May 16, 2022 by Dymphna

T-Bomb: Beware the time-leeches!

Truth Bomb Tuesday: Guard it jealously. You won’t get it back.

You have a lot of resources at your disposal. How wisely do you use them?

Some of your resources are unlimited. Like your creativity. I seriously believe that everyone has an unlimited number of million dollar ideas inside of them. The only challenge is learning how to back yourself and mine that gold.

But most of your resources are limited. That’s just the nature of things. No matter how rich you are, you still only have so much money. There’s still only so much that the banks are going to lend you.

And it’s true of your most important and valuable resource: time.

Time is scarce. Even the universe is on a deadline. At some point it’s all going to fizzle out into some bland sort of heat death. And it’s true for you too. At some point your time will be up, and the angels will call in your boat.

And while the days can feel long, the truth is we’re not here for long. It’s over before you know it.

And so we have to guard our time jealously.

That means two things.

First, it means guarding your time against time wasters.

Some people are time wasters, but I’m more talking about the things that take up time well beyond how important they are to you.

The worst offenders here are day jobs.

Most of us will give the best years and the best days of our life to a job that doesn’t lift us up and fulfill us, and doesn’t even get us closer to the things that truly matter.

Day jobs are necessary, but massive distractions.

The sooner you can rescue your time from your day job the better. Then you’ll really be living.

But while we need to protect ourselves from the things we know are a waste of time, we also need to protect ourselves from those things that seem like a good use of time, but aren’t really.

It’s the friend who calls you up to help you move his house. (Wouldn’t you both be better off if you paid someone with actual muscles to do it?)

Or it’s the friend who wants to have a 6-hr debrief about why yet another relationship failed in the first month.

Or it’s the child who wants you to cook an extra meal just for them because beans are ‘yucky’. (Or husband!)

These can be great things to do. Relationships make life worth while.

But you need to be really conscious about how you spend your time.

Are you investing in this friend because that’s the best use of your time, or are you letting yourself get pulled into the story because it’s easier than saying ‘no’?

You have to guard your time jealously. You’re not getting it back.

And it’s the most precious resource you have.

DB.