Here I Am 22.40 Saturday night thinking to myself WOW another week has gone by.
What happened
Oh and by the way does anybody know what the hell happens to time after age 40?... It's like we enter a frikkin' portal that spits us out 6 months later, every other week
I now seem to divide up the year into Christmas decorations down from the loft, decorating the house, and heading back up to the loft, a bit of sun ad rain then back to the loft to bring them down again.
What's with the musings on time Steven?
Well I have been trying something recently as part of my self improvement journey. I have this theory that sometimes we get lost in the daily drudgery of life, work, problems, work, car repairs, work, getting sick for a spell, work, unexpected expenses, oh and did I mention work?
When this happens I reckon we take our eye of the ball regarding what we really hoped to achieve this week, this month or even this year. I have spoken to people who retired and admitted this is the state they existed in for 40 or 50 years, I think that stinks, don't you?
There will of course, be unexpected, unanticipated events in life that throw us off track, this will always be the case for us human types. I'm assuming you are human,. sorry if that is presumptuous of me!
Some spells see us with more time on our hands than others when we have a chance to strike out for those things we wanted to achieve, some spells simply don't allow us that luxury. I think we need to take the bull by the horns though, we cannot simply wait for the fates to stop sending waves toward us to learn how to navigate the calm waters effectively.
There are a myriad of strategies for taking charge of achieving in the limited time we have, goal lists, to do lists, affirmations, setting alerts and reminders on the various devices that are part of modern live and so many ideas that people offer up when we tell them we are struggling to get through the things we intended to.
The strategy I have been using is a little different from that, it's a retrospective way of looking at this issue rather than pre-emptive. I have been deliberately reviewing how I managed my time, after the fact.
There is one major con to this but I believe the pros warrant trying this if you are feeling like you are treading water and making little progress in life.
The obvious and some may say fatal flaw in this 'reviewing how we did' system is pretty obvious, if things went awry, it is too late to change the past, right?
However sometimes more valuable than changing how we did is changing what we do in future. Learning from the mistakes we made or at least committing to not repeating them in the future. Sometimes after reviewing how you spent the day you can be shocked at just how much time is frittered away in procrastination or low value efforts.
Reviewing provides an oversight that is impossible in the heat of the moment, it can provide answers we were really not expecting. This doesn't just work for time though.
Relationships - Spouse, children, co-workers, neighbours, extended family and friends.
Let's assume that during your review of the day, the week or even the month you are reminded of a bad interaction that took place, an argument, fight or disagreement. looking back on it whilst calm and contemplative can present some answers, answers that many people never have the chance to realise.
Did you handle it badly, were you reactive, most importantly of all, what would you do differently given the opportunity to redo the interaction?
This may sound simple but don't underestimate the power of this strategy, this is a game changer for your life. When I say most people don't even think about these life-events once they have passed, they form a view of what happened, usually that they were right and the other person was wrong and they move on having learned nothing!
I'm sure that you probably realise this instinctively though, right? You interact with those human types everyday, you likely are one. People don't spend a whole lotta time looking for the teachings that life offers us every single day.
We just looked at a strategy to absolutely revolutionise all of your important relationships this excited me massively once I really understood it BUT it can be applied to so many other areas.
Consider productivity...
When you look at how you spent your time in the period you are assessing, what happened? How could your time have been better allocated, did you spend way too much time on low value, low reward activities. Could you have delegated any of the time drain activities to someone who could have completed them more effectively in much less time or for a nominal payment? This could free up your time to pursue those things that are most meaningful or offer up the biggest rewards vs time.
This stuff is simple, right? I am not telling you anything you couldn't work out for yourself if you truly decided to assess your efforts in the pursuit of serious improvement but equally if you decide to adopt this you are not reinventing the wheel just finding ways of maximising the things you do, the relationships you have the results you want.
If you review your efforts be they lackluster or Herculean, how did each area make you feel?
Let's say you feel resentful, stressed or angry about some of the things that occupy your time, it could be that you are doing entirely the wrong things. I sometimes talk to other Hivers and they tell me that they hate writing, blog-post ideas are difficult to come up with and the whole process in unfulfilling... Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
I'm sure some activities make you feel good, fulfilled, give you a sense of achievement, how about spending more time in these areas
For instance, if you are a blogger but cannot complete your posts as you spend too much time online gaming, what about streaming your game-play or producing much more gaming content, reviews, upcoming game news, franchise developments. If your 'work', goal achievement revolves around something you enjoy it is likely you will have more fun doing it AND make friends who resonate with you much more than most.
Health matters matter...
The vast, vast majority of us know we could/should make better decisions when it comes to our greatest tool of all our body. Health is one of those things you don't notice all that much till it fades or starts to work against you, trust me on this, I have learned the hard way. I have learned from this massively and now act accordingly most of the time.
If you look back over the day or week or whatever, you may start to notice patterns that do not empower you or ones that very much do... This should provide all the information you could ever need to maximise one and minimise the other. When you are running your life at optimal health, the change can be utterly magnificent. Modern life for many are filled with the wrong kind of diet, stress and a fatigued feeling that never quite seems to shift. You and your body and mind deserve far better than this, right?
