Reclaim Your Day
So over Christmas I received Skyrim as a gift, and well, it's since gone on to completely wreck my schedule. It is the second week of the New Year and my goals are already approaching states of failure. Why? Because I've been careless with my time, having spent the vast majority of it playing games.
So what can we all learn from this? Boundaries are critical if you want to stick to your goals. The only way I have been able to salvage my own goals from the time suck that is Skyrim has been to put hard limits on my time with it. I've set up an authorized time of play and stick to it. Granted this has been a learning experience, but the days that I stay firm with my times are the days I actually end up accomplishing something other than sitting on my rump.
Time management is something that we can all use in our lives. Sure you may not play video games, but I am sure you watch TV or surf the internet, both of which drain away the time quicker than anyone seems to realize. If you find that you just don't have enough time in the day to get things done, there are two possible explanations. The first is that you are indeed so busy that you can't possibly do everything in one day. This however, is exceptionally rare, most people are able to judge how much they are able to accomplish in one go (something that our bosses at work have somehow managed to forget). The second explanation is that you are allowing something to eat away at your free time. Perhaps it is a furious round of Bejeweled on your phone, maybe it's checking the the internet every 30 minutes for the latest news, or perhaps it is the TV which seems to automatically click on when we are in its presence. Be it thirty minutes at a time or five, these little distractions add up over the course of a day. Then we sit back at the end of a long day, and the dishes aren’t done, clothes need folding and we ask ourselves “Where did my time go?”
My suggestion is this, be purposeful with your time. Don't let minor distractions add up, put aside a time to enjoy them, and enjoy them when you partake of them. When said activities allotted time is up then stop and move on to other things you had planned. If you are going to watch TV then do so, but limit it by saying “I will watch Downton Abbey tonight, and then I will finish my blog post.” It is simple, but it is effective. It also has an added bonus when you put a goal at the end. Instead of reaching for the remote and wondering listlessly what to do next, you already know and can move on to the next task quickly without lingering another hour in front of the computer or television.
Do not make the mistake of combining your activities and “multitasking.” Study after study have shown that when two activities are combined that demand our attention, neither of them are achieved in a satisfactory manner. Perhaps you feel this is rather blasé and old fashioned advise. Do a simple test, one day do things as usual, the next to do them separated and see which one provides you with better results. Quality is the key here, not quantity. Watching TV and writing at the same time was my test, and I can say that I get so much more done when I am focused on the task at hand.
I know, I know, it sounds like I am trying to schedule my entire day. “Ding! Time for fun!” I am not. Things happen, the unexpected can arrive at any moment and entire days can be consumed by even the most mundane of crises. I am not advocating for you to ledger your entire day. As human beings we need to be spontaneous (at least I do), we need to have a moment or two of idleness. Sometimes, we just need a few minutes to gather our thoughts, or steel our emotions. This is life and life cannot be scheduled, no matter how hard we try. However I am trying to say that idly going about our days, carelessly throwing our time away, can lead to a downturn in productivity or worse, lead us astray of our goals. Know what you are doing, stay the course and keep a hard limit on the things taht tend to consume your free time. You just might find that you do have time to do all the things you were planning in a day.
Sayonara
