We are all given the same amount of time in a day. Whether you are Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg or Joe Schmo, we all share 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week. The big question is, what are we doing with that time? Are we using it to better ourselves? Are we studying something? Are we exercising? Are we building a side business? Are we helping the widow down the street? Are we teaching English to a village in Uganda?
Let’s break this down a bit. The average person spends about 40 hours/week working a job, which is roughly 28% of our week. If we spend 6-8 hours sleeping per night, we have used a little over 50% of our time between sleep and work. What are you doing with the other 50%? We don’t even realize it but we have so much free time to do what we want. By these calculations, if we were single adults, we could carry 3 full time jobs. I’m not sure you’d want to do that but the point is, you could. Use the extra time to your advantage.
I know that not everyone can spend time doing things to grow themselves. If you are a single mother with 3 kids and 2 jobs, you definitely have a pass and hats off because I have enough trouble raising 1 child WITH the help of my wife. There are people that are in that exact situation. If they can handle all of that, what is our excuse? I think we should be able to put away the PlayStation and trade it for a book.
Don’t get me wrong, there is always time for leisure. I’ll bet that you don’t know the Greek word for “leisure” is “schole” which means, you guessed it, school! It’s crazy to think that people used to educate themselves during their leisure time. In my opinion, we often abuse our free time, let’s use it for good!
We often think about how great life could be if we did this or that. I know this is said too often but it’s the truth that the best time to start something is now. If you were in a field looking for shade, what would be the best time to plant a tree? Besides 40 years ago. That’s correct, the best time is now. Plant the tree. Get the ball rolling.
Think of all the extra time you have now because of Industrialism. We take a lot of time saving things for granted: washing machines, cars, planes, grocery stores (could you imagine not having these things, foraging for your meals??) and so much more to make our lives easier and give us more time. People still read books and spent the extra 10% of time they might have had in the 1700’s learning.
If you need some encouragement on something, reach out to me, I’d love to help you get that ball rolling. Getting started is so important and I know it’s easier with a push!
I encourage everyone to get into reading, it can be life changing. Here is a small reading list of some that I’ve enjoyed to get you started: https://www.promotionsguy.com/ryan-s-favorite-reads
I’m writing tips each week for people aspiring to improve. These are not industry related but they generally have something to do with growing as a person or growing a business. My intention is to help others grow while growing myself. My book recommendation this week is “Atomic Habits” by James Clear.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss something, feel free to shoot me an email at ryan@promotionsguy.com.
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