66. Time Harvesting. How to create more time.

As you go throughout your day, do you constantly feel like there is never enough time to do the things you need to do?  Every person knows they want to be a Lion in Life, but it seems like no matter how hard they try, they can’t break free from their schedule to become a Lion.  We all want to dedicate our lives to Faith, Family, Freedom, Finance, and Fun…but how can we do that when work and simply living takes up so much time?  What if you could harvest more time? Today’s episode is all about harvesting the greatest resources, time.

Download the Time Tracker worksheet mentioned in this episode for FREE by subscribing to our free newsletter at https://www.abrodaciouslife.com.

Check out our references page and links through our episode notes and transcripts which can be found at https://www.abrodaciouslife.com.

Transcript

Time Harvesting

Find this Episode at ABrodaciousLife.com

Hook:  As you go throughout your day, do you constantly feel like there is never enough time to do the things you need to do?  Every person knows they want to be a Lion in Life, but it seems like no matter how hard they try, they can’t break free from their schedule to become a Lion.  We all want to dedicate our lives to Faith, Family, Freedom, Finance, and Fun…but how can we do that when work and simply living takes up so much time?

What if you could harvest more time?  Jonathan likes to grow his food on his homestead, but what if we could take time to teach you how to grow time?

Today’s episode is all about harvesting the greatest resources, time.

Part 1:  Americans feel like there is never enough time.

It seems like we are always trying to find more time.  I would pray more if I only had the time.  I would read my Bible if I had the time.  I know I need to spend more time with my kids, but my work won’t allow me to.  I want to do something fun, but I need to forgo my vacation to accomplish this project my boss wants done.  If only there was more time!!!!

We need to harvest more time!  So we can do all these things!

Part 2:  Is our loss of time in modern society reality or only false perception?

For people, especially men, we believe in our hearts that the demands of the modern workplace is the thing that keeps us from having the time to do the things that we need to do.  Is this a true belief?  To answer this question, I took a look at the US Bureau for Labor and Statistics and this is what I found.

1.  The average full time worker in the US works 8.53 hours per week.
2. Those without a high school diploma work less (not more), under 8 hours.
3. Those with college diplomas worked just over 8 hours per day.
4. Non work Household activities on average only made up 1.95 hours per day.
5. Food preparation was the highest rated activity with .64 hours total time per day (not meal)

Here is something that is particularly interesting.

1. Watching TV for people over the age of 15 accounted for 2.86 hours PER DAY of time.
2. Sports took up 5.27 hours per DAY of time.
3. Relaxing and thinking only took up .34 hours of daily time.
4. Reading for personal interest only .28 hours of time.
5. Exercise was only .32 hours per day
6. Civic and Religious activities only makes up .15 hours per day for men

Summary:  https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_you_never_seem_to_have_enough_time

“From 1965 to 2003, the average American workweek actually declined by three hours, while leisure time increased. And in many places in the developed world, the workweek has gotten even shorter since then. In one study of more than 7,000 working Australians, researchers declared that time pressure is an “illusion.” They estimated how much time is necessary for basic living—hours of paid work, housework, and personal care—and compared it to how much free time people had in their actual schedules.”

It goes on…

“Those who feel most overworked—those who have least ‘free time’—largely do it to themselves,” the researchers wrote. In other words, we could theoretically spend fewer hours making money, vacuuming and washing dishes, or cooking and eating, and we’d get by without getting overwhelmed.”

Part 3: The reality is that we aren’t truly busier than our parents, so where is the time going?  

Well the data we gave you already shows TV (netflix and chill) is a huge taker of our time.  It is different for different people.  For some it is surfing the internet aimlessly, for others it is ticktok, it can be anything that you do that doesnt lead you to becoming a better person.  For most people they don’t even realize they spend are spending so much time doing all these things.

Thought:  We don’t really need more than 24 hours in a day…we need to become more aware of how we are spending those 24 hours.  We also need to be intention with our we spend our time.  In life there are only so many “ducks” to give, so quit giving “ducks” to non important things (Mark Ronsan).  

Part 4:  So how do we harvest more time?  

This is step 1 in a multi episode process.  That is an important thing for you to know.  The first step is awareness of how you spend your day, and then create a plan to be more intentional with your time.  

We need to take account of our current “time soil.”  What nutrients are in the soil?  What is the makeup of our land?”  We need to do this with our time.  For this reason, everyone listening needs to start of this year by going through a 48 hours time tracking period.  This is a “soil test” for your most valuable resource…your time!

