The last few days I have squandered my time answering emails, doing small tasks, and basically avoiding some hard work that I don’t enjoy. How do I feel tonight? Tired, uninspired, and not much further along on those tasks I was avoiding.
Most days when I am working on things I love, my days end with a sense of purpose, accomplishment and enthusiasm.
This difference is important. You probably overlook it as you trudge through your obligations and to-to lists. Yet, what I realized tonight, is that how I feel about how I spend my time matters. Because I didn’t want to do what I was aimed at doing, I made the project take longer, depleted my energy available for other things, and wasted much of my day. Yet, when I am excited about what I am doing I get ten or even a hundred times more done than I did the last few days.
Do you experience this same time warp when you are doing things you love verses doing what you loath?
I think we all do. And if this is universally true, than how we feel about how we spend our days matters more than we realize. Maybe you should be placing a great deal more attention on ensuring you spend your days in ways that energize you. With energy, you can accomplish much and without it you accomplish almost nothing.
Am I saying just don’t do things you don’t like? Well, as appealing as that might be—no that is not what I am saying. What I do suggest is that you start your day in ways that invigorate you and keep the things that pull you down to a minimum or at least scheduled for later in the day. That way you keep your day at high energy and can tackle the thing you don’t like with the vitality you created, rather than letting the action you dislike diminish your energy so you cannot complete most of the simplest tasks you had planned.
How do you feel about how you spend your time most days?
If your answer is not positive, then take time this weekend to create a new plan for how you spend each day this coming week. Add in more of what inspires you. Find creative ways to accomplish the things needed that you don’t enjoy.
- Is there someone you know who does enjoy those things you can get to help you?
- Maybe you can use the money you currently spend on vanilla lattes to pay someone once a week to do it?
- Can you hire a neighbor’s teenager to help?
- Maybe you could create a learning experience for a local college intern and get the job done for free?
Think outside the box, rather than stay boxed in a life of drudgery.
