How to add more time to your days

Musician and actor, Henry Rollins famously sang the following lyrics, in his song Shine:

“No such thing as spare time, no such thing as free time, no such thing as down time. All you got is life time… Go!”

The past couple of months have brought time and how I value it into much sharper focus and in every aspect of my life I see the role it plays.

Case in point, I recently started intermittent fasting as a means of controlling my weight and to overhaul the way I eat.

For the uninitiated, intermittent fasting is NOT a diet, more than anything it is a way of managing how much time you spend consuming, digesting and converting food to energy.

There are different ratios that can be used when doing this type of fast, with the most popular being the 8 to 16 hour ratio. This means that you spend 16 hours fasting, and 8 eating. I generally follow a more strict eating window, with a ratio of 6 to 18 hours, which I have found manageable and effective.

Reclaiming my time

Due to the fasting, I have become so much more conscious of the amount of time I spend eating, and exactly what I am eating during that time. In fact one of the biggest benefits of intermittent fasting has been the amount of time I’ve been able to save as part of the process.

Because I don’t break my fast at the normal ‘breakfast time’ that I used to, I no longer have to bother myself with making breakfast. Once I make a healthy lunch, I’m not stumped at lunch time, trying to figure out what to eat.

Do you realize how much time you spend trying to choose your food?

This renewed consciousness of ‘my time’ has actually helped me to become a bit more productive at work as well. Now more than ever, I am deeply interested in ensuring that every hour of my day is spent efficiently and doing what I said I planned to.

How much do you have?

Sometimes my ambition for personal improvement seems to outpace the amount of time I have in each day. Let’s consider it all: the gym takes time, reading takes time, the personal project takes time, work seems to be all over the place with its time, watching Netflix is time being used… everything uses up our time, but we are trying to do it all, guilt free.

There’s no secret way to add hours to the days but if you look closely there are valuable pockets of time in each of our days that can help us to get more done.

For example, I’ve been trying to figure out how to make time to read for pleasure. The solution that works so far, is allotting two hours before bed to reading and/or when necessary, a few hours before getting ready for work in the mornings.

It’s a deliberate effort of course, but once you’ve identified that time, you just have to do whatever it takes to get it done.

Time Sucks Are Everywhere!

One of the more important things any of us can do is to identify the things that waste our time. What are those ‘time-sucks’ in your life?

Prime suspect numero uno in my life is my smart phone!

The typical scenario is: I am doing something, or about to do something, but decide to check my notifications or look at posts on Instagram. The next thing I know, I look up and realize that I had descended down a rabbit hole and got lost for two hours… all that time wasted!

This can happen with any social media network and the simple, uncomplicated solution is to put your phone down and out of reach. Even better, some social media platforms, namely Instagram, now have activity trackers that allow you to track how much time you spend on average using the app.

Additionally it helps you to manage your time by setting a daily reminder once you have spent a preset amount of time of your choosing on the app. So I’ve currently set the app to notify me once I have completed an hour of use of instagram for the day.

There are so many things we can do to save, and take more control of our time. But probably the most important thing we can do is be more aware of the time we do have and fill it with moments that bring us joy.

What are some of the ways you are saving time? Let me know in the comments.

Be inspired, Be informed, Be Glorious!

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Kevin