May 8, 2021
How to Carve the Necessary Time to Chase Your Dreams
“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” — Michael Altshuler
Honk! Honk! Honk!
Almost everyone knows this sound too well. This is how we reveal our anger to the car in front of us especially when we are stuck in a massive traffic jam.
If you are one of the many unlucky people in the world who always has to navigate through a traffic jam every morning, then you know what I am talking about.
Navigating through traffic is already hard enough. What is even harder is working at your current job for many hours. Now if you love your job, then this doesn’t apply to you.
Because a massive 85% of people globally are unhappy in their jobs, people naturally look for other ways to enjoy life or find other sources of income that suits their needs.
However, one common thing people always say when they think about following their passion is,
“I have no time or the experience required to do this. I am better off sticking to my current situation.”
Many people dream big but when they do set off on their journey towards their goals, they look up and they see Mount Everest with its steep angles.
As soon as people see this, they don’t even take the first step and instead head back.
It’s not only the journey that seems hard. Time is also the enemy.
People are too occupied with their lives. Every day, people go to work and when they come back, they are too tired to focus on anything else or have to complete some assignments for work.
During the weekend, you have a chance to rest but then you also have to fulfill your family needs and a bunch of other stuff.
It may seem that life is all about working and meeting your basic needs, but it can be more than that if you choose to change it.
- Most people want to enjoy life more.
- Most people want a side-hustle that is exciting and makes them money.
- Most people want to spend more time with family and not at work.
To accomplish all of this requires time. However, most people seem to agree that time is never on their side and with so much going on in life, it may seem impossible for people to focus on other stuff besides work and priorities.
However, time can become your friend and since every person in the world has 24-hours, it is your responsibility to structure and categorize that time as efficiently as possible.
Here are some ways you can effectively and efficiently carve some time to follow your passions.
Wake Up Early
This is perhaps one of the most effective ways to extract more time out of your day.
When you wake up early, you have an immense array of options with how you want to spend that time effectively.
Now I am not telling you to sacrifice your sleep by waking up early. When you wake up early, you still should have gotten 7-8 hours of sleep last night.
Don’t sacrifice sleep just for the sake of waking up early. If you want to wake up early, you have to go to bed early.
Let’s say you normally wake up at 7 a.m. on a working day but you choose to start waking up at 6 a.m. to get a head start. To get 7 hours of sleep, you must be in bed by 11 p.m.
Since you woke up an hour before than usual, you get to decide how you want to spend that hour. But please don’t make the mistake of slacking or spending that time on entertainment.
Many people feel like because they woke up early, they can spend that time on relaxation or entertainment. However, this only wastes more time and the only reason you should be waking up earlier than your usual wake-up time is to get things done.
You should be able to decide how early you want to wake up. Whether it’s 1 hour, 2 hours, or even 30 minutes before, choosing a wake-up time that helps you complete or check off some priorities of your day helps you manage your day more efficiently.
Here are some ways you can use this precious time:
- Start working on your side-hustle such as writing blog posts, filming YouTube videos, starting new campaigns, etc.
- Invest on your personal development such as watching motivational videos, taking an online course, having online meetings, reading books
- Complete some of your evening tasks such as taking out the trash, cleaning your room, completing an assignment, etc.
- Work on your assignments so later in the day you can focus on what you want to
Just because you woke up early, that doesn’t mean you have to work on something other than work. If you are finding yourself consumed with so many assignments related to work, just try waking up early and complete those assignments in that period of time.
Reserve Some Time On The Weekends
On the weekends, most people just want to chill, spend some time with their family, get ahead for the next week, etc.
Whenever starting a journey or trying to embark on something new, sacrifices have to be made. Some sacrifices ultimately help you in the long run and one sacrifice that should be made when wanting more time is to:
Work on the weekend.
Before you cry foul, just keep reading.
When I say work on the weekend, this could mean two things.
Let’s say you want to start chasing your dream or passion but you don’t really have enough time during the week. Along with waking up early, you should start reserving some time to focus on your passion during the weekend.
If you really care about your dreams and really want to chase it, then you should have no problem working for it during the weekend.
The other thing that working on the weekend could mean is that instead of just chilling and enjoying life the whole weekend, it would be more wise to allocate a few hours or even a day towards getting some of your work assignments done.
Now I know the weekend is for recharging yourself for the next week but if you are able to get like a powerpoint or some urgent assignments done that are due next week for your job or school, then you will have a less stressful upcoming week.
Additionally by getting some assignments done and out of the way, that leaves more time for you to work on your side-hustle or any other passion during the next week.
Now I don’t want you to work all weekend unless that is something that you want to do. You should be able to efficiently reserve some time on the weekends that allows you to fulfill family priorities, work on your passion, and chill.
Become More Productive & Efficient (Planning)
Life throws so much at us humans. Along with work, most have families to take care of and tons of other priorities.
Most people are too busy with their lives that they often fail to come up with a plan or some sort of organization in their lives.
By coming up with a plan or a way to keep your life organized, you put less stress on yourself and are able to accomplish a lot more things since you know how to efficiently complete your checklists on time.
There are so many ways to become more productive such as:
- Waking up early because you have more time to complete the stuff you want to get done
- Using a calendar where you allocate different portions of your day to different priorities
- Having a to-do or task list that you have to get done before the end of the day
- Putting away your phone in a different room or location so you don’t get distracted
- Limiting the use of social media and other distractions so you have maximum focus on the task at hand
- Planning for the next day the day before
By using some of these ways listed here, you can dramatically increase your productivity and output throughout the day.
Even though a day has 24-hours, you will feel like you have a LOT more time since you are in control with your time and you know exactly what you should be doing.
You should combine several of these techniques to extract the most time.
When you wake up in the morning, you should know exactly what you should be doing today because you had planned the day before. If you have a to-do list for today, then start working on checking off that list as efficiently as possible.
Because of the calendar you made, you should know when to work on what task and how long it should take.
Along with working on your tasks, make sure you limit how much time you spend on your phone and social media.
Takeaways
Simply put, time isn’t always on our side but we get to decide how to use it.
“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” — William Penn
The whole world wants more time but once we have it, we tend to spend it on entertainment, social media, late-night partying, etc.
Such things satisfy us for the present moment (instant gratification) but they ruin us in the long run.
Sure, it’s a good thing to relax regularly so you can recharge for the upcoming week but if you keep finding yourself spending your precious weekend time regularly on entertainment and satisfying yourself for the short-term, then something needs to change.
Almost everyone has goals or dreams that they want to achieve but they keep finding themselves crunched for time.
That is why the current struggle in today’s world is finding more time.
We need to get time on our side and some ways you can do this is by…
- Waking up early
- Spending some time on the weekend towards your passion
- Becoming better at planning and organizing your day
