How To Use Time Management To Gain 9 Years!
By Gavin Ingham
Have you ever dreamed about writing a book? Taking
up a new interest or learning a foreign language?
Do you know someone who wants to study for a new career? Spend more
quality time with their children? Get fit and exercise more regularly?
Have you yearned to spend more time on the
golf course? More time with your friends? More time pampering yourself?
Would you do more with your life if only
you had more time?
Ever since I can remember I have been interested in what drives people, what makes them do what
they do and why some people have success and others just seem to tread water.
Probably like me you've occasionally
met someone who seems to have fitted into their life so much more than the average human being... we usually dismiss them
as freaks, non-sleepers or super achievers.
I was listening to a conversation in an office the other day and it
went a little like this...
"John ran a marathon last week. He trains for 2 hours every night you know."
"Yes, I did and he just finished his Open University degree too. I'd like to do something like that but I
just don't have the time!"
"Me neither."
How common is this kind of conversation?
"I would if only I had more time!"
Most of us hear it every day. Probably many of us say it too.
We say things like, "I'm rushed off my feet" or "I can't cope with everything I have to do" or
"If only I had more time".
So here's my simple answer...
Stop watching television!
That's it. Stop watching television!
Seriously, how much TV do you watch? When I walk into most houses
the TV is on in the background... all of the time. When I get into offices in the morning all that people are talking about
is what was on TV last night.
It's laughable really. People who want more from their lives but spend their
time living it vicariously through fictitious or reality TV stars.
How much more time would you have if you stopped
watching TV? How much this evening? This week? This month? Over the next year? Over the next 10 years?
What could
you do with that kind of time?
Could you learn a new language? Help out at the local hospice? Get out and take
up that new sport? Learn to ride a horse? Learn how to invest well for your retirement? Set up a part-time business to get
you out of debt or start you on your way to your fortune?
I've done a bit of research on TV watching for you...
1 United Kingdom: 28 hours per person per week - 2 United States: 28 hours per person per week - 3 Italy: 27 hours
per person per week - 4 Ireland: 23 hours per person per week - 5 Germany: 23 hours per person per week...
And
what's more TV is addictive! The more you watch the more you want to watch. How many people do you know who rush home
to watch certain TV shows abandoning other activities? How many people do you know who tape TV shows whilst they are out to
watch them later on? How many people do you know who would get annoyed if they missed an episode of a favourite soap or series?
These are all signs of addiction. TV is an addiction and it's one that takes over many people's lives, disempowering
them, seducing them and making them think that they don't have enough time to do the things that they really want to do.
Several pieces of psychological research have suggested that heavy TV watchers display all the symptoms of a non-substance
behavioral addiction. I know so many people who "want" to get fit but spend their time instead watching TV and opening
that they "don't have time" to go to the gym because they're too busy.
I remember being introduced
by a well-meaning friend to 24 - the fantastic series with Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer. My friend lent me the box set
and I watched the first couple and before I knew it I was hooked. I needed to know what happened to Jack!
I worked
my way rapidly through the series and upon reaching the series cliffhanger got in my car and drove to the local video store
to get series 2!
I don't know about 24 - more like Nightmare! I was addicted... and for what? What did I get
out of it? I wasted perhaps 120 hours or 15 full working days and how did I benefit exactly? Once I'd watched it what
could I tell you about it? And even if I could, who cares?
According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American
watches more than 4 hours of TV each day (or 28 hours/week, or 2 months of nonstop TV- watching per year). In a 65-year life,
that person will have spent 9 years glued to the tube.
What could you do with an extra 9 years of life? People
spend fortunes on medical health care to get an extra few months at the end of their lives but p*** up against the wall 9
years of quality life!
If you're wasting your life away watching TV you need to do several things...
1. Think about how much of your life you're throwing away.
Seriously! Work it out! And work it out now! Work
out how much time you spend watching TV last week. Now multiply that by 52 weeks and then by 10 years to see how much time
you waste watching TV every decade.
Be realistic. Most people underestimate how much TV they actually watch. I
used to say, "Oh I don't really watch TV" but actually I still watched quite a bit whilst I was waiting for
things to happen such as the food to cook.
2. Think about what this has cost you already.
Figure out
how much time you have invested in wathing the TV so far in your life. How many years (?), months, weeks and hours have you
spent watching TV?
Think what you could have done with that time. Think about how you've missed out. Think
about all of the opportunities that you've already missed because of your love affair with the TV!
3. Decide
what you'd like to achieve with that time.
Think about what you're going to spend your newly found time
on. What are you going to do? Why are you going to do it? How will you benefit by doing it? What will it mean for your finances,
your social life, your hobbies, your prospects, your career and your personal wellbeing and fitness?
4. Visualize
your new self.
Close your eyes for a moment and see yourself in 5 years time. Just imagine - 5 years without the
TV. What will you have achieved and done in that time? Where will you be? What will you have that you don't have now?
What will you do that you don't do now? Who will you become?
Picture yourself in your new life and let yourself
"experience" it in panoramic detail. The more you do and have fun with this exercise the more powerful it will become
for you.
5. Design your getting started action plan.
I'm bored of the hug a tree, rent a personal
development coach, crowd banging on about how if you just focus on something it will happen.
Maybe it will just
happen to happen for the lucky few but for 99% of people success requires action!
Here's an important lesson
for you... People who spout about success happenning if you think about it are at best mislead and at worst lying.
For sure, you want to eradicate negative and disempowering beliefs and you want to focus on what you want not what you don't
want but when you've done that you need to TAKE ACTION!
6. Turn off the TV and go do something else less boring
instead!
And for most people, turning off the TV and going to do something less boring instead would be a good
first step!
Pick something interesting and exciting that you can do one evening this week rather than watching
the TV. Decide to go swimming rather than go home and watch the soaps, take action and got out for a meal with friends rather
than staying home and watching the box, read a good book rather than vegging in front of the depressing news.
Good
luck!
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The Big Fat Guru shares personal development strategies for achieving your goals at
http://www.thebigfatguru.com.
