A lot of times we use lack of time as an excuse for why certain things cannot be done, when in reality, what is really lacking is the skills for how to manage time. There are 168 hours in a week. If you average eight hours of sleep a night, and a forty hour work week, that leaves you with seventy two hours, approximately ten hours a day, for deciding how to fill that time. Now try laying down the “I just don’t have the time” excuse.
Time management is a huge task in itself, and if you really want to master that skill it is going to take practice because it is essentially developing a new habit. It has been proven that it can “take you anywhere from two months to eight months to build a new behavior in your life.” (1) Just like any other habit or skill you have formed took hard work and commitment, accomplishing a way of managing time does not happen overnight. “Building better habits is not an all-or-nothing process” (1) and as long as you put in the practice and learn ways of improving time management, you will soon find that you do have enough hours, minutes, or seconds in your day to do some of the things you always made excuses for.
Knowing how to efficiently plan out your day not only opens up more opportunities to do some of the things you never thought could fit in your schedule, but it is also a healthy way for you to check in with yourself and see where you are putting most of your time towards. “It’s important that you develop effective strategies for managing your time to balance the conflicting demands of time for study, leisure, earning money and job hunting” (2) While you may put a lot of yourself into your time at work because it is necessary for you to keep your job, if you do not allow yourself your own personal time for the activities that bring joy, it is only going to be hurtful in the long run. Being happy, and successful comes with balance.