Taking Control of Your Time: Designing a Life You Want

Have you ever found yourself caught in a repetitive cycle, where the things you want to prioritize take a back seat to the demands of daily life? You wake up with good intentions, hoping to get fit in a workout session, prepare a healthy breakfast, spend quality time with your loved ones, and get enough rest. Yet, day after day, these aspirations are overshadowed by compromises and postponed indefinitely. The result? A feeling of dissatisfaction and a lack of control over your own time.

In this typical routine, we can observe a recurring pattern: the person's desires and priorities clash with the reality of their daily commitments. Despite the intention to prioritize activities like exercise, breakfast preparation, family time, and sufficient sleep, these aspects consistently take a back seat. The routine becomes a cycle of compromises and postponements, leaving the individual feeling unfulfilled.

But what controls our choices if it's not us? Many people attribute their lack of time for the things they want to external factors like work and other obligations. It's a common response: "I don't find time for the things I want. My time is taken up by work and other activities." However, upon closer introspection, this response often stems from a lack of self-awareness and an unwillingness to take responsibility.

The truth is, external factors do play a role in shaping our routines. Work, social media, and other obligations can easily dominate our time, leaving little room for what truly matters to us. But here's the question we must ask ourselves: Are these external factors truly beyond our control? Do we genuinely believe that if we truly wanted to do something, we wouldn't be able to find the time for it?

The answer lies in introspection. It's important to take a step back and understand what's truly going wrong in our day-to-day activities. What is keeping us so busy that we're unable to dedicate time to the important things we want to prioritize? Taking the time to introspect and observe how we spend our days is crucial. One effective technique is to create a "Want vs Should" journal. Reflect on your activities and categorize them as either "Want" or "Should." "Want" represents activities that bring short-term happiness, such as watching TV or browsing social media. On the other hand, "Should" represents the activities we want to prioritize in our daily lives but often struggle to do so, such as spending quality time with family or pursuing personal projects like writing a blog.

By mentally or physically engaging in this exercise, we raise awareness of where our time is truly being spent. It's important to gradually eliminate activities that fall under the "Want" category when we become self-aware. This introspective activity may be especially valuable for beginners on their journey to taking control of their time.

However, introspection alone is not enough. The key is to shift from thinking to taking action. Once you have identified what you genuinely want to prioritize, it's time to start utilizing your time for those quality activities. For instance, if you enjoy writing, commit to spending at least 15 minutes a day dedicated to writing. It could be as simple as maintaining a journal or jotting down your thoughts. The important thing is not to expect any specific outcome but to take action. Often, we overthink and abandon our desires before even starting. By breaking free from this cycle and referring back to our introspection chart, we can take action for at least 15 minutes each day. As you incorporate more of your favorite activities into your daily routine, you'll find that it doesn't interfere with your professional work but instead improves your mood and overall performance in all areas of life.

Sleep, despite being essential, can also become our enemy if not managed effectively. It's crucial to ensure that we get enough rest, aiming for 6-8 hours of sleep every night. However, boasting about sleeping excessively, such as 10 hours a day, is not something to be proud of. If despite the long hours of sleep, you still feel tired, it indicates that your mind is not at rest, and you may not be achieving deep sleep. To optimize your sleep quality and reduce the duration, focus on improving the quality of your sleep. The goal is to wake up feeling refreshed and ready for the day ahead. If you can bring down the number of hours while still feeling as fresh as before, you can utilize those extra hours for your favorite activities. Achieving this level of control over your time is challenging without a fixed routine. Try to establish a consistent sleep schedule by going to bed and waking up at the same time each day.

One significant culprit that steals our time is excessive screen usage, especially when it comes to social media. While being a social media influencer may require a significant amount of screen time, the key is to ensure that we're creating more than we're consuming. It's incredibly easy to get distracted by social media, with its smallest devices, slowest internet connections, and endless funny memes and videos. Yet, after hours of mindless scrolling, it's rare to find someone who doesn't feel terrible. Imagine if you didn't have any devices at home; how much time would you have available? While using devices is not inherently wrong, it's important to evaluate whether engaging with social media aligns with what you truly want to do. Can you postpone this activity until after you've accomplished the things you genuinely "wanted"?

The idea is to build discipline in life, and that comes from establishing a routine. A routine is formed by consistently performing specific tasks every day. By focusing on the "should" activities and eliminating the unnecessary "wants," we create a structure that makes it easier to establish a routine. The simpler the specific tasks, the more manageable it becomes to build a routine around them. Understanding the bigger picture and taking control of our time can help us achieve the discipline we've always desired. The mere idea of not having control over "my" time should be frustrating, given that each of us has limited time on this planet. There's no reason to assume that there will always be time "tomorrow." Tomorrow is an illusion. And remember, there is no greater bill to pay than the one filled with "regret."

It all starts with taking control of your time and intentionally designing a life you want—not settling for the life you're given.