Time is the most valuable commodity we have. But it is all too easy to fritter it away unless you know how to structure your life top-down instead of bottom-up.
Wonderful ways to waste time
We live at a time in the history of the world when there have never been so many enticing ways to waste time. Social media, watching TV, following the news like a never-ending soap opera, online shopping, mining information, playing video games, and many other addictive time-gobblers can use up hours each day. They have a negative impact on your mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing, and are a sure recipe for getting to the end of your life and having no idea what it was all about.
These activities, and many others like them, are often substitutes for having no real meaning or purpose in your life, which is a sad state of affairs. It can lead to anxiety, depression, comfort-food-consuming obesity, sleep disorders, and many other modern-day ills.
Yet how we spend our time is something we DO have control over. Each morning when we wake up, we have choices about how to spend the next 24 hours. If you have to earn your living or take care of others you are responsible for, that can take big chunks of time out of a day, it’s true, but only if you approach these tasks as chores instead of opening to the learning opportunities they present. Poor health, poor fitness, or poverty can also limit your options. But history abounds with inspiring stories of people who have overcome all the challenges facing them to make something of themselves and, in doing so, they make a difference in the world.
The biggest problem these days is that most people make poor choices about how they use the time they have control over, thinking they are “treating” themselves by wasting it.
But as Charles Darwin once said, ‘A man who dares to waste one hour of life has not discovered the value of life.’
Reprioritizing top-down
Something I’ve observed about people who take my online clutter-clearing courses is that as they near the end of decluttering their home, it starts to dawn on them that all the time they have been spending on letting things go will now be available for something else.
But what?
For some, having a blank canvas on which to paint their new life is exciting and inspiring. For others, it can be such a scary proposition that it can cause their clutter clearing to stall.
‘Oh my God, what will I do with my time when I’ve finished clearing my clutter?’ they ask themselves. It can cause them to find a way to extend the process somehow unless they face this fear and resolve it.
That’s why Zero Procrastination is such an essential course in my trilogy of clutter clearing courses, because it’s about restructuring your life top-down instead of bottom-up. Doing this brings more meaning and purpose to everything you do, which naturally makes you want to use your time more productively instead of wasting it. You’ll value the time you have available after decluttering your home and your life, and want to use it well instead of squandering it.
Of all the courses I have followed with you, Karen, this one really made by far the acutest impact. – Dutch participant
I feel like a different person after this course – one who wakes with so much more enthusiasm for the day, and to get going on making it productive. I’ve learned so many techniques and been woken up to so many aspects of behavior that I can improve upon in myself. – American participant
This course has been incredibly useful and eye-opening for me. I have learned to switch focus from the mundane everyday to the bigger picture. I have learnt to see that I have been wasting hours, days, and weeks of energy avoiding what can be done in just a few minutes to lift the weight. I feel like I have learnt a secret to having more time, and a calmer, more harmonious way of living – a way of cleverly achieving more “me” time without feeling guilty that I should be finishing or doing something else, almost like finding more hours in the day. – British participant
The Zero Procrastination course
This course is conducted on a secure, private message board, with no complicated downloads of any kind, or any audio or video components. A new step is posted every three days. You can log on to read my posts and comments, and make your own posts and comments, at any time of the day or night during the 21 days the course is in progress.
So the big question is: do you value your time enough to spend 21 life-changing days learning how to stop wasting it?
Copyright © Clear Space Living Ltd, 2023
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Zero Procrastination online course
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Do you really value your time?
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