One of Albert Einstein’s most valuable contributions to our knowledge of the universe is his theory of relativity. When asked to explain it in one sentence, Einstein laid it out as follows:
“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.”
This is the second in a series of articles that will teach you how to take advantage of the elasticity–or relativity, if you will–of time.
Start thinking of yourself as having the power to determine, to a large extent, how quickly—or how slowly–you achieve the outcomes that you’ve envisioned for your life. In her book, “Do Less, Achieve More”, Chin-Ning Chu tells the story of a night in the 1960’s in which Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds were dining together. At that time, while Clint was already a famous star, Burt was still a struggling actor.
Burt asked Clint how he had gotten his big break and Clint answered: “I prepared myself for success”. Burt understood the principle contained in these words, he applied it, and he soon joined Clint as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
In order for you to speed up the time it takes to achieve the things that you want in life, consider doing the following:
Get Organized
A disorganized, cluttered environment is an unnecessary distraction that will steal your time. You’ll spend your hours endlessly looking for misplaced items and continously ruminating over the fact that you need to get organized. By organizing and decluttering you’ll be designing an environment in which you can thrive, create, and move toward living your optimal life.
Getting organized is about setting up your space so that it reflects who you are and what’s important to you. Your space should be arranged in a way that brings you comfort and joy, and in a way that is functional and helps you in achieving your goals. In addition, organizing is about creating systems that are a good fit for you—that is, that are intuitive and natural for you—so that you’ll stay organized. An organized home and working space will create an environment that welcomes success.
Record How You Spend Your Time
Create a time log and spend an entire week writing down exactly what you’re doing with your time. You’re going to place your activities under a microscope in order to be able to answer the following question: “where is my time going?”
- Do you have friends who call you constantly to whine about problems they’re doing absolutely nothing to fix? How much time are you devoting to these phone calls?
- Do you spend a lot of time complaining to others about your own life?
- Are you wasting time watching sitcom re-runs on TV?
- Does completing your work take you longer than it should because your computer is slow?
- Do you waste a lot of time because of car trouble?
- Do you waste precious time in the morning digging through your closet desperately hoping to find clothes that are clean and ironed?
- Do you go to the grocery store every other day instead of planning what you’re going to eat for the week and buying in bulk?
Once you know where your time is going you can identify where you’re using your time effectively and where it’s being sucked away by others, your possessions, your bad habits, or your inability to plan. The next step is to take action in order to plug the leaks. Just as a ship that is full of leaks will have trouble reaching its destination–if it doesn’t sink along the way–if your time is leaking away it will be that much more difficult for you to achieve your goals.
Set Deadlines – Parkinson’s Law
Parkinson’s Law states that a task will expand in time and seeming complexity depending on the time you set aside for it. Go through each task on your to-do list and estimate how much time it’s going to take you to complete said task based on historical data—that is, the amount of time that it’s taken you to complete that task in the past. If you’re tackling a particular task for the first time, simply make the best guess that you can as to how long it will take you to complete it. Make sure that large tasks are divided into subtasks and that you assign a time frame for each subtask.
Write down the task on a piece of paper and record the time you estimated it would take you to complete the task, as well as the time it actually took you to complete it. If the task took you longer to complete than you had estimated, make a note as to why. Now think of the process that you followed to complete the task and see if you can simplify it in some way so that the task takes less time to complete the next time you do it. By setting constraints you’ll be reigning in the time it takes you to complete the tasks necessary to create success in your life.
Learn to Manage Your Emotions
In his book, “Emotional Intelligence”, Daniel Goleman explains that emotional aptitude is a meta-ability. That is, it effects how well we’re able to apply or put to work our other talents and abilities. Having the ability to soothe yourself, shake off irritability and anxiety, and being able to accurately read the emotions of others are vital in getting ahead in life.
On the other hand, not being able to self-soothe and let go of negative feeling can lead to many wasted hours stewing in unproductive emotions. Not being able to get along with others can be an obstacle in obtaining necessary information and in getting any collaboration or cooperation that you might need in order to move your projects along. By learning to manage your emotions you’ll be freeing up countless hours and even days, weeks, and months.
Set Boundaries
People who don’t know how to set boundaries often discover that they don’t have time to do what’s important to them. In addition, they often feel overwhelmed, stressed, tired, and resentful. Inability to set proper boundaries can include all of the following:
- Failing to set a clear delineation between work and home life, which can result in being constantly “on the clock”.
- Having poor internal boundaries and thus letting what other people think of you and your abilities affect you negatively.
- Over-committing to others and under-committing to yourself.
- Being unable to say “no”.
Boundaries spring up from your lifestyle, your self-care, and your self-awareness. In addition, Karla McLaren, creator of “Energetic Boundaries”, suggests that in order to create strong boundaries when it comes to others you say the following to yourself often: “I’m focused, I have things to do, and I’m on my way.”
Conclusion
Oprah Winfrey once said during an interview that the saying “you’re never given more than you can handle” applies not only to bad things, but to good things as well. You need to set up your life so that you’re ready when good things come your way. You do this by organizing your space, budgeting your time wisely, controlling the amount of time you spend on any given task, managing your emotions, and setting proper boundaries.
Use your time, stretch your time, manage your time, and safeguard your time in ways that encourage opportunity to come knocking on your door.
(The “Sand Clock” photograph is courtesy of mirol).
Related Posts:
- The Elasticity of Time (Part 1)
- The Elasticity of Time (Part 3)
- The Elasticity of Time (Part 4)
- Six Steps to Creating the Life You Really Want
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