Good Life Project - Life-sucking Lie #1: I Don’t Have Time

Episode Date: May 21, 2015

It’s not the box society puts us in that limits who we become, it’s the box we put ourselves in.There's no secret to success. No magic bullet. No pixie dust. Success in any endeavor is about doing the work, every day and not running for cover when things get hard. Because they always will. Even when it's right.Taking fierce, consistent action, though, is easier said than done. Especially when that action potentially exposes you to failure, or being judged or ridiculed, or cast out of a family or group or community. So our “seemingly” rational brains assume into existence all sorts of reasons not to act.This week's Good Life Project