Today I wanted to bring you a bit closer to my world, where in daily life I disprove commonly used phrases regarding the time in English as well as in other languages too.
For years now I am restlessly “fighting” with time management and would like to tell you why.
To start with I would like to say that according to my dictionary phenomena like “time management” are simply out of control for human beings. Not a single human species that I know, or heard about can manage the time. This is simply out of our control. What would it mean to manage the time? Is it a possibility to travel in it, move to the future or to the past? Or is it management in the form of extending or shortening the day, week and year? Theoretically in accordance with the definition of management both seem equally correct and therefore, as already stated, outside of human possibilities.
A small print here: I remain open minded and if you are able to do any of the above, please do not hesitate to reach out to me, I would be fascinated to find out more and potentially explore.
Coming back to the time subject, my response to the comment: “I don’t have time”, is simple: “No worries, me neither, nobody does.” We do not own the time, we only live in it. It is separate from us and as per my continuous research, there is no known way to get it under human control or into our possession.
What is it then that we can do? We can manage ourselves, our expectations. Plan and correctly estimate tasks within time. It is very easy to underestimate the complexity of a task and therefore not finish by the set deadline. But is it a fime’s fault? Did hours shrank to last 40 and not 60 minutes? No! Time has nothing to do with our failures, it’s all us and we need to take responsibility for that.
Let’s for example think about our authorities, our heroes, people we follow for inspiration. Those who achieved what we are looking for achieve. Do you think their day is any longer than 24 hours? They also do not have time, but yet became successful.
Acknowledgment and acceptance of our responsibility is crucial. Only by agreement to hold the power we are able to make changes. Blaming the lack of time is only an excuse and let me tell you, it’s a poor one. When people use it to explain why they do, or not do things a certain way, what I hear is: “I don’t care what you are talking about, it’s not important enough for me to change how I do things”. There is nothing wrong with that, different people have different values and not everything is for everyone. But let’s have enough guts to admit the truth to ourselves. Often we wish for example for health to be our highest value but then “don’t have time” for exercise or prepare healthy and nutritious meals. It gets very dangerous when we lie to ourselves.
What we speak frequently becomes our truth, our life is based on our beliefs and it’s very important to verify the language we use on daily bases because it becomes our reality. I recommend for you to pay attention whether you or people around you, talk about time management and in which context. For you I am leaving the analysis of what impact that has on their life and their achievements.
I believe that priorities control a person’s time and where we place them in what order. Also I’m trying to live by the motto that ‘done is better than perfect’. Especially knowing that I’m a perfectionist in the things I do and always pay attention to detail which impacts on time!