How Much Time do You Have to Make it Happen?

To ask how much time you have is quite a silly question….

How much time do you have to achieve your goal, no matter what you’re up to? To understand the question correctly, we first have to answer the “stupid” question about what time really is.

Well, it all depends on how we relate to time. For some people, it doesn’t mean too much.

The time frame goes from sunrise in the morning until it sets in the evening.

Usually, this is the way of viewing time in undeveloped communities. All is about basic survival, such as finding food for the day and defending the conquered territory.

In other words, a fundamental and rude manner of human life.

Jumping to a more up-to-date situation, time is something we “fight against” daily. How often do we use the following expressions?

“I do not have time.”

“If I had time…”

“If the time allows me.”

“The time just blew away.”

These statements are probably nothing more than excuses. It is one of the most common ways in which people lie to themselves.

Personally, I think that 99% of the time, when you don’t get something done, it’s not because of a lack of time but because of something else.

It could be a lack of will to do something, no plan in place, or merely pure laziness.

Every day from the day we were born until we finish our life on this planet, we have and will have exactly 24 hours to our disposal….every day! Not one second more or one second less. Something to think about the next time when you ask yourself how much time you have.

You Don’t Decide How Much Time You Have

Of all the variables we have to our service to perform the way we want in life, time is the only absolutely democratic variable. Rich or poor, black or white, Christian or Muslim, male or female, child or adult, human or animal, we all have exactly 24 hours per day at our disposal.

This is not all. This marvelous variable called time also offers another advantage. Every day we know beforehand that we will have exactly 24 hours to do what we have to do during the day, and this is repeated every single day for the rest of our life.

The interest question will then be how do we use this absolutely democratic and, at the same time, utterly rigid variable.

The Past, the Present and the Future Determine How Much Time You Have

Trying to take advantage or be in command of time, we have to face the reality that we only can control a tiny and limited peace of time, which is the present. However, how we act in the present will decide how the past, or the history, will be described later. But the most important is that it will determine the path of the future.

Time has been analyzed in many different forums linked to religion, philosophy, and science, and in some cases, it has even been viewed as the fourth dimension of life. The more I try to understand what time really is, the more confused I get.

So, let’s make it useful and straightforward and only make one statement that can be of help when planning your activities. By transforming the sentence

“The Past, the Present, and the Future”

“Experience, Action, and Result”

In one way or another, we have used the same time pillars but described them with more motion or animation. The point here is that we cannot change the past, but we can have an impact on the future by acting appropriately in the present.

By not being correctly active, or worse by being totally passive, in the present, it is so easy to blame the time for your failure. Waiting for a better future is the same as doing nothing to assure a better future.

Blaming the “bad luck” in the past is the same as giving credit that our history is based on events out of our control.

Do you see how you quickly can build up a history and predict a future where we nominate ourselves as victims of the circumstances?

Most people failing in life can, without problems, identify themselves in this kind of time description. And the real losers accept these circumstances as their life destiny.

You Can Plan How Much Time You Will Have

With proper planning, you can optimize your future. To start with, you have to use the past or the experience not to repeat failures you might have had before. The past should serve as a rich bank of experiences, where you take advantage of all your knowledge to plan for a better future.

When it comes to concrete planning, you need to divide life into the primary and necessary categories:

Eating
Sleeping (or resting)
Social and family life
Hobbies
Work

The first two (eating and resting) should not be so difficult, as they very much are driven by real needs by getting tired and hungry. However, by not eating correctly and sleeping well over some time, the body can run into an utterly unbalanced mode and produce severe danger.

So watch out!

Now, let´s be honest and see how to plan your private, social, and family life. At least in my case, I have for many years, given the family and friends the time that was left after the work was done.

For many years, striving upwards on the career ladder, most of the time was dedicated to working. Every family is a separate and unique case, and impossible to make any static number on how much time should be invested in family and friends.

But watch out before it becomes too late!

I was lucky to have a very comprehensive wife and family. Others run into a family tragedy when it is too late trying to rescue what’s already lost.

You usually plan your hobby activity quite well and detailedly because it is an activity you like.

It is your passion!

Why don’t you plan your work the same way? I made this question to myself some years ago.

The honest answer was short and straightforward: I did not feel any passion for my work.

This was the signal and warning light for me that something had to be changed. Fortunately, I found my own business online, which now absorbs a reasonable part of my time. I do the work with pleasure, and it forms part of my joint passions.

Can you imagine it took me 62 years to find out that I was on the wrong path?

To not put “all eggs in one basket,” I started part-time while still in the corporate world.

It is never too late!

Based on that experience, I am waking up every morning to do my best to cultivate my new passion with joy.

It all starts with proper planning. If you are passionate about something, it is so easy that you lose track of what you are doing, as you would like to do it all at the same time. Start with your overall objective. Where would you like to be, let´s say, within a year? You need to slice it down from there to monthly, weekly, and daily planning.

Think about what are the tasks that bring your business forward. It can be everything from daily routine work to tasks of a more developing nature.

Prioritize always the tasks that will make your business grow!

Use an Agenda!

There are so many different programs and agendas out in the market, and I will not spend time going into these matters as you will find much better sites than this one to figure out which agenda is best for you.

Further, it is often the personal style of each and everyone that decides which planning system fits best for you. However, do not even think about working without a planning system.

I call it a planning system as it should include your daily “to-do-list” project developments together with typical agenda-related issues, like appointments, phone calls, conferences, webinars, and similar activities where more people are involved and where it is crucial to have time coordination.

I’ll tell you what happened to me that I missed an important conference call because it was not correctly registered on my agenda. When you work with something you are genuinely passionate about, the daily work is so full of positive emotions, and a strict schedule is the only way to keep control of your activities.

Make it simple, and do not complicate life with expensive agendas or planning systems. I am using my Google agenda linked to my Gmail, and it fulfills all my needs.

Automation Could be the Core Topic to Define How Much Time You’ll Have Available

A few years ago, it was close to impossible to build your own business without dedicating 100% of your time to make it happen. Further, you needed a considerable amount of investment capital.

In today’s digital world, you can start your own business in your spare time. Additionally, you can start up your business with a ridiculously low amount of capital. Cancel a dinner evening at the restaurant of your choice, and you’ll have the necessary money to start your online business right away.

Whatever your destiny will be, never let time be the bottleneck. You choose how much time you should set aside for a life changer.

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