Now, this is a conversation I have often. How many times are you actually wasting time during your day? Now, when I have this conversation, of course, it’s usually over somebody’s goals. What I’m talking is about how much time is actually spent on social media, on Facebook just catching up on what people or doing or on YouTube watching videos that you don’t even care about, in fact, videos that leave you less inspired when you walk away? These could be music videos or how-to videos or something else. Or TV, right? How often do you sit down to watch the news for an hour or watch your favorite show for two, three, four, five hours over the time? How are times you just not being efficient, kind of like twiddling your thumbs and finding yourself just walking around your house aimlessly?
Now, most people I talk to, it’s anywhere between four and eight hours, which I know if you’re hearing this and you actually haven’t thought about it sounds like a ton of time. It is. But when you actually track that time, for the average person it’s usually between four and eight that I talk to. I’m dealing with ultra high achievers. I would say for most of us is probably closer on the six. Now, I’m guilty of this too, of course. You know, my wife and I, we love different TV shows and we’ll sit down, we’ll watch them. As soon as one episode finishes, we’ll say, “Let’s watch the next one.” Then we’ll go on. Next thing you know, two hours are gone. You know, sometimes I walk away going, “Jeez, that wasn’t really quality time. We didn’t really have quality time together. We both had entertainment time.” Sometimes I find myself watching a show that I don’t even really care about. I mean, do you do that? You’re watching shows or you’re on social media really just to kill time or avoid doing the important. That’s really what we’re talking about.
You know, often times, when we’re actually doing these things, these things that are unimportant, checking Facebook or checking email repeatedly or whatever it may be, it actually makes us feel worse about ourselves. You know, this can also be TV shows. I know a lot of you out there who are entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs. You watch shows like Billions or Ballers because, you know, you get inspiration from those shows. Often times when I talk to you, really, you get inspiration but you also feel bad about yourself because you think you should be this award-winning actor or you should be this bestseller or you should be somebody who is killing it on the speaking circuit or personal development line. You know, you think you should be this number one person. This would be like me thinking I should be the best, you know, radio host or best voice or best videographer or something like that and not doing the work to do it and getting depressed. When you watch these shows, they remind you often of the things you’re not doing because you’re doing that to escape. You’re doing that as a part of escapism, to avoid doing the important things that you know you should be doing.
What does this equate to? If you’re doing this four hours a day, which for most, the average people I talk to is pretty much minimum when you track it. When I say track it, I’m using things like RescueTime. I usually have most of my clients get the RescueTime application. It’s free for the basic version. There’s other stuff out there, but it gives you a rough idea of what time you’re using. Now, RescueTime, unfortunately, doesn’t work for the iPhone and that’s where I know most of my clients and probably you and certainly me waste our time. It is alarming when you actually see what you’re doing on apps.
Let’s just say just for this example, you’re doing four hours. Four hours every day for a work week, that’s 20 hours in the work week. Let’s say that you’re making $20 an hour. Now, I know most of you are high achievers and you’re people that are becoming the author of your own story or maybe you’re already an author of your own story and you listen to this just to keep yourself on track. You know, we’re always resetting and course correcting. Let’s just say for argument’s sake you’re making $20 an hour. We’re not going to count in opportunity costs. We’re not going to count in how, if you’re younger and you make this money and you invest it, it’s going to be even more than 20. Again, I know most of you are making a lot more than $20 an hour. Even at $20 an hour, over 20 hours per week, you’re pretty much giving up $50,000 a year.
Again, we’re talking and some of these other factors that I’m talking about. That is to say, we’re actually factoring in some of those opportunity costs, excuse me when I got this number. We are factoring some of those opportunity costs that you’re missing on 20 hours. Now, for some people, that’s eight hours, which is a heck of a lot more. When you look at that over the course of a whole year, those are the opportunities that you’re missing. Now, the opportunity costs I was saying I wasn’t factoring in earlier, I’m sorry. Getting my math wrong. The point is those other opportunity costs that I’m not factoring in are the opportunities of things you could be doing with that time to make more money, to actually make more money that is vested in your goals and to make yourself just feel better.
