24 + 1 Hour — Makes up More than Just a Day
It is sometimes better to steal an hour of your time for yourself.
The window of 24 hours depicts a new sight each opening. You follow the day as it is moved along the horizon. You woke up determined that you are going to ace the hours ahead.
Unfortunately, the events, incidents, and experiences have an edge to alter the direction of the sight that you blinked on at the start of each day. You had full control and you were thoroughly productive until that unexpected strike threw you off guard.
You were controlling the day hour by hour and then just a split second turn around dictated the rest of your time. This decisive blow can have a near term impact lasting for just a minute or it may continue throughout the day or even the next day, extending to a week or a month.
Time is strangely homogeneous
Time is the most identical thing. We misinterpret it as good or bad. Every moment is exactly similar to the previous one. Consider it as a multidimensional cube in which all the cubes are of the same size and volume. The actions and reactions make up the content of that cube which leads us to believe that the timing was never right. These factors define the 24 hours that we call a routine. The moments are all the same until we spend it.
Moreover, your thoughts and actions may not belong to the same cube simultaneously. The thoughts follow a different trend. While you are doing something, your thoughts are mostly caught up with the next thing on the to-do list. You manage the balance between thoughts and actions while the time is moving irrespective of what you think or do.
1-hour rule
The way to take control back is to have a defining hour where you dictate rather being reactive. There is one hour that remains exclusively hidden within the 24-hour timeline. You never identified it since you were following your “routine”. Just an hour that is impenetrable from impacts, influences or happenings which jolted up your remaining day. If you carefully analyze your routine, you can easily squeeze up other factors to give you room for that 1-hour.
How can this hour be any different?
You may argue that I set up my to-do list a day before and follow it religiously. I am being productive throughout the day. You are on track as you set up your day factoring in for external influences.
The 1-hour rule is more intrapersonal compared to other items on your list. You are in a selfish zone for that time. You are least bothered about the events happened throughout the day or the next item on your list. This is just a venting session.
I can not spare a minute and you are talking about an hour?
Well, this is the point. When you think you can not spare a minute you never accounted for yourself stating that. You are not available to yourself. That is why you needed it the most. It could be 10 minutes for you, not an hour. No matter the time slot, it should make you feel important. You respect your schedule but don’t you think you deserve your respect as well. You are seeking for admiration and feedback from others while ignoring the second person residing within you desperate to speak to you but ignored due to self-imposed time constraints.
What should I do at that hour?
First of all, don’t confuse it with your spare time. It is not any sort of leisure activity in which you can grab a popcorn bucket and watch Netflix or listening to music just to relax. It is not your “me-time”. This is probably the most important time since you sacrificed a part of your routine to have it. This is what you may be doing in that hour
- Shelving up your thoughts — since they are scattered wandering in different cubes you need to align them
- Assess your today’s performance with your ultimate objectives — were you on track or you need to tweak it somehow?
- Bottom-up approach — a lot is going on in your day that your subconscious mind filtered it for you on a priority basis. However, the importance is assessed on a momentary basis. Scan through the lower tier and see if there is an item that needs attention that you ignored earlier.
- Establish a forgotten — you are progressing with your life and do not really care about what has happened in the past. There may be a forgotten that needs a revival. It can be a relationship, a childhood friend, a lost memory, a business idea that you thought was sick. You never know there may be a little left that needs to be remembered.
- Contact yourself — You have one-way conversations with yourselves. In which you are being told what to do or what to think. Rarely, you respond to it as you are just listening. It does sound a bit psychotic. Arguing with yourself and having a difference of opinion within will make way for new directions that you never knew existed before.
and finally,
- Be thankful — stop complaining as it has already eaten up most of your day. And you are not thanking anyone but yourself. For spending the day to be truly yours.
