It’s been over a month and a half since I’ve written a blog, and today I hope to explain why. I don’t want to defend myself. I simply aim to explain my shortcomings in time management that I believe you will be able to empathize with. My hope is that by reading this, you will feel empowered to recommit to your goals and grow with me. For all of my avid readers, you know that after launching Happiness Hackz, I was fired up! I released new content on my blog every week. I got out of the gates strong… and then something strange happened, I started to believe the lie that I “had no time.” I personally don’t know why I fell for such a silly excuse. Happiness Hackz is my life project, and for a time, I decided to put it on the back burner! Before I go into the process of HOW I fell into this rut, I’d like to address some basic truth concerning time management.
“You show me your calendar and I’ll tell you your priorities.” I think that we can all agree that if something is TRULY important to us, we will make time for it. Whatever we are spending time on at this current moment of our lives is what we most care about right now. We can talk all day about how our family and faith are the most important aspects of our lives, but if we don’t allocate our time in accordance with those things, then it’s all just talk. What we do with our time is the true indicator of what we value. If you had a personal time log for every minute of the day, what would your schedule say about what you care about?
I’ll be the first to admit that I have wasted a massive amount of time SCROLLING through nonsense on social media. While Instagram has proved to be an effective way of getting Happiness Hackz’ message of positivity out into the world, I have also found myself sucked into a wormhole of algorithmically placed content that keeps my eyes glued to the screen. On a day off from knocking doors, I could spend 3 hours mindlessly swiping at my screen. I forget what is going on around me as I am engulfed in the latest breaking news and world drama. By the time I snap back to reality, I've wasted 30 minutes of my life. Does this situation sound familiar to you? If so, I can promise you that you are not alone. Have you ever taken a minute to look at your total screen time? If not, do it now.
How did that data make you feel? The average American spends 2 hours and 24 minutes a day on social media. Held constant for 365 days, this equates to 16 hours and 48 minutes a week, and 36 days in a year. Think about what you could be doing with all that time! And that's just the AVERAGE! I am a huge advocate for feeding your brain with positive and uplifting material. We call the reel of posts our news FEED. Thinking of it that way, what are you FEEDING your brain every day for 2+ hours? Just as I am an advocate for educating people on how to nourish their body, I would also stress the importance of nourishing your mind with positive, uplifting, content. I can’t say that the content on these platforms is always positive, so I would encourage people to rethink their time management and start allocating more time towards the things that truly matter. By the end of this blog, I hope to leave you with some recommendations to improve your time management, and empower you to break the chain to your smart device!
Now, back to my shortcomings and resolutions to do better. I want you to keep in mind that while I was pumping out weekly blogs, I was launching Happiness Hackz, fulfilling my role as a husband (daily foot massages and breakfasts) and selling pest control door to door from 9:30am to 9pm. Amidst all of this, I still managed to produce blog content on a bi-weekly basis. It's strange that during a time where I felt I had “no time” I actually was fulfilling all of my goals. However, after the regular selling season ended, I started to relax on my goals for Happiness Hackz. I was simply not as committed and on top of my commitment to write my blog. Between my last blog and this blog, I only sat down once to write and never finished the blog. What happened? If we want to talk about the big picture, I was not holding onto my WHY, but simply put, I just didn’t PLAN and spent my time doing useless activities. It wasn’t important enough to me at the time. I was finding every excuse in the books NOT to sit down and write. One of those activities was mindlessly scrolling on my Iphone to check how many likes I had received on my posts, or to check to see if anybody had messaged me. It wasn’t until my weekly accountability phone call with Tallin Mortenson that I was asked, “Why have you not been writing your blogs?” I was put on the spot and had no excuses. I simply hadn’t made time. Tallin and I talked about the importance of sticking to a system and following through with things that are important to us and I resolved to publish a blog before this Monday evening. I still have a lot of work to do with my time management, but I’m getting back on the saddle and recommitting to publishing a bi-weekly blog. Just sitting down to write this is reawakening the excitement that I felt when I was consistently publishing blogs. I hope that they bring value and positivity into your life and ask that if they have, to please share them with friends and family.
The reason I share this with you is because recommitting to a goal is NOT hypocritical. Until Tallin asked me straight up why I wasn’t following through with my goal, I had fallen for the lie that beacause I hadn’t stuck with my goal, I couldn’t start back up again without being an imposter. This is so wrong, and I KNOW that this has happened to all of us at some point in our life. Recommitment shows dedication. If you have to recommit in your life, guess what? This is excellent news. You are human and are striving to be better. Take a good look at where you are spending your time and what your time expenditure shows about your values. Do you value what you say you value? If not, what do you need to change about your current schedule to better align your schedule with your values?
Here are a couple Hackz that you can implement to help you manage your time so you can start living your life intentionally.
Use a planner.
Every Sunday night, sit down to plan out the entirety of your week. Your wake up times, work times, and bedtimes. This will help you stick to schedule so you are not caught with idle hands. The Turks have a proverb which says, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” Plan out your week so that you are not sucked into the smartphone wormhole.
Put your phone away from your bed.
Have you ever intended to go to bed early and wake up early only to spend an hour glued to your phone at night and then fall victim to the snooze button in the morning? Avoid this trap by putting your phone in another room before going to bed. Not only will this help you fall asleep, it will also force you to wake up and GET UP when your alarm goes off. If you want to wake up early, you can not trust your will power that you have 30 seconds after waking up. Put the phone far enough away so that you can gain enough consciousness to resist the temptation to go back to bed.
Find an accountability partner and schedule weekly phone calls.
Find somebody you can trust to hold you accountable to your weekly goals. I have two friends that I hold weekly phone calls with to update goals and ensure that both of us stay on track to accomplish our tasks. Jared Mataitusi and Tallin Mortensen are the two guys I give a weekly report to. Both are studs and inspire me to be better in not just my professional career, but in my family life, fitness, and spiritual growth. Each week, we debrief on the previous week and set goals for the upcoming week. The advice and encouragement I have received from both of these men has done nothing but make me a better disciple of Christ, husband, athlete, and salesman! Hold these weekly calls on a night that works for both parties and help each other be better in all aspects of life. Send a text message at the end of every call with the weekly goals for both parties and reflect on these resolutions at the conclusion of every week. I'm telling you, if Tallin had not called me out on my blog, I can’t say you would be reading this right now. We all need a friend to hold us accountable so we can reach our full potential.
Put down the phone.
Phones have become the “social pacifier.” When we feel uncomfortable or bored, oftentimes our first reaction is to reach for the device that gives us a false feeling of security and social acceptance. Find other activities to participate in and hone in on what you really care about. When out with friends and family, consider leaving your phone in the car. When on a date with your partner, make a fun game out of letting your phones “have quality time together” and place them to the side while you enjoy your quality time together. We were not designed to spend our lives scrolling away at a screen. Look up and you will be pleasantly surprised by how the world looks through your eyes and not a screen.
Smart phones and their cunning algorithms to capture your attention are the death of millions of dreams and relationships. Don’t fall victim to wasting your time away to virtual reality. Live in reality! I promise you that YOU HAVE TIME to get in shape, grow spiritually and professionally, and spend time with your loved ones. You just have to spend less time with Siri and more time with what is truly important. Spend time on your GOALS, not on the SCREEN! I promise you that your life will be better for it. All of us can improve in this department! Give these Hackz a shot this week and let me know how they helped you by emailing me at happinesshackz@gmail.com. I would love to hear how you are working toward improving yourself and living the life you want to live!