I want to pause here…many of you are about to jump off the train right here…DONT DO IT!  If you feel like your time is perfect and you don’t need to do it, than you are probably the one that needs it most.  If you feel like this won’t help you…you are probably the one that we are talking with.

Truth…

1. Most successful people know where their time is spent.
2. Successful people understand that their time is valuable.  The quit giving it to people, places, and things that don’t matter.
   1. In your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robbins, she talks about everyone needs to know their time value.  For me, with a doctorate degree in education, I know that my time value is 70 dollars per hour.  When I spend time on things that don’t pay me 70 per hour, I am actually losing money!  My time is valuable.  I actually delegate tasks under that per hour amount to other people.  This is getting down the rabbit hole…we will cover this later.  KNOW YOUR WORTH!  

ACTION STEP.  Time Tracking Sheet

So for those of you that are serious about changing your life this year, let's get down to it.  I want to be clear, without going all out on this step, you won’t harvest more time, you will just continue to be the same.  That's the simple truth!

Are you ready to harvest more time?  Here we go.

For the next 48 hours, you are going to write down everything you do. The bare minimum is an hour by hour account, though if you really want to 10X this, let me suggest going hard at 15 or 30 minute segments.  

To make this easy for you…we have already put together a pdf tracking sheet.  If you go to our website…ABrodaciousLife.com and register to receive our FREE NEWSLETTER, we will send you this pdf for free.  We already have it so that it is uploadable into most ipad notetake apps that allow for pdf upload.  You can also print it, or just use it to create your own digital version.  Side note:  We do a two step sign up on our newsletter, so when you sign up for a newsletter, don’t forget to immediately reply to the confirmation email.  This helps us to make sure nobody gets spammed by us…ever.

So on the Time Tracker sheet, here is what you need to do.  Use ours or create your own.

1.  Use our sheet or create your own.  If you are using your own, here are the columns that we have on our tracking sheet.  Date.  Activity (where we write down what we did), Time (this is where we write down…honestly…how much time we spent on that activity), and the final column is classification or notes (Where we categorize our activities).
2. From here it is pretty simple, you will log in all your activities and how much time you spent doing them.  Did you got to bed at night…log it!  Knowing how much you are sleeping is huge..some of you are going to discover you aren’t sleeping enough!  Did you watch Andor on Disney Plus?  Log it!  Date night?  Log it!  Emails at work? Log it! Cooking, shower, board games with kids, church, prayer, conferences, meetings, log it all!  Be specific.
3. You will code the activities so that you can summarize the areas you are spending the most time in.  Here are mine: Classifications:  M-meals, Fa-faith,  Fm-family,  Fr-freedom, Fi-finance, Fu-fun, Fn-Fitness
   1. For me, work matters are about earning money to spend on Faith, Family, Freedom, and Fun…so I categorize these in the Fi area.  Did I take the stairs instead of the elevator and spend an extra 15 minutes, yes!  But it was a fitness choice, I classify it there.
   2. You can use our classifications, or use your own.  The important thing is to BE HONEST! 

Interpreting the Results…AKA the Time Harvest

Once you have done this for three days, take a long hard look at your database.  Be objective!  Remember, you will only grow if you are serious about the business.  Here are a few questions to ask yourself this week.  We have another episode coming up dedicated to telling you what to do with this information.  

Questions to ask yourself:

1. Where was most of your time spent?
2. What areas of the Brodacious Life (Faith, Family, Freedom, Finance, Fun) do you say is most important to you?  Did you spend most of your time in that area?  If not, is really as important as you say it is?
3. How much time did you spend with your Family?  Was your time spent with your family (talking together, playing together, communication…silently watching TV doesn’t count) greater than your time in the Fun category.  
4. If you are struggling with your finances?  How much time are you dedicating to this area?  I don’t mean work, how much time did you read books, audio books, podcasts, reading books, or spending time with people who are successful to learn what they know.  How much time did you spend doing things to pull you up into a new situation?
5. Ultimately, if you are like most people…myself included…I discover every year that I need to “rebalance my time portfolio” so that I can harvest more time to spend in the right areas.

Closing…

So here we go!  Go download the time tracker sheet right now.  Let's be serious about discovering our time.  Ultimately, the bible says that where our treasure is, there our heart will be also.  A more secular way of saying it is, in life there are only so many “ducks” to give…so we need to see where we are giving our “ducks” so we can make sure we aren’t giving “ducks” to things that don’t deserve a “duck” and instead give more “ducks” to the people, places, and things that make us better.

Be sure to like and subscribe to this show because we are just getting started.  2023 is all about developing a new you.  Let’s live Brodaciously through Faith. Family. Freedom. Finance. And Fun!