”I don’t know about others, but I’ve kept up this habit of making my New Year’s bucket list for several years now. Lists of small or big goals have helped me along the way. That’s how I focused, for example, on doing driver’s school. I put my goal on the list, went to school, took the test and, just before Christmas one year, got my license.
Over time, I kept adding things to that list. Some I accomplished, others I moved from year to year. One such goal was to go to the gym. For years, I would set a goal and then find something else more important, urgent to do. I would make excuses and find excuses for myself. For a year and a half, I’ve solved the goal, I have a routine.
We don’t often stop from our hustle and bustle to reflect. Often, even when we set our mind to it, life steps in and ties our hands and feet.
Yet the beginning of the year can be like a time of transition: from the previous year to the new one, from us, the ones we’ve had so far, to how we want to be in the future.
Here are some questions that help during this time:
– What do we want to leave behind?
– What would we like to explore?
– What energizes us, what inspires us?
– What do we build, what do we want to become from now on?
These are simple questions, you might say, but the answers are not so obvious. Especially since, until the answers come, we go through some discomfort. And this discomfort is hard to bear. It’s as if we’re hanging over the world, in indecision, in the tumult of choice.
Maybe it helps to think: how satisfied are we with our current life?
What I think is important in this endeavour is also to think about what not to do. To make room for what matters, it is useful to let go of some habits, actions, projects. So I propose not a “To do list” but a “Don’t do list”.
In doing so, it helps to take an inventory of where our time is going. It could be work, family, personal development, relationships, health, spirituality, social media, TV, Netflix, sports, travel. Add other categories, depending on your reality. Then try to allocate a percentage to each category. For example, what percentage of time in a week is allocated to service? What about administrative tasks? How much time do you allocate to your own health? How much time do you allocate to exercise, whether it’s walking, the gym, tennis or any other sport? How much time do you spend with your family? What about with friends? How much time do you devote to learning something new or improving a skill?
How much time do you spend on social media? Our phones tell us every week whether the time spent on these social platforms is more or less than the previous week. It’s worth paying attention to this.
Once we’ve jotted down these answers in our own diary, let’s think about how we’d like this to look in the future.
After the picture of the current state of the types of activities or compartments on which time is going, think about how you would like these percentages to look at the end of next year, in December 2024. Where would you like to have spent more time? If you now spend 5% of your time reading, developing, you might want to get to 10%; if you spend 3% on sport, you might want to get to 7%, for example. Then, if that’s what we’re aiming for by the end of the year, what would we like the situation to be like by the middle of the year? What about the quarter?
Then think about what brings you more value; what do you think is going well and can you put a little less emphasis there so that you add something else? Or what category could you cut substantially from your time allocation without a major impact on your life?
You now have a second picture, that of your desired state for how you divide your time.
Now make a note of those things, those activities you would like to say NO to.
It could be time spent on social media, various pro bono actions that don’t add value to you, involvement in all the projects you find interesting, a college you went to just because it’s trendy, going out to terraces every night of the week.
Let’s take social media as an example of detailing. If we now spend six to seven hours a week on social platforms, perhaps a reduction to four hours would help. Two hours a week gained from this, multiplied by 52 weeks of the year, gives us 104 hours. That’s two and a half weeks of work (at an average of 40 hours a week) that you can put to more useful use.
There could also be certain people, some of whom take up too much of your time and don’t bring you any value or are energy vampires.
Write down for a few months who you date and how you feel afterwards. Often, it helps to reschedule certain dates. It saves time and a lot of energy. I know it may sound silly, but everyone’s time is a resource that no one can get back. We often act as if we are immortal, as if we have an endless supply of time at our disposal.
I propose an exercise. Draw on a sheet of paper a horizontal axis with 0 at one end and 100 at the other end. Imagine that this is the length of your life. Then divide the axis into four equal parts: 0-25; 25-50; 50-75; 75-100. Mark where you are now. In the first or second quarter? In the third? If you’re in the middle, with any luck, you still have a pretty big chunk ahead, according to the statistics. What do you want to do in those two quarters? Who do you want to spend them with? What kind of person do you want to be? What do you want to do?
How do you make room for new activities, appropriate to the person you are or want to be? How do you attract people you enjoy being with and with whom you can exchange ideas, similar or common activities?
Here are some examples of activities that could be eliminated/reduced:
- Checking your phone as soon as you open your eyes. Here, I don’t sit well; since my father was very ill, I’ve been left with a certain internal alarm.
- Let’s get on the phone with everyone who calls us to suggest we buy Apple stock, cryptocurrencies or who knows what products.
- Let’s eat lots of sugar or something that’s bad for us.
- Watching hours and hours of Netflix, HBO Max or whatever and thus cutting down on sleep.
Write down what types of activities you’d like to include or give more time to. For example, reading, writing, walking, paying more attention to what you eat, certain people.
We don’t often make such a “what not to do” list. It helps us identify some disruptions, time consumers, make some changes. But these don’t happen every day. The beginning of the year is such an opportunity. Just as important, however, is to put this “Don’t do list” in plain sight and return to it at regular intervals to adjust it, measure our progress and motivate ourselves.”
via: Forbes