Let’s just say you’re on a quest to be the author of your own story and you followed some of the suggestions that I’ve given you and maybe you’ve gone to authorofyourownstory.com and you’ve done the Seven Days to Becoming the Author of Your Own Story. On there, I ask you to do some very specific exercises. It’s seven days that are guided. During that time, you start writing out what you’re doing. You realize, “Gosh, I don’t have enough time in the day.” Not having enough time in the day is the number one excuse for fitness goals, it’s the number one excuse not to meditate, it’s the number one excuse not to get things done in business, especially rainmaking or making calls in business, and it’s the number one excuse in your relationships. “I don’t have enough time.”
If you could take back 20 additional hours, if I put 20 hours on your plate, that’s being conservative. Let’s say you’re somebody who spends a lot of time watching TV. You binge Netflix. You’ve seen Narcos and everything else. Now let’s double that and that’s 40 hours a week. That’s a full work week, double throughout a year. If you had that time, you could run another business. You could achieve those goals. You could read for an additional hour a day. You could meditate for an hour a day. That’s only two. You could spend an extra hour a day with your family. Four, let’s say you exercise an hour. That just takes up your basic four hours. You have that time and that opportunity. This is why I’m saying you’re wasting $50,000 a year doing the little stuff. Now, of course, there are always times that, you know, watching a movie or watching TV, there’s nothing wrong with that. I love movies. The idea is tracking this time allows to be specific and make a decision on whether you are wasting time or using that time wisely. That allows you control your destiny. It allows you to become the author of your own story.
What I want you to do is just pull out your journal. What I want you to do is start tracking. What are you doing and when are you doing it? Now, I want you to track for a short period of time. Now, if you’re ambitious and what I make my clients do is to track for 30 days. Let’s just start with a week. Just for a week, I want you to track your time. Every time you’re on Facebook, I want you to just denote how much time you’re on there or Instagram, even if it’s just the app itself or whatever you’re using. Maybe it’s reading the news. Maybe it’s reading The Wall Street Journal on your phone when you know you don’t need to. You’ve already got the basic news or whatever you need for your business. How much time are you watching Netflix or Hulu or Amazon Prime or just TV in general? How many times are you doing these mindless things? I want you to calculate that and I think you’re going to be surprised at what you find.
Once you have that, just tally it up and see if that is serving you to your higher purpose, serving you to be the man or woman that you know you can be. Once you have that list, now you can make some decisions. You can make some decisions on where you can add that time in. Then, what I want you to do after that is what I call the Dickens Method. Well, I don’t call it that, but it’s where I learned it to be. Look back. I want you to think two years from now, just even two years, of wasting that time, are you feeling good about yourself? What do you regret? Now, if you take that even further and say, “Hey, when I’m 80,” maybe you’re 80 now, but, “When I’m 80, looking back on my life, what did I want to do with that wasted time?” That’s if you feel it’s wasted, of course. “What could I have done? What could I have done more? Could I have spent more time with my kids, my family, my loved one? Could I have worked on my health, my wellness? Could I have worked on my wealth, my business? Could I have worked more on my spirituality?” That’s up to you to decide. I just want to give you the tools so you can make that decision, educate yourself, and do it from a place of power rather than just mindless action.
That’s it for me today. Of course, go over to authorofyourownstory.com where you get more tips, tricks, and updates and also exclusive news. When we release courses for free, we’re also releasing videos, Facebook Lives that we’re doing just to people who are subscribers. Make sure you get on that list. Of course, share this with three people that you know so that they can get something from it as well. That’s all for me today. Remember, go out and be the author of your own story.
If you like these daily growth hacks, it would mean the world to us if you would take a moment to subscribe and review us on iTunes!
Loading...
