Tag: work

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Where Did My Time Go?

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Image from images.all-free-download.com

Image from images.all-free-download.com

In a previous post I posed the question Where Did My Money Go? and realized a few days later that I could pose the same question about my time.

Time seems to sift through my fingers like the sands of, well, time.   If time is constant, but seems to fly by, and if time flies when you’re having fun, then logic would determine that I am having a lot of fun.  However, at the end of each week, I don’t necessarily find myself reflecting on what a fun week I had.  Most of the time I am trying to figure out:

  1. where the time went,
  2. what did I actually accomplish, and
  3. what did I not do that I ought to have done (like exercise or call my parents)

So what if we budgeted our time like we budget our finances?  We all get 60 secs per minute, 60 minutes per hour, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, or 168 hours a week.

Sleep = 50 hours/wk on avg
Work = 50 hours/wk on avg
Eat     = 15 hours/wk on avg
Commute = 15 hours/wk on avg (including errands, etc.)
Exercise = 10 hours on avg (including travel time)

That’s 140 hours out of 168.  What do you do the other 28 hours?  A quick Google search turned up this news article discussing the 2012 Neilsen survey figures showing that the average adult watches about 34 hours of television per week.  Whoops! That’s more time that we had left…

So, if your typical week looks like this one your time is pretty much spent for the week.  Did you get done what you wanted to accomplish?  If you did, what, if anything did you give up to get it accomplished (lunch, tv, exercise, sleep)?  If you worked more than 50 hours this week, was it worth what you had to sacrifice doing elsewhere (lunch, tv, exercise, sleep)?

There are a lot of theories out there on how to be more productive, but the one I think is most valuable is the practice of setting specific time limits on different activities.  Time limits force you to focus and get things done, where without a specific time, we tend to procrastinate or stretch a task out to fill up the time we have – see this earlier post for a great quote.

I have started scheduling my day with this concept in mind – setting limited times to produce a blog post for instance.  It is my “Ship it” deadline ( a concept I learned from author/blogger Seth Godin).  Speaking of which, my deadline is up, so I hit publish.

 

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

 

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How you define “Work” may define how you “Live”

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In a recent blog titled I don’t work, author Jon Acuff admitted that he really doesn’t work, based on the following quote from author James M. Barrie: “Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.”  And Jon Acuff only does that which he would rather be doing.

Many comments followed this post stating the importance of work, and that work was intended as a good thing (God having created man and woman to work in and care for his creation, Genesis 2:15).  So how could Jon Acuff, or anyone else for that matter, say it’s not really work when there is nothing else you would rather do?

It is really a matter of definition – and how you define “work” impacts how you live your life.

Have you ever attempted to answer the question, “what is work?”  Consider the following advice from Tim Ferris, author of The 4-Hour Workweek:

“If you can’t define it or act upon it, forget it.”

Specifically, Ferris suggests asking two questions when considering stress-inducing questions like this:

  1. Have I decided on a single meaning for each term in this question?
  2. Can an answer to this question be acted upon to improve things?

In our case, can you decide on a single meaning for the term, “Work”?  If you can define what work is for you ( and I’m fairly certain all of us can), then is there action you can take to improve your work, or improve what work means to you (I believe the answer should be yes to this question, the problem lies in our willingness to take the necessary action)?

Let’s return to the Jon Acuff post mentioned earlier.  It appears that Acuff started out with one definition of work that, when examined under the second question above, could be acted upon to improve things, in his case by redefining “work” based on the Barrie quote, and in light of what gives him fulfillment and life.

In other words, Jon Acuff doesn’t have a job, nor does he have a career, but he has found his vocation, or purpose in life, and while it requires effort, it rarely feels like work.  And that makes life worth living to the full.

How do you define work?  Is there any action you can take to improve things?

 

Recommended Reading:

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”