Lack of time doesn’t exist

In my first year at university, I was one of those people that said that I had a lack of time.

I thought that I didn’t have the time for anything besides my course. I didn’t have time to get out with family and friends and not even to exercise a bit (at least that was what I thought).

In my first semester, even though I had my best semester in what concerns grades, it was one of the most stressful periods of my life. I don’t remember much and I feel that I didn’t fully live that moment. I was only focused on studying and I thought that I didn't have any second left.

The second semester started and I returned to tennis practices, but very often I missed them because I had to study. At least I was starting to do things differently, a little bit more exercise and time with friends and family. I continued to study a lot, so the semester went well. I was a little bit less stressed, but still feeling stressed about the lack of time I felt I had.

Everything changed in that summer, I got an internship on a startup and, for the first time in my life, I understood what lack of time was really about. I understood that lack of time is really a choice.

I wanted to live more, have more quality time with my loved ones and if I had trouble with time management at this stage the tendency was for it to get worse over the years.

Before that, I always thought that, in the future, I would be able to manage well my time and just had to wait until the end of my degree and hold on.

However, if I couldn’t do it now, why did I think I could do it in the future, where my situation would be harder to implement those changes? When you think you can do a thing in the future, now is just not the right moment, you are already late to implement it in your life.

My second-year, first semester. I started working (part-time) and studying at the same time, never had done it, but it taught me a lot about priorities. That semester was bad, I had bad grades and failed one subject (believe me, could be worst). Work went well, I liked what I was doing.

Frequently, I was more focused on work than in studying. Now, I can see that I started there my journey to live my life in my own terms and in a more fulfilling way. That semester taught me that it wasn’t a lack of time, it was a lack of prioritization that guided me for a bad semester.

We can do almost everything we want if we prioritize the most important things instead of wasting time on things that don’t bring any value to our lives or take away our focus from the tasks and moments that really matter the most.

In the second semester of the second year, I had a totally different semester. I didn’t work because I thought it ruined my previous semester. However, that semester went equally as bad, but luckily (and I’m still trying to discover how it happened) I passed all my subjects.

Theoretically, I had the right amount of time to do better, but I didn’t do it. I missed work and I was lost, I had many questions in my head for which I didn’t know the answer. Probably the biggest was why to finish my degree.

Now, I can, clearly, see that wasn’t lack of time, it was lack of motivation, lack of purpose for what I was doing.

That summer, I came back to work and had many good moments with my friends, family, and teammates (some of them, now, I have the luck to call my friends). I worked a lot, enjoyed a lot and learned a lot.

I want to get the most that I can from my life, living it being 100% genuine with myself and others and every day trying to be a better version of myself than I was yesterday. I learned a lot about what is most important in my life, what I love and what I could start improving.

I won’t write about it, because I already did that in my “You can learn important things for your work, not working” text (sorry for the promotion, wasn’t on purpose).

Now I’m in the holidays between the first and second semesters of my degree’s third year. In the first semester, I worked and studied half of it and only studied at the rest. The final outcome was the worst semester ever, however, the overall was positive.

I was very happy, I had a lot of good moments with my friends and family, did some stuff outside the university, went to the gym and tried to balance better my life in order to maximize it and when I wasn’t able to get that balance, I tried to find balance in the unbalance.

The difference that I feel now is that I’m able to understand a little bit more clearly what went wrong and what went well, it’s not all good, neither it’s all bad. I know that lack of time doesn’t exist, it was a lack of motivation and a bit (but better than earlier) lack of prioritization.

I was starting to get interested in other subjects and I was less and less motivated with my course and it was hard to finish that semester (that sounds like very serious stuff, but feel free to give it the relativity that it deserves).

I took these holidays to rest, be with the ones I love the most and be in events and challenges that inspire me and where I can learn something from it. Finally, I think that I found the purpose of my degree in my life (almost at the middle of the course, better late than never) and I will try to apply it in the next semester.

Reflecting on everything written (and had been written a lot, sorry about that), I really think that lack of time doesn’t exist, time management is about priorities (focus) and motivation (purpose).

You will never be perfect at it but the only way to get better is trying. Do different, find what works for you and what doesn’t. Find what is important to you and what is just a waste of time.

Be the most honest and genuine possible with yourself and others and when you don’t know the answer, wait, it will come at the right moment, not when you want it to show up.

Life is a really complex gift that was given to us and I’m just another person figuring out things about it, with all that is put in front of me every day, like you that are reading it until this point (and thank you for using your time in it).

Time is the same for everybody, but only you choose what to do with yours, do me a favor and don’t waste it.