12- Finding time to do the things
If it is important, you will make the time
I’m a serial hobbyist. I always have a new hobby I’d like to try. And I manage to try many of them, from salsa dancing to crocheting. I share my hobbies regularly on my social media and one question I sometimes get is “Where do you find the time?”
I always say I make the time, which is true. But how exactly does one make time? We already have the same limited allocation - 24 hour days and 7 day weeks.
What each person is able to achieve in this allotted time is down to …. you guessed it, their habits.
As someone who believes that I wasn’t just born to pay bills and die, I prioritise my hobbies as highly as my paid job. This means that if I can get out of bed by 5:00am everyday in order to beat traffic to resume my job at 8am, then surely I can find the time to go dancing after work on Thursday nights. Or go to boxing training by 6am on a Saturday morning, knowing I’d have to drive straight to work afterwards, shower and change at work in time to resume at 8am.
While in Lagos a few weeks ago, I got into a conversation with one of my coaches as he was dropping me off after training. He had asked if I would be attending the Sunday morning training session and I responded saying I would be attending church with my family instead. He then told me that he had taken to attending a 6am mass every Sunday so he could make it to training.
And that my friends is how you make time. For the things you consider important. Here’s a man who considers both his training and his faith important and has made time to accommodate both.
About a week ago, I came across a conversation on my timeline about screen time. My friend Dami was talking to someone else about steps she was taking to reduce her screen time. This conversation prompted me to delete Twitter from my phone. By delete twitter I really mean sign out of twitter for mobile on my phone because I had previously deleted the app in the past in a bid to curb my twitter use. *insert clown smiley*
Anyway, fast forward to today, Sunday, I get the screen time report on my phone and I see that my daily average pickups is down by EIGHTY ONE PERCENT. This means that if I’d usually pick up my phone one hundred times a day, I was now picking up my phone 81 less times, due to the absence of ONE app.
I’d gotten some praise from my editor a few days ago because I had turned in two articles last week instead of my usual one article that may or may not always appear in time. And it was only while looking at my screen report that I realised where the time had come from. I made time by simply changing one thing. The time I would have spent mindlessly scrolling through twitter had now been put to more productive use.
We are fortunate to live in such a time as this, when these little life audits are made easier by the technological tools around us. A quick glance at your screen report may provide insights as to how exactly you’re spending your time.
This does not necessarily mean that you have to change anything, sometimes you just need an awareness of these things in order to operate more efficiently and effectively. Your screen report might show that you spend a lot of time of social media, but if you’re an influencer, trying to get brands to give you their money, then it makes sense for you to spend more time on social media.
If however you do not fall into the category of one who needs to spend so much time on social media to be productive, then it is up to you to evaluate and decide if spending so much time on social media is negatively impacting your productivity or not. The truth for you might be that your productivity is not impacted by the time you’re currently spending on social media but for someone else, it might be the main thing taking time away from the things they know they should be doing.
Or there’s also the chance that after reviewing your screen report and seeing where you spend your time, you smile satisfactorily to yourself because the things you’ve been spending time on are things that bring you some form of happiness or satisfaction and that’s okay too. At least now you know just where your time is going.
I say this as one who has a serious candy crush addiction and has managed to wean herself down from playing across FOUR devices (one iPhone, one iPod touch, one iPad, one laptop) to ONLY TWO devices (laptop and phone). I know the struggle my dears.
The day I am able to fully quit candy crush, I might even start publishing two newsletters a a week!
So there you have it my friends. You can make time, but only if it’s for something you consider important enough. If it is important enough, you will make the time.
This week I am reading
Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.
This week I watched
In Our Mother’s Gardens on Netflix. A documentary that focuses on the relationship between Black women and their mothers and I was reminded how similar so many of our stories are. How our mothers did the things they did, the best way they knew how, in a bid to keep us safe in a world that felt like it wasn’t designed to accommodate us. How they parented us through unresolved trauma of their own, and how we absorbed their trauma as well as experienced ours at their hands. Whew. I obviously have a lot of feelings about this one.
I am enjoying my period of funemployment and getting some well deserved rest. Currently spending some time with my darling darling friend who is the most dedicated plant mummy and owner of the cosiest of cosy houses. Life is good.
Here’s wishing you a fantabulous week of reclaiming and repurposing your time.
Chioma.