Part 3/6 — Managing Time — Time Stone

If you love life, don’t waste time. For time is what life is made up of. — Bruce Lee

When I first heard this quote by Bruce Lee, a light bulb went off in my head. “Time is what life is made up of.” That is DEEP.

I have always wondered about the meaning of life and the purpose we all hold. However, I have never really looked at it this way, especially since the COVID hit.

In the last 1.5 years, even since the pandemic hit, situations have taken a turn for the worse. I started intentionally wasting my time more and more. I stopped going to the gym and gave up on cycling completely. My eating and sleeping habits became super erratic as I moved back in with my parents. There were times when I slept for over 14 hours a day and ate chips/cookies/cheese till my stomach hurt.

Although I knew I was wasting my time, personal friction and laziness prevented me from making the necessary changes.

Now, I don’t have the time stone as Dr. Strange does, but I feel that I am starting to regain control by incorporating the following tenets in my life.

Create a Sleep Schedule

The more you sleep, the more sleepy you’ll feel. It creates a negative feedback loop if you’re a lazy person like I was. Ideally, it would be best to focus on the quality of the sleep and not the quantity. So, I gave up on afternoon naps and joined the gym. Now, I sleep only when I am uber-tired, that is, by the end of the day, which helps me recharge fast enough (within 7 to 8 hours).

Lesson: Tire yourself enough throughout the day so that when you hit the hay, you don’t have time

Use the Pomodoro Timer

Break your work time into smaller digestible chunks with intermittent breaks. It helps you keep a reward structure for good work and keep distractions away while you are focused.

Tip: I use the Forest app (available on Android and iPhone) to lock my phone while focusing on work.

Change Your Working Environments

Have a comfortable (but not too comfortable working position). I can say from experience that laying down on a bed while working on your laptop is the fastest way to break your back with blinding pains.

Tip: Keep a 30-minute timer on repeat that reminds you to get up from your desk and stretch regularly.

Invest in Productivity

Invest in articles/tech that make help you utilize time more productively. If you are not delegating less important and monotonous tasks to someone else or automated software, you are missing out.

Personal Hack: I use email automation tools extensively to delegate business development tasks every day.

Allocate Time Effectively

Allocate time for personal development, health, work, meetings, etc., every day. You may not want to follow the same routine every day, but creating an outline for these tasks can help you achieve more every day.

Tip: Create blocks of your time on your personal/work calendar to allocate time correctly.

With these nifty tips and tricks, you can quickly get the productivity of 48 or more hours in a single day. Try them and let me know how they worked for you!

Onwards and Upwards!