Making time for the things most important to you is not always easy. Sure, you may know that you should make time for the things that are important but that is more easily said than done. On a daily basis, you may find that your biggest weakness is losing sight of what actually is important to you. Society and people in your life may influence your thoughts and may distract you from what is important. You might desire to pursue a business idea that you are very passionate about, but feel like you have to focus on other goals due to what your family says you should want. As a result, you spend much of your time pursuing things that add little value and happiness within your life and neglect the things that make you feel alive.
For several years I felt such a lack of fulfillment from achieving many of the goals I set out for myself. I thought I wanted something but I wasn’t sure why. I suppose I made goals based on what I should want or what my peers were doing at the time. For instance, I have a couple of degrees from undergrad and initially I did feel a short-term sense of fulfillment from obtaining those degrees but the degree in itself did very little to add to my overall sense of happiness and fulfillment within my own life. Sure, on paper I may have looked ambitious or like I was achieving all these amazing things but I ultimately felt a sense of emptiness from these goals. However, I did feel a sense of fulfillment from some of the courses and internships I took during my time at college that were directly related to my passions. Yet at the time it was difficult for me to understand why some things gave me a sense of excitement and passion, while others just felt like a checklist.
Another barrier is how to actually create time for what matters to you once you are honest about what is important in your own life. Developing strategies for making time for yourself is not easy and requires that you actually change your lifestyle. Below are some ways that you can identify what is important to you and how to create more time for things that are important.
1. Figure out what is truly important to you. This may sound easy, but be honest with yourself. Don’t allow your partner, family, friends, employer or mentors dictate what is important to you. What truly matters to you? Give yourself a limit of 5 things that absolutely matter to you and represent the goals you want to achieve in your own life. Again, shut out outside voices and influences. Does earning a high salary really matter to you or is creating music more important? Do you want to travel the world or focus on being able to afford a nice home in your area? No answer is right or wrong. Be honest with the goals you truly want in your life. Remember your goals may change over the years, but these goals will help you know that you are living authentically and not investing energy into goals that don’t matter to you or provide you with a sense of fulfillment.
2. Shift your thinking to recognizing how the things and people in your life attribute to your success. The process of shifting your mindset can be a challenge but essential. Many of us have things and responsibilities in our lives that seem to get in the way of personal goals. For instance, you want to devote more time to your home business but you still have commitments to your family or your full-time job. When you view things in your life as an obstacle, you risk feeling resentment or completely out of control of your own life. Try to adopt a positive mindset. You do have commitments to your loved ones, but your loved ones are your supporters and that part of your life needs to be nurtured. You may dislike your job but there may be opportunities to actually gain from your job. There may be training or learning opportunities, job roles better suited to your skill sets, projects that might align more with your goals or the job can just be a means to saving money at the moment. Shifting your thinking doesn’t mean that you lie to yourself or accept that everything in your life is the way it should be. Shifting your mindset allows you to recognize the positives in every situation so that you can understand that certain external stimuli may not necessarily be blocking you from your goals. Although you may feel that way at the moment, when you take a closer look, you may realize that many of the people and things in your life may be guiding you to success. Again, this may not be true for everything in your life but practice appreciating what you do have in your life and seeing the positives in the situation. You can allow yourself to invest less energy into feeling resentment or frustration towards things you currently view as an obstacle and instead see the opportunities within your personal situation. You also give yourself positive energy to find better ways to manage a situation that seems to impede your personal goals.
3. Say no more often. Okay so you’ve identified what is important to you and shifted your mindset to see the positives. The next step is to learn to say no to commitments that are unimportant. Ideally you want to say yes to things that are mutually beneficial for everyone involved. Saying no allows you to better understand your boundaries. For instance, I love improv comedy and feel happiness from doing a jam session with friends or in a class environment. However, I have learned to be honest with myself when I need to say no, step away and focus on something else instead. As a result, I still make time for improv comedy but I also can say no when I need to focus on the goals that are aligned with what I want for my life. Saying no also helps you realize that you do have control. You can balance work, loved ones, personal projects and achieve your goals when you set boundaries for yourself.
4. Give yourself a deadline. Personally, I dislike the word deadline. Placing limits on when to achieve something helps tremendously, but hearing about a deadline creates an added pressure. Even though I may have negative associations from the word, deadline, having deadlines is what encourages me to actually get things done. Filling up your time with meaningless or unimportant tasks is easy. Putting off studying to watch another episode of your favorite show is easy. Neglecting a personal project is easy when you never give yourself a deadline of when you want to get something done. Create reasonable deadlines for yourself. Experiment with deadlines that work and be willing to tighten your deadlines if you are over performing. Earlier this year, I gave myself the goal of writing one article every other day for a solid 6 months. Turns out that writing an article every other day was not as challenging as I had perceived it to be, so I decided to tighten the deadline to writing an article every day. As a result of having deadlines, I spent less time doing meaningless tasks such as watching shows, movies or browsing endlessly on my computer. At the same time, I was still able to devote time to the people and things that are important to me such as friendships, hobbies that give me joy and personal projects. A deadline allows you to better utilize your time, and helps you spend less time on meaningless tasks that don’t really add happiness or fulfillment in your life.
