Making Time for the Important Things in Life

How many times have you caught yourself saying that there isn’t enough time in the day? Is this really the truth? There are many books on the subject of how to be highly successful as well as how to achieve a balanced life.

If you’re like most people, you probably think these notions are for other people, who are super extraordinary, and you feel that you don’t fall into the mix. Today, the demands of work, career, education, family, and homeownership seem to take priority over enjoyment. Relaxation time may be scheduled as a once-a-month outing or even an annual vacation. However, even those pleasures seem to be filled with work.

There’s planning and scheduling and not enough time – or so it seems – for down time. Are you waiting for retirement to enjoy your life? Many workers feel as though they are waiting for life to happen rather than creating the life they want.

Do you wish you had more time to achieve your goals and to enjoy life? If so, you are certainly not alone. Today we are going to try to find a solution for that.

Finding Balance

If you think about life being balanced, you might envision a balanced out seesaw with no ups, no downs, and you manage to stay balanced in the middle ground.

Of course, life doesn’t work like that. There are ups and there are most certainly downs. Sometimes you might feel as though you just want to jump off the seesaw and lay on the ground for a little while just to gain your equilibrium back.

What does it mean to be in balance, if life has its difficulties? When you are in balance, you maintain your equilibrium while life’s ups and downs are hitting you hard. Of course, you go through various emotions as circumstances, both good and bad, while finding your way through life.

However, balancing your life means you choose how long you stay in the down position. Hard moments will hit anybody, but you can choose how you show up in those circumstances.

It’s perfectly fine to feel in turmoil when things get crazy. If needed, express your feelings, but do not get stuck there. The secret lies in taking the next step to change your situation. Only when you take action, things will begin to change.

Next, you make an action plan for change. If you’ve lost a job, take out your resume. If your home needs a repair, start asking family and friends for referrals on contractors. Don’t just sit and stew about what happened, but take the appropriate time to plan what needs to happen next. When you put your feet on the ground, you bounce that seesaw up again.

Start to face the reality. There is no use in murmuring and dwelling on how bad life is for you. It just gets you down and if you want to enjoy life, you need to choose wisely where your energy goes.

Time Management

This is something that can be challenging, because who doesn’t feel like they are short in time? But when we learn to put our priorities right, life will change for the better. Time management is really an essential thing to learn.

What’s the hardest task? Do that one first. For some people, filing is the worst administrative task there is and for others, it’s filling out paperwork and making phone calls. Whatever you identify, as being your hardest task, is probably the one you should do first. And it feels so good when it is done and over with!

You will find this practice to be difficult at first; however, as time goes by you will be grateful you stuck with it. These tasks will become easier and quicker the more you practice.

Write It Down

Writing things down is very important. “Forgetting” tends to waste a huge amount of time and effort. When you write things down, the mind/body activity helps you to remember the task. Plus, you have a reminder at hand when you forget the details or specifics. Seeing things on paper also helps you to prioritize.

Prioritize Tasks

In order to prioritize tasks and events, you must know what must be done, what you would like to do, and what’s completely optional. You cand decide what is important for you, where your priorities are, and what’s falling by the wayside.

Put things in order of what should be done first. Putting things down on paper is the key to getting your life prioritized. Don’t simply make a to-do list. Write everything down in order of importance and priority. If you have to, you can number the items. This will drive home the point of how important one item is over another. Continue to write down what needs to be done.

Defer Tasks

If you were unable to complete a task, don’t feel bad to carry it over to the next day’s to-do list. Don’t view it as a failure. Moving forward is what’s important.

What’s the worst thing that could happen if you don’t get this task done in time? Can it wait? Will everyone survive? These questions may seem as though you want to rid yourself from responsibility, but you are learning to prioritize. Things move just that easier once priorities are at the right place.

Avoiding Procrastination

The most successful people are the ones that learned how to deal with procrastination. But it surely happened to you that you are going from a Youtube video to the next, when you know you have some important work to do, but you dread to even think about starting. Well, remember? That’s why we should do the hardest job first! Here some tips on how you can put procrastination at bay:

• When you are working on a project, turn off your phone and any notifications from emails, messengers or other apps.
• Do not answer emails right in the morning, but schedule a time for it later the day, after you have worked on some projects.
• Define a reward that you give yourself when the project is done. That can be lying down in the hammock and checking a few minutes your social media. But you know you are not allowed to take a peek until your project is done!

Take a Break

You may think you have no time to lose, but the reality is you can’t work all day long. You need a break for some moments. Normally you are more efficient if you work with full concentration for about 45 minutes and take then a 5-minute break. This is not an exact science and will not always work out that way, but you will definitely see your productivity rise if you make your breaks a priority.

Find some ways to bring balance into your life. After working your mind all day long you need a workout. Put on a sweat, be it in the gym or chopping some firewood outside. You also need a day of rest after a week of work, and you need a change of tapestry once in a while.

Get a feel for what your body tells you and know your limits, because if you burn the candle on both sides, you surely will reap the consequences. You may be able to churn through it for a while, but then you are faced with a heart attack or burnout. And even if you are lucky and nothing of that happens, your productivity will suffer if you do not respect your limits and take a break.

Conclusion

There are many challenges we all have to face when it comes to achieving our goals, fulfilling our dreams, and living a life we love. However, once we get over blaming our childhood, life circumstances, other people, or our ancestors, we come to the point of assuming responsibility of our actions and gain control over the future of our lives.

Sometimes we need honesty and self-discipline to decide where we fall short and where we can step up the game. But recognizing our shortcomings is the first step for improvement to shine brighter than the day before.

Take action! Take the first step you need to achieve the life you have been looking for! And you will be one step closer of doing your work with excellence and finding some spare time for yourself as well. And soon you will think how you managed to handle your messy life before. You are surely not going to regret it!