everything else appears slower.
Imagine if you got up at 6am, raced to get all your chores done, and now it’s only noon. You’d have the whole day left to play. You just got MORE time!
But if you lazed around over breakfast. Hesitated to begin your first task, moved like you wore cement shoes, it would take all day. Then dinner time comes. Followed soon by bedtime. And you’re left to wonder, “Where did all the time go!”
When you understand that time is just a concept implanted in our minds since that first day of pre-school or kindergarten, we can then begin to modify that ONE concept into many. These new modifications of the original concept of time (which does not serve us well at all anymore, a left-over concept from our hard-labor farm and factory days) this leads to an exciting, eye opening, and time expanding revelation.
WE CAN GET MORE TIME!
Let’s review the standard Western day to establish our baseline first, so it will be easy to know when we finally do get more time:
This is now…
We get up at 7am ish. Go to school or work from 9 to 5 ish. Have dinner. Do chores, relax or recreate. Then we sleep from ’round 11 pm to 7 am. Basically, a three part day.
Work or school for 8 hours.
Chores, recreate or relax for 8 hours
Sleep for 8 hours.
This has been our standard 24 hour day since forever.
It was a tradition given to us by the powers that be. Government. School. Industry.
We marched in step. Went with the flow.
Yet 90% of the population are NOT well off. Not in health, wealth, or happiness.
Why the heck did we just follow along?
Well, we didn’t know any better!
I think it was the late, great business entrepeneur and motivational speaker, Jim Rohn who said…
“If you knew better, you’d do better.”
So here are 3 new concepts of time you may wish to consider, from uber-successful individuals.
Use them as is, or to create your own self-serving time concept.
These will ensure you get more time than anyone else you know.
And those folks will envy your life from this point forward.
Ed Mylett: Multi-millionaire businessman, now personal development speaker.
Ed is famous for getting 3x more from his days. Because he breaks each day up into 3 separate days.
A morning day. An afternoon day. And an evening day. Each day is scheduled, and begins and ends just as most of us do our regular days.
Think of it this way…
If you went to work at 9 am tomorrow, and your boss told you, “This is what needs to be done today. When you’re finished, you can go home. You’ll get a full days pay regardless of when you leave.”
Man, you’d fly through that work and lokk forward to going home at noon!
Conversely, we all know that work expand to fill the time allowed.
Ed’s shorter day is like a self imposed deadline. “Let’s go, let’s go! We gotta be done by noon!”
“Ok, it’s noon. Let’s get going! We gotta be done by 6!”
Ed might have the most radical time concept I’ve seen, but it’s hard to argue with its logic and effectiveness.
Most folks live and work like they have all the time in the world. Consequently, they get less done. And what IS your life after all, if not stuff you’ve done.
Live more. Do more. Have more. Be more. Shorter deadlines, moving faster towards them, extends your life.
Here’s a graphic look at Ed’s day:
Alex Hormozi is a genius businessman, multi-millionaire in his 20’s, racing confidently toward a billion.
He breaks his day into 2 parts.
His mornings, with brain fresh from overnight rest, as yet unencumbered by other people’s problems, is free to work on his own ideas for growth and expansion. For personal fitness and mind expansion. No incoming calls, text, nothing. No outside stimulus is permitted. No outside appointments are scheduled. Ever! This is Alex time.
When noon strikes, he opens his door to the world. He’ll take meetings, do interviews, phone calls, etc.
Despite his demand for ME TIME, he runs several successful international businesses, stays in top physical condition and is happily married.
“Pay yourself first” is a well established maxim for success. Most relate it to money, but it’s just as important to use your limited decision making abilities, willpower, and uncluttered thoughts to improve your life and your effectiveness.
ME TIME first, ensures that you’ll always have time to do the things you want to do… FIRST!
Otherwise, the important gets pushed aside by the urgent. And what’s important to you, never gets done.
Maybe you don’t need or can’t have a full morning. Could you get up 1 hour earlier for ME TIME?
Radio host and co-founder of the pioneering audio education company, Nightingale-Conant, Earl Nightingale once advised…
“If you would study one subject diligently, for 30 minutes each night for a year, you’d put yourself in the top 10% of all the people in the world at that subject.”
Most people squander their leisure time. Or flip about from thing to thing.
When you give yourself TIME, permission to have your own uninterrupted TIME, you can accomplish nearly anything you wish. Give yourself the gift of time, and you’ll have more!
Here’s a graphic look at Alex’s day…
Dan Sullivan, business leader, author, and founder of the international business skills development company, “Strategic Coach”, offers this concept of using time in his newest book, “10x Is Easier Than 2x”.
At the beginning of each year, all the personnel in all his companies decide 1st, which 150 days they would like to take off that year. Time off, aka “ME TIME” comes first. This includes any of the normally observed holidays.
Employees and management alike are then expected to work on the remaining days.
It’s a clever way, a psychological high to know upfront that you’ll be having 150 days off. You’ll look forward to them. Moods are better. Performance increases.
What do you think happens with less days, less time to get things done?
You guessed it! Results come faster. MORE gets done!
That’s what you’d like, right?
MORE to get done.
MORE time to do what’s important to YOU!
While Dan’s overarching concept applies to the whole year, his concept applies equally well as you move down the scale. What can you take out of your day, to make time for the important over the urgent.
When you set firmer limits on what you WILL NO LONGER DO, you free up time to do the things you really WANT TO DO.
How do we get more time?
- Move Faster
- Add Urgency
- Tighten Deadlines
- Say NO
- Prioritize the Important over the Urgent
- Disregard any Concept of Time that wastes your time
- Create a Time Concept optimized to help you progress.
The old 9 to 5 concept is not optimal for everyone. Never was. But it served business and industry. So we went along with it.
Now, we’re more independent.
It’s been 30+ years since the TV stopped broadcasting at midnight. Stores are open longer hours. Even Sundays! Online shopping is 24/7. Deliveries come next day. You don’t have to spend hours going out for fine dining – the food comes to you!
We wash our clothes faster, drive our cars faster, prep our meals faster, cut our grass faster.
Everything’s faster – so how come we don’t have MORE time???
Nearly everything has changed since the hours in our day were set more than 100 years ago.
Technology has made everything move faster.
As these three super-successful gentlemen have shown us, we can manipulate time to our advantage. We CAN get more time. We aren’t stuck with the old paradigm.
You can, and probably should, choose a more relevant, more updated, more helpful time concept.
Food for thought.
Maybe you can cook up some good ideas to wring more useful time from your days.
More time = Longer Life
“Bene Vivere”
Bob “Elderbob” Schwarztrauber
P.S. Here are some links to the successful folks mentioned above:
Ed Mylett 3 Days in 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoH9_wQnQ_A
Alex Hormozi
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3IzPg_SMEMU
Dan Sullivan
https://www.audible.com/pd/10x-Is-Easier-than-2x-Audiobook/B0C2J8VZZ3?qid=1685816515&sr=1-1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=83218cca-c308-412f-bfcf-90198b687a2f&pf_rd_r=BT022CMEDRDTQ6MB1SA3&pageLoadId=Q4KziUAqCJ3izVbx&creativeId=0d6f6720-f41c-457e-a42b-8c8dceb62f2c
NOTE: Some of the links above may lead to products with which I have an affiliate relationship. Meaning, if you should click and buy something, these vendors may send me a small commission for referring you to them. This does not raise your cost in any way. And of course, I would never risk my good name recommending products unless I wholeheartedly believed in them.
