Use Your Time Better and Be Happier

“He who every morning plans the transactions of that day and follows that plan carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life.”

Victor Hugo

Do you ever feel as though you just don’t have enough hours in the day?

Here’s the truth. You can “either run the day, or the day runs you.”

If your day runs you, your going to be unhappy about it. If you run your day, you’re going to be able to use your time better, have a greater degree of satisfaction with your day and what you were able to accomplish in it.

Let’s look at a few different strategies to help us “run our days” so that they do not “run us.”

Watch out for “time wasters” and limit their influence.

• Social media.
• Texting.
• Screen time.
• TV/movies.
• Sports.
• Worrying.
• Gossip.

Now with the exception of the last two (which should be eliminated from our lives altogether) there is nothing inherently wrong with many of the items on this list, but all of these can be significant wasters of our time if we are not careful.

When we allow an excessive amount of some of these activities, we can find entire portions of our day totally squandered.

Keep track of how often you spend your time doing each of these and try to limit the amount you spend participating in these activities. If you find that one of these activities is truly absorbing much of your time, it may be helpful to step back and re-examine your time investment there.

Set goals wisely and reasonably.

It is important to set goals that are both achievable and measurable. Also important is learning how to work smarter and not harder.

Use the SMART method when setting goals. Make sure your goals are

• Specific – For instance, “I need to lose weight” is not very specific in goal-setting, but “I need to lose ten pounds by the beginning of summer” presents a particular goal in mind.
• Measurable – Goals can be both short-term and long-term, and both types of goals are vital. Planning to clean my entire basement by the end of next week would be an example of a short-term goal while saving up for retirement would be a long-term goal.
• Attainable – Make sure the goals you set are attainable and realistic. For example, it would be impossible to build a 3,000 square foot custom house with a crew of ten men within a week, so that would not be a very attainable goal. Setting goals that you are able to reach is imperative.
• Relevant – The goals you set need to matter. They need to have significance, not just to other people, but to you personally.
• Timely – Our goals need to have both a beginning and an end. This step is vital because all the other steps hinge upon it. A goal with no start or end is not specific or measurable, and it certainly will not be attainable.

“Plan in decades.

Think in years.

Work in months.

Count in days.

Live in the moment”

Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize.

Prioritize your daily tasks based upon their importance and urgency. Take a careful look at your daily agenda and determine which tasks are:

• Important and urgent: do these tasks right away.
• Important but not urgent: decide when to do these tasks.
• Urgent but not necessarily important: delegate these tasks if and when at all possible.
• Not urgent and unimportant: set aside these tasks for later.

Let’s ultimately remember that our time on this planet is limited and precious. Keep this at the forefront of our minds as we go about our daily routines.

May we be able to say at the end of each day that we “ran our day,” and not that “our day ran us.”                   

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Until next time, have a happy day.

* I cannot recommend every author or everything written in every book I mention in my blog. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and where a person or book is right or makes a good point, I will give credit where credit is due.