the time of your life
Stop for a moment and think about what’s most important in your life ……
Many people include family & friends, health & wellbeing, a significant other / spouse, financial security, career, personal growth, spiritual connection, fun and recreation. Can you put your list in priority order? What would be your top three? Top five?
Now take another moment to think about how you currently use your time. How do your top five important things rate? Are they getting the attention they deserve? Would devoting more time to these things improve the quality of your life? Do you even know how you spend your time?
If you’ve ever kept a food diary, you’ll know how the simple act of keeping a record of what you eat and when you eat it increases your awareness and helps you to make better eating choices. Try a time diary – it will help you become more aware of where your time goes and will help you make better choices about how you use those precious 168 hours every week!
How to keep a time diary:
For one week, keep track of how you’re using your time. You can do this on paper or on an Excel spreadsheet, whatever works for you. Don’t worry about making it perfect; just track your time in the easiest way. Categories could include: sleeping, eating, exercising, commuting, employment, housework, family, significant other, catching up with friends, studying, relaxing, TV watching…… With a week’s worth of data, you can see how much time you spend on what is most important, how much you spend on the essentials (like earning an income), and how much on ‘filler’ activities that aren’t important or necessary (like television watching or reading junk mail). I’m not suggesting that you give these up totally – however you may find that once you are aware of how much time they take up, and how little time you spend doing the things that are important to you, you want to do them less.
Ask yourself these questions:
Am I spending time on what is important to me?
‘Am I getting enough sleep? Am I taking care of my health?’
If you feel that you don’t have time to fit everything in, ask, ‘Can I combine activities, like exercising with a friend, or cooking with my children?’ (Note: this is not the same as multi-tasking!)
‘What are the fillers? Which of these can I eliminate? What can I cut down?
Increased awareness leads to better choices. Better choices bring more enjoyment and satisfaction. This is a good week to start.
under thought 
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