When approaching health improvements designed to enhance the one and only life you have, my suggested approach is always the same. Choose one or two small changes, when they become a part of your life, build on them, choose a third item to work on, then a fourth. So many people have adopted this approach and exponentially improved their health in a matter of a year or two, however in a matter of weeks or often days the effects of these easy changes can become apparent and improve your overall sense of wellbeing hugely.
These tiny changes can take you on the greatest journey of transformational health with what feels like little effort because you are only focussing on small changes at any given time, the benefits you feel, the increased energy and strength they can imbue you with then go on to feed the next step and the nest and so on so it never actually feels that you are implementing wholesale changes on yourself and to your life.
I wholeheartedly recommend going after the goal of vastly improved health. It is one of the most rewarding aspects of self-improvement on which you can embark in my estimation.
I could list many things that can come to your attention when it comes to reviewing your time and your life. I am certain these few examples have given you some healthy, brain vitamin packed food for thought though. Just what could you achieve if you understood, the patterns, the numbers and the things that could inhibit or massively enhance your life if you only took the time to understand them?
In summary. I have been conducting short daily reviews and longer weekly ones to try and ascertain what I am achieving, (or not), procrastinating over or to try and find how to best manage my time, delegate small tasks or simply get where I want to be quickly. I have been looking for patterns that reinforce the beliefs I want to cultivate and also those that have the potential to be damaging and knock me of course.
So far I have come up with a list of things I sincerely want to step away from and others that I want to adopt and embrace in order to reach the stratospheric heights I want to achieve for me and my life by age 50 and far, far beyond.
Some of the small things that have come to light have surprised me immensely BUT I do not for an instant regret my decision to start actively reviewing the events of my days and then implementing the changes I know I must if I am to achieve the goals I have set for myself in those three key areas I always talk about...
Health.
Wealth.
Happiness.
If you truly desire a brighter tomorrow than your current today I highly recommend this simple strategy, if not only for the reason it is low effort, takes just a few minutes each day and has the potential to deliver enormous rewards if you learn from what you notice and implement a few small changes and a new way of doing things in those key areas.
I would suggest reviewing the day, rather than the week and definitely not the month, that's way too long to be going off track. This really does work best when used as a daily practice. It can become a part of your bedtime routine with little effort. Just imagine how quick your life can be transformed if you take a few short moments every evening to see how you did that day, it doesn't matter if you mark yourself as an A+ or a D- the only thing that really counts is committing to improvement either slowly and steadily or rapid and eagerly.
Never forget this is OUR community! To take from, to give to and to learn from.
Thank YOU for taking the time to read my post and if you're one of those amazing people who like to hit the comments section... Then I doubly thank YOU!
Either way I want you to know that you are appreciated!
Keep taking the time to connect with each-other both here and in the so-called real world and try and look after each-other, because as you already know...
I’m not entirely sure I'm not orangutan...
Given the choice between them and humans, I'm not sure that would be all that bad a creature to be, they are pretty adorable too. :)
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I don't know if reflecting on the day just past is a good thing. I know a lot of people swear by it and a lot of books mention it. I found that when I reviewed my day before bed it bothered and caused interrupted sleep cycles. If this happens then I would suggest to review the day over your morning breakfast. This will set the tone for the upcoming events of the day, and get the brain into a thinking state earlier than the moment you arrive at work. Reviewing the previous day over breakfast also forces one to sit and have a breakfast that is more than a cup of coffee or tea.
I think seeking the calm waters of life is the most boring assed thing anyone could ever do. We go nowhere when the waters are calm, it is often the calm waters one finds oneself treading. Time is a pretty fickle thing. I am retired, and there are times i look back and see that I had a whole lot more time while being busy with work and getting on with life, than I do today.
You see being retired you always think you have time now to do something, to learn something, but then you need to put the action forward if not you run out of time to do what it was you wanted to do. Also all activities take time, so while there may be other things you want to do, you still have a lot of things you like to do and adding more on just means less time for the other things you were already enjoying.
At the end of the day, if your reflections disturb the sleep cycle, try morning reflection over breakfast and maybe add in a little visualization of how you would like your day to progress.
Beware the calm waters.
Yeah I understand that entirely. So much of this stuff needs to be tailored to the individual I think. When I launched the community I did say that sometimes the polar opposite method will work or 2 people expecting the same result. We human-types are definitely strange that way.
I always viewed it as a way of prompting my subconscious to determine the nature of my problems and get to work on them while my consciousness was out of the picture lol.
It does sound like a powerful mindset to start the day with though. I have also tried this way over the years and the sense of empowerment when I sit outside and have breakfast on a sunny morning gets me geared up for the day massively.
Like yourself, Much of my working life has been spent working shifts and I alternate between nights and days in the same 4 day spell atm too so I find myself doing this at random times often. I definitely love to know how I am measuring up to what I intended though, it gives me a real frame of reference for moving forward.
You raise a very important point about retirement actually, I think many see it as the Utopian dream, of having all the time in the world to think and act on plans that are put off today... Not necessarily lol. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts it's much apreciated, take good care my friend have a happy Monday and an even better week to follow. :)
Yeah, I was just trying to point out another method for reflection, 30 plus years of shift work take a toll, and sleep is the first victim, I would often have a hard time sleeping after trying to review he day, then I just started the morning routine, (well pre-work). Sometimes we get to close to an issue to see other ways and means, I would actually love to see and read how others go about reflecting on the day or weeks activity.
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