Time Is Not The Problem. We Are.

“Time flew by” and “time dragged” are common daily phrases, yet both are absurd because time does not slow down or speed up; only our perception of time changes. Time is fixed. No matter what you are doing, the clock continues to tick at the same rate. The reality is time is never the problem. The problem is us. We are the ones who squeeze unrealistic activities into the time we have available.

I am amazed at the number of people with forty-plus tasks on a to-do list and a diary with five hours of meetings for the day. Your day is broken before you begin if that is what you are facing. Attending all those meetings and clearing those forty-plus tasks is impossible. Given that an hour is still an hour, whether you take a walk in the park or sit and read through the report you need to digest, what can you do to create a more realistic day for yourself?

Majors and minors.

Jim Rohn and Brian Tracy often wrote about majors and minors. These are important, life-improving, career-enhancing tasks (majors) versus low-value, time-wasting tasks (minors). If you spend all day running around completing minor tasks, you will feel busy and, at the end of the day, be exhausted, yet what have you achieved? Very little. Conversely, if you spent your day on meaningful tasks that moved critical things forward, you would feel more fulfilled, and…