Winning the clock?
Time has been catching up on me, the realisation of how long an hour really is and it is longer than you think. There might be twenty-four of them in a day however sleep takes up eight of them straight away before you even wake up in the morning (and it is not a place where you get economise, lack of sleep destroys productivity, health, happiness, under sleeping is the ultimate failure of time management), which means that you only have sixteen hours or four quarters of four hours to do everything else. That is the time you get to work, rest, play and give yourself self-care, and they all desire attention if you want to be a healthy and happy person who has a fulfilled life of meaning and purpose (no pressure!)
Which is a lot to get done in a day it needs a plan or at least consideration, and it is worth bearing in mind that anything that is not done daily is probably not going to get done, as most important things need regular practise and daily small amount are always better than one long session every three months (in meditation 20 minutes a day is more time in total than a ten day ten hours a day retreat once a year). It is in our daily habit that the real hard work is done and the hardest part is getting the habit in the first place, that is why we find the largest dose that we can stand to do everyday no matter what and make that our habit, it is better and more realistic to underestimate the largest dose, roughly speaking think of what you should or want to do and divide it by ten (even if that is three breathes before we read our emails and that is always possible as we always seem to have time to read our emails). Once something always happens the mind will make it happen with the minimal amount of effort that is what a habit is, something that always happens, the trick is convincing the mind that it is happening no matter what and we do that by minimising the resistance.
Habits are the workhorse of life, and the more good habit you have, the better the life you will lead, if you have the habit of walking everyday (no matter what and it turns out humans can walk in just about any weather conditions and even with muscle strain, it is in fact the cure for it) you will be a healthier person and it is the exercise that everyone can do because that is what we are designed to do, we are walking machines and that is why we suffer when we do not walk. Which means we need time to walk, a good hour or two, which is a half of one quarter of the day, every day, that is a part of self-care that can not be ignored, you can combine it with play, meeting a friend, work, but it needs to get done or you are making a sacrifice.
Not that sacrifice is bad, it is a choice to give up something for a better position but to give up your health it needs to be much better position than money, status or achievement could give you, to save the life of someone you love, that could be worth your health or even life, that is your choice, but giving up your hour walk that is rarely going to save a life (except yours!). Once you realise what the important things are to you, you will be amazed at how few you are doing. If you care about arts and craft, do you spend time on them everyday (again what you do not do everyday, you probably not going to do), home cooking, gardening, reading a story to your kids, bath time, listening to music, speaking a second language, these are all good things but you can not do everything so plan what you want to do, which means spending time considering what you really want.
Plans and routines might be boring, they are not exciting or new, they require determination and commitment but they can change your life, slowly which is not how we wish to change, we want to change now and forever, we want the life changing weekend where we are a new person by Monday. However that is not how we work, that is not doing the work almost everything we do everyday is habit, even when we seem to be doing nothing, that is how habit feels, they are what we do automatically and without effort, that does not feel like winning, it feels like routine, the best swimmer in the world get up everyday and swim, it is their habit and it does not feel special, it is their way of life and it only looks amazing from the outside, on the inside it is getting up at six in the morning and swimming for four hours.
That is why you really have to know what you want, how you want to spend your day and each of those precious hours, each one represents a quarter of a quarter of a day (or 6.25 %), that is a big number for just an hour of the day, each hour is important and you want to know what you are doing with it. Which is not to say that you should plan every hour and feel guilt for wasting a minute, however you should have priorities, things that you want to get done and when you have done those thing, you should rest and play so that you can do them tomorrow again, this is why you should not have a never ending list (three things at most but one is better) or you never get to rest. We are not consistent lightbulbs that shine in the same way all day, we have highs and lows of energy they need to be managed and ridden along their natural path. We need work, rest, play and self-care, to be happy and they need to be in balance over the long term, they support each other and there are diminishing returns in putting too much effort into just one area.
We might be out of balance most of the time and that is why we have the clock to keep us honest, if we are spending no time on our health, the clock does not lie, no work makes for an unsatisfying day (and work includes caring for others, our homes, cooking, whatever labour that is meaningful for you), a day without joy is emptier and play brings us joy, and we need rest (not just sleep) or we end up drained by the relentlessness of life. It fine to concentrate on one aspect at a time, habits are built one at a time and once built they slip into our automatic life so that we can then add a new one, that is why it is so powerful to do one thing at a time instead of an endless list that we pick at, by doing one thing everyday that moves you closer to the best version of yourself or makes your life better, you end up with a lot of good habits over the years.
It is the preciousness of time that means that we have to tackle ourselves in small steps, we have things to do, we have our habits to get through, the things that we do everyday without thinking. That is why we have to look honestly at what we are doing, not wanting to do or thinking we are doing, but what we are really doing with those sixteen hours a day. If you are spending two hours a day looking at the internet, that is over a tenth of your day gone, it might be the way you relax but maybe a deliberate thirty minutes for an evening bath and a book would be better. There are no right answers just wrong ones for you, the clock is there for you to win and the way you win is finding the best use of that time for you whilst understanding how limited and precious it is.
