We are all given the same amount of time each day; the saints and the thieves, the rich and the poor, the beggar and the billionaire, the hardworking and the lazy, the healthy and the unhealthy. According to Miles Munroe, you are a product of how you chose to spend that time, hence, you become the person you spend the most time practicing to be. Interesting perspective.
How do you spend your 24 hours every day? There’s a theory around breaking the 24 hours in a day into three time slots, called the 8-8-8 rule. A guideline formulated by Robert Owen in 1817, where he coined the slogan ‘eight hours of labor, eight hours for recreation and 8 hours for rest. Apparently before this, laborers were expected to work for 10 hours each day, which was a little laborious. I don’t know why we’ve convinced ourselves that we can go back to those days and work for 10 hours or more a day – truly history repeats itself; there’s nothing new under the sun. The theory was then further expounded by others as below:
- 8 Hours of honest hard work
- 8 hours of good sleep
- 8 hours should be spent on (3F, 3Hs, and 3S)
- 3Fs are Family, Friends and Faith
- 3Hs are Health, Hygiene, and Hobby
- 3Ss are Soul, service, and Smile
In his speech, Miles Munroe says that time is the currency of life, thus the saying we always quote that time is money. Time can be used to buy the life that you want. You can buy bad health by not spending time doing what you need to do to keep healthy, you can buy an unhappy marriage by spending less or no time with those you supposedly care about, you can buy poverty by spending time on non-value adding addictions that rob you of the time to be creative and make money or earn more income.
Time, like money, can also be stolen. This happens when you allow distractions to take up chunks of your productive time of the day, be it engaging in unnecessary meetings, checking on your social media too often, or having unplanned days doing meaningless tasks. It can also be stolen through procrastination, lack of delegation, multitasking, and doing things you know add no value to your purpose. Productivity tools can be used to make better use of your day-time (and playtime).
Time can be abused: Time can be abused by engaging in excessive leisure activities during your productive time, and vice-versa, perpetual busyness with never-ending to-do lists. It can be abused through engaging in unhealthy habits and vices. Time will not wait for you, and once abused, is not recovered.
Time can be appreciated (just like money). How much value does 30mins of your time hold? Can your day be interrupted and have no ripple effects on you? To make your time appreciate in value, you’ll need to have clear goals and targets for each time slot in the 8-8-8 hour schedule, prioritize activities and manage the time effectively. Most of your goals should be finished within a reasonable time, leaving you room for downtime and unplanned issues. In the same way, time can also depreciate. A student who spends most of their day sleeping, watching movies, and visiting the malls instead of studying quickly depreciates the value of their time. A manager that spends their day micro-managing and doing work that they can delegate or over-emphasizing administrative tasks that don’t count towards the company’s strategic direction quickly diminishes the value of their time.
You can’t control time: Once time goes, it’s gone. You are a certain age only once, you have the energy levels you have just this once. When you lose time, you miss a chance to build something or to do yourself some good. Time moves on whether we’re ready or not.
How can you maximize your time?
We can agree with Miles Munroe that you can only be a product of how you make use of your time. Nothing is permanent, thanks to time. What happened yesterday is gone, but today is a chance to make sure that tomorrow is more purposeful and that your time is henceforth spent consciously. Time must be managed, and must be protected.
So what are the ways you can maximize your time?
- Document a plan – “No wind blows in favor of a ship without a destination” Seneca the Younger. What or who would you want to be at the end of the year? Month? In 3 years? What do you need to do from today to start sailing? Make a plan and write it down.
- Establish your priorities – learn to say no to things that are not taking you to where to want to go, drop the people or friends who waste your time, and invest more time on those that help you or that are of value to you. Decide what your priority in life is. Remember when you don’t, the time will move anyway.
- Pursue your purpose only – when we try to go after everything, we usually end up overwhelmed and possibly come short of achieving our goals. Learn to pick an ideal or a purpose to focus on and drop what’s not working towards your purpose at the time. Pursue only your purpose. Focus on the one thing that matters the most.
- Protect your plans and priorities – from other people’s interests. People will want to mirror their plans on you and make you do what they want. You’re the one that knows what you want, protect it and stick with your priorities
- Identify what you value – what do you value in this life? What do you wish you had more time for? If so, have you given them the time they need from you or are you postponing them until when the time is right?
- Do an inventory of your associations – take an inventory of what or who is wasting your time and make the necessary changes. Are the 5 people you spend time with time-wasters? Drop them. Are the associations that you keep aligned with where you want to go or whom you want to become? Remember you are the average of the 5 people you spend your time with.
- Review your investments – where or what are you spending your time on and what can you change or add to improve on your time investment?
- Do not try to please everyone – as human beings, we’re socialized to please the people around us, possibly as a social norm. Unfortunately, half of those around you don’t even like you, stop pleasing and do what is right for you.
- Forget the past, pursue and design the future. Do not cry over spilled milk, it doesn’t count. Purpose not to spill any more milk, and not to live to someone else’s future. Do something for yourself, get back on track, and re-design what happens henceforth.
- Design your days to create value in your life. Make every day count. We’re very good at counting the days but can you instead make the days count?
