So, this week I’ve been experimenting. Often times we find ourselves saying, “I’m so busy, I can’t find the time to: Workout, start a project, clean, cook healthy, call a family member, do this, do that, and the list goes on.” I, myself, find that I tend to say I don’t have the time to do certain things. I wanted to see how true this really was. Each day I marked down how many hours of wasted time I spend during the day. What do I consider wasted time? Well even though I like doing some of these things, I actually do consider them to be a waste of time knowing I could be doing something more productive. My list included:

1. Facebook/Instagram/Social Media-Yes I know I know, but trust me, the world will not end if I can’t get on Facebook for one hour to see who’s life is miserable, who hates their job, what someone ate today, what someone looks like at the gym, or the latest post of someone I have no clue managed to get on my friends list because I have no idea who they are.
2. Television-Yep I’m guilty. I watch the drama filled lives of others on Reality TV and live vicariously through Housewives, the Big Brother House, and others.
3. Napping-I don’t take a nap every day, but sometimes if I get the chance and I’m in a position to do so, I will nap. However, I tend to take longer naps than I probably should.
4. Surfing the Web-This does not count social media. There are some things I need to look up to find out information for, but I also tend to wander the web and find myself at very interesting places to say the least that really have nothing to do with me or what I was attempting to get on the internet for anyways.
5. Sleeping-This does not included napping, this includes that extra hour or two in the morning I hit the snooze alarm 50 times when I could have just gotten my butt up out of bed and had a 2 hour start to my day. OR the hour or two I spent tossing and turning and unable to fall asleep when I could have been doing paperwork or getting something productive done.

These 5 things I thought where my biggest time wasters this week. After a week of this I figured that on average I wasted roughly 4 hours per day. When I actually looked at this on paper and realized each week I could be wasting 28-30 HOURS! Are you kidding me!?!? That’s a lot of time I could be doing things that I love, exploring new passions, getting little projects done, knocking things off my bucket list, learning a new skill, calling family, reaching my goals faster, and the list goes on. It’s incredible when you really look at all the time we “waste” during the day, but then later mention that we just don’t have the time to do certain things. Now with this being said, I’m not saying I will stop getting on Facebook nor give up my dose of Housewife drama, but I will decrease the time tremendously that I’m doing these things and set aside specified times for those certain things as well.

Be more aware of where your time is going to. Try my experiment for a week.  Write down what you feel are “time wasters” and how much time per day you spend doing these things. Take a look at the list after a week a then I bet you can’t say to yourself, “I just don’t have time to work out, I don’t have time to go back to school, I don’t have time to visit or call my family, etc.” I learned through this experiment that in fact I DO have the time to do a lot of things I say I can’t, but it’s about MAKING the time. My question to you is, do you REALLY need to get on Facebook right now for 30 minutes when you could be working out? Do you REALLY need to watch the latest episode of reality television on FOX instead of doing your school work?  I promise that when you start to FIND the time to do the things you’ve been putting off, you will feel more accomplished, you will feel a sense of freedom, and your goals will get reached MUCH faster, and life will just be much more awesome!

Abby~