You Just Have To Find The Time

There is only one place in the universe that I know of that has 25-hour days: Mars. Sadly, we on Earth only have 24-hour days.

The 24-hour-day period is standard throughout the entire planet. No one has more or less than 24 hours. The guy in Russia has 24 hours in a day just like the guy in California. The black woman in New York has the same amount of hours in a day as the Japanese woman in Tokyo. The super-busy billionaire in London has 24 hours in a day just like the dirt-poor pauper in Mississippi. The president of the United States has the same amount of hours in a day as the blue-collar worker in New Zealand.

If you're living on this planet, you have 24 hours in a day just like everybody else who lives on this planet. What makes you different from the next person is what you do with your 24 hours.

How is it that one person seem to have all the time in the world while the next person is struggling with getting any amount of free time? Simple. One person decides to take control of the available time, while the other person has no control over time.

I don't care how busy you are, time is in YOUR control. You decide what you do with your time. If you have no control over time, then you will NEVER have time.

One time, I was doing online personal training for this one woman. All I required was 10 minutes of exercises, and she had to do those exercises by herself. Just TEN minutes. Taking a quick poop in the bathroom, jumping in the shower, and brushing your teeth could take about 10 minutes. You could easily waste 10 minutes by checking your e-mail and Facebook. So, 10 minutes is really nothing.

But she didn't do the exercises, because she didn't have time.

Now, you tell me something: if you were just required to do 10 minutes of ANYTHING, would it be reasonable for me to expect that you would have the time to do it? I just checked my Facebook stuff and I easily threw away 10 minutes -- 10 minutes of my butt on the chair responding to someone's non-urgent post.

Just 10 minutes of exercise, and this woman didn't even do it because she didn't have the time.

I NEVER tell anybody that I didn't have the time to do anything. If I didn't do something, it's because I didn't do it. Time had NOTHING to do with it. If something is really important for me, then I will FIND the time to do it.

Very few things in life are truly time-consuming. Traveling an hour to work, cooking dinner, cleaning the house, going to sleep, etc. Most other things are not. For instance, it takes little time to:

• Brush your teeth.
• Walk to your car.
• Use the bathroom.
• Take a shower.
• Eat food.
• Drink something.
• Check your e-mail.
• Put your clothes on.
  

Most of the the daily tasks that we do truly don't take a lot of time. So, if most of the things we do on a daily basis don't take up much time, why do so many of us struggle with finding time?

Simple: we got our priorities mixed up.

One of my weaknesses is staying up late doing nothing. While I could go to bed, I would decide to just veg out on a chair or watch a movie or watch YouTube videos. Then 1 am comes by and I am just getting to bed -- just to wake up at 7 am to start the day. Now I'm tired for the rest of the day. Instead of putting a higher priority on my sleep, I decided to put a higher priority on staying up late doing nothing.

Should I go around complaining about how I could never find enough time to go to sleep?

Another weakness is eating on schedule. I could get so caught up in an activity to the point where I forget to eat. Then lunch time comes and I am just now eating breakfast! Soon enough, I have to leave the house to do some activities and I may not eat until the kids are in bed.

Should I go around saying that I don't have time to eat?

Here's another one for you: sleeping in. Maybe I have gone to bed on time and gotten a full 8 or so hours of sleep, but when I wake up, it's still dark outside. So I decide to go back to bed for another hour. That was an hour I could have spent doing something important, but instead, I used that hour to sleep. Now when I wake up, I'm tired because I overslept and for the entire day, I'm looking forward to going back to sleep.

What the heck is wrong with that picture?

See, everybody has enough time to do whatever he or she wants. But until we get our priorities in order, we will NEVER have time to do the important stuff.

One time on Facebook, I wrote a post about everybody having enough time to do anything, but that we misuse our time. Someone responded disagreeing with me, stating how she barely has any time....

And she was responding to my Facebook status...talking about how she barely has any time...

She was responding to my Facebook status...

See where I'm going with this? Messed up priorities!

Back in EMS, there were times when we could get so busy that we couldn't even pee or eat. Once we discharged a patient at a hospital, another call would be waiting for us, and once we finished with that call, another call would be waiting. Now that, my friends, is true busyness!

One of my partners, who was a bodybuilder, told me that one time he and his partner got so busy that he had to call his unit out of service. He took his blood sugar and it was 20 mg/dL -- normal is at least 80 mg/dL! He had to call his unit out of service so that he could eat. When he saw his blood sugar, his priorities switched from taking care of the city to taking care of himself. Calling a unit out of service made for one less ambulance available for the city, but his priorities was on taking care of himself so he could take care of the city.

Now, are you willing to do the same? Are you willing to switch up your priorities so that you could find time to do the important things in your life?

Isn't it amazing how we start finding time when our health is in trouble? But for the most part, our health is not in jeopardy. It's everything else that's in trouble.

• No time for friends.
• No time for personal pursuits.
• No time for family.
• No time to fix this or that.
• No time to take care of this or that.
• No time to find better work.
• No time for exercise.
• No time for sleep.
• No time for cooking.
  

No time for anything! When you mess up your priorities, you won't ever have time. You would go through a whole day doing everything and accomplishing nothing, and you would ask yourself, "Where did the time go?"

I don't have a lot of clothes, and I want to keep it that way. When you see me, you're most likely going to see me wear something that you've seen me wear before. I don't want clothes to be a time-sucker for me. I want to throw something on and go.

My hair is short, nearly bald on occasions. I don't want my hair to be a time-sucker.

I have only two pairs of shoes. That cuts down on my time for choosing what pair I need to wear for the day.

The more time I cut down on the non-important stuff, the more time I could spend on the important stuff.

How do you know what is important and what isn't? If you find yourself saying, "Man, I wish I could spend more time on this," then you would know exactly what is important.

Let us not get caught up in the I'm-too-busy excuse. Listen, there is NOTHING praiseworthy about being busy. Having a busy schedule is nothing to brag about. No sane person would want to have a busy life. Being in EMS, I know exactly what being busy feels like. When you're a dude and you can't find time to pee in a bush somewhere, then you know that you're busy! And there is nothing attractive about being that busy.

Put your priorities on the important things in life. Reduce your busyness, which you can absolutely do if you have the will for it. Time is in YOUR hands. Use that time well, and time would work for you. When you misuse your time, your whole day would be wasted.

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