A lot of you told me: “I just don’t have the time to do what I want to do”.
The first thing that will make you time is PLANNING.
Second: HONOURING YOUR PLAN.
We associate planning with obligations, doing things for other people, burnt out, over-scheduling and overwhelm.
I am here to suggest that planning when done with precision, discipline and honouring yourself can give you freedom and make you time.
The difference is this:
Say you plan an hour of work and you follow through on your plan.
You are able to do the work with such efficiency that you get it done sooner than you would have if you haven’t planned.
You are then able to give yourself a whole hour of free time because you planned and followed through with your plan.
The next thing you need to do to MAKE time is to HONOUR your plan.
Let me tell you a little bit about our brain.
It is wired for survival.
That means it has 3 goals at all times: Seek pleasure, Avoid Pain, and Conserve Energy.
So when the time comes to do what you planned your brain will for sure not want to do what you planned because it is going against it’s programming to conserve energy.
That is why our prefrontal cortex comes in very handy and helps us override that primitive brain and say “I hear you and we are still doing this”.
So first you make an appointment with yourself (work, create, exercise, not eat, eat, relax… etc.), then you make it mandatory to follow through on your plan.
NO MATTER HOW YOU FEEL.
Here’s what I have noticed: when the time comes for me to do what I planned I will want to respond to how I feel in the moment.
And what I feel in the moment is always something like relaxing, watching Netflix, having coffee, avoiding any exertion.
I know that about myself and I still DO what I need to do.
The beautiful thing happens when I start doing it, I get into it and really enjoy it.
It’s almost like my brain has to have a little tantrum before we start to see if it can get out of it .
Here’s what’s important. Every time you make plans for the life you want to live and you don’t follow through on them you keep spinning in the life you already have.
ON the other hand if you make plans and follow through on those plans you get better at overcoming your survival brain, and create the life that you want.
The survival brain never goes away.
It will always tell you to go hide in the cave, don’t do anything new, and that you will probably die.
But you do learn to manage it.
So if you can start anywhere with making time for yourself this is your first step:
Make a plan with precision, discipline and honouring yourself. Then FOLLOW THROUGH ON THAT PLAN NO MATTER WHAT.
Next week I will talk about how the meaning we give to anything will determine how we feel.
But don’t worry guys, i will come back to time management the following week and share with you other time making strategies!
Thanks guys, have a great weekend!
