The Fear of Dead Time

Life can go by too fast.

I’m now in my thirties as I was caught unaware of where my twenties went. I spent most of my twenties making use of my time to better myself, try new ideas out, to fail a lot.

I feel like I fail at every idea I undertake. Very few take hold and last, and that is incredible. The odds of success with any idea are low.

I stumbled, as I do across most of the content I consume, about this idea of Alive Time versus Dead Time.

Here began the reflection of how I have used and am using my time now.

Since I had my first child in 2017, I’ve found my time to pursue my own interests severely limited. Add two more to the mix, and I’ve noticed that the time I had with one child was a blessing compared with now.

If I look back on the last 12 months raising a baby, I took more Dead Time than Alive Time. That concerned me last month when I began to analyse what I was doing with my time.

Too much Netflix.

Too much Gaming.

Too much sadness, anger, and resentment.

Too much food.

Not enough exercise.

Not enough Reading.

Not enough Learning.

Not enough Writing.

I was going stale.

Dead Time is not making use of your time to better yourself. People are passive in Dead Time.

Alive Time is where people make the most of every second to their future self, learning, educating, and progressing.

This isn’t another thought process around hustle 24/7. It’s far from this.

I wanted to make more use of my time and be more present with every opportunity that came my way.

Kids are crying and bored playing in the living room. Instead of being frustrated that they are moaning when they have everything, let’s go for a walk, get onto our “Dinosaur Trail”, and go explore.

Kids get sick and need to go to the hospital. Read whilst they’re asleep. Read to them whilst they are in bed, confused and sad about what is happening.

Take a lunch break. Instead of ordering takeout, I get on my trainers, go for a run, and explore the countryside.

Instead of watching another episode of Brooklyn 99 (man, that show is the greatest), watch one, grab a book or my kindle, and have a read.

On the train to work, listen to a podcast or audiobook.

There’s so much you can do with “Dead Time” to make it more interesting and more useful to you.

If you think, every day, I’m going to die. I don’t know when, I don’t know how, but I know I will die.

That should make you want to spend more time doing and taking control of the controllable.

When it comes to your career, this can potentially be the most time consuming and soul-destroying element of your life. It’s crazy when many of us spend more than 1/3 of our entire day, 5 days a week, living like this.

“The worst thing in life that you can have is a job that you hate, that you have no energy in, that you’re not creative with and you’re not thinking of the future. To me, might as well be dead.” — Robert Greene

I remember working in a Tea Factory during my summer break at University. I was working nights. I hated it! It was awful.

I looked around at everyone doing this job, and I noticed a few common ideas among them:

• They couldn’t wait for breakfast (I mean, it was dinner, but hey, you get it).
• They couldn’t wait for payday.
• They couldn’t wait for a drink.

I knew my time there would be short - I only had 6-8 weeks’ worth of work there, and it paid well (at least to someone who comes from no money).

How could I make use of this time?

It required no effort aside from moving tea boxes onto a pallet and then moving the pallet onto a lorry.

It required no brainpower.

Here’s what I did.

I was happy that I was on my feet for 12 hours a day, getting a solid workout, and I wasn’t stuck behind a desk.

I conceptualised my book. I made vital characters, worlds, and the universe, and I kept a small pad of paper and a pen with me. I’d be lost in this world in my mind. In between moving boxes of tea or when there was a jam, I’d scribble a note down so as not to forget it.

I made every second of that awful job matter.

On reflection, it wasn’t so awful.

Make the most of your time if you want to truly live.