5. Find long term solutions to problems that may be holding you back. The failure to find time is often rooted in a personal problem that you may be having. Take an honest look at your lifestyle and locate what may be holding you back from devoting time to the people and projects that are important to you. A few years ago I realized that my health was holding me back from accomplishing many of my goals. I didn’t have a healthy diet and exercising was pretty sporadic. As a result, I had low energy throughout the day which influenced my productivity. Now I eat healthy regularly and make exercise part of my lifestyle. As a result I have high energy throughout the day. I rarely have lulls where I feel absolutely exhausted throughout the day. Finding a long term solution to my problem of having low energy (healthy eating and regular exercise) allowed me to have more energy to devote to work, personal projects, hobbies and my loved ones.
Keep in mind that locating the source of your problem will take time and research. A long term solution is not a quick fix. A one week fast or three cups of coffee will not sort out your problem. Depending on the problem, you may need to incorporate big changes such as joining a gym, regularly going to a therapist, monitoring your finances better or giving up a project or hobby that you do not care about anymore. The effort to find a long term solution is worth it. You’ll find that you have more energy and motivation to utilize your time, rather than feeling stressed or worried about the problem.
6. Focus your energy on what matters. Many of us spend way too much time on things that are not important at all. A task that should only require 5-10% of our focus is given 80% of our focus. This can happen at work when you find yourself spending more time on admin tasks than necessary and neglecting work that will contribute to your personal development and tremendously help the company. You might find yourself doing chores for hours on the weekend when in reality, you probably could have completed all your chores in just an hour and had more time for other things. Actively monitor your behavior for a week and take an honest look at the amount of effort you are putting into tasks. Find the areas where you devote too much time. Also, find the areas where you are most efficient and successful but may be neglecting with your time. You might find habits where you are more productive. For instance, reading actively encourages me to write. Watching movies and TV shows rarely sparks creativity within me. Taking more time to read is a habit that will encourage me to be more productive.
7. Don’t be afraid to make the less important things boring and a routine. When something is unimportant, lower the energy you put into it. You might find yourself repeatedly checking social media, which wastes your time and distracts you. Instead, make it a routine to check your social media accounts once or twice a day. As a result, you save more time in your day and you will not miss having to resort to checking your social media out of habit. Same goes for other time wasting activities. I very rarely lose my keys but I did have a bad habit of always forgetting where my keys are in the morning. As a result, I’d feel stressed out for ten minutes, panic, worry if I will miss my train or have to call in late to work. The best solution was to have a routine of always leaving my keys on the same table every single day. This boring routine saves 10 minutes of my day and I don’t feel stressed in the morning. Find unimportant things that take up too much time during your day whether it’s misplacing your keys, not washing the dishes, forgetting where you parked your car, checking your email too much or spending too long figuring out what to wear in the morning. Make your life easier by making unimportant tasks a routine. Wash your dishes every night if they tend to pile up by end of week, wasting even more time. Pick out what you will wear the night before, to avoid using too much time in the morning. Make other important things a routine too. Your friends may be very important to you but find ways to make that a routine so you aren’t struggling to always find time to get together. For instance, I routinely meet up with certain friends during a lunch break or I might routinely plan a group event so that I can see many friends at the same time.
8. Try to not be a perfectionist about things that aren’t THAT important. I understand the desire to do things perfectly and how anything short of perfection can feel like a failure. Striving for perfection can actually hold you back from your goals. You might find yourself feeling disappointed constantly and spending way too much time on a project than necessary. During my cake decorating courses, many of my classmates were perfectionists. They would spend hours trying to make a cake for the purposes of a class look perfect. Any line out of place meant the cake was a failure. One of the first lessons our instructor told us is that there is no such thing as a perfect cake. Perfectionism can actually be more time consuming, costly and ultimately the person receiving the cake may not even notice the slight imperfections. A couple of months ago I made a Rubik’s Cube cake for a friend’s birthday. I was disappointed by the cake because the measurements were slightly off and the cake was not a perfect cube. To my amazement everyone at the party was thoroughly impressed by the cake and loved it, despite its imperfections. And now I know what NOT to do the next time I try to make a cubical cake.
The beauty of not being a perfectionist is you allow yourself to make mistakes and do better. Trying to be the best writer, skier or employee places you at a disadvantage when you think you should know everything, and feel guilty or disappointed when you have to learn. All of us make mistakes. Even the gifted make mistakes and go through trials of learning. Striving for perfection holds you back from learning and broadening your perspective. Perfection is not reality and is very subjective. Make a good effort but know when it is time to step away.
9. Remember the true reasons you are making more time. Obtaining your goals shouldn’t be about checking off the next thing on your to-do list or making yourself look good to others. Pursuing what is truly important to you is about finding happiness and fulfilment within your life. You are creating a life of satisfaction and happiness when making time for yourself. Be authentic about what you truly want in your life and allow yourself to fully enjoy the time that you are spending on the things that truly matter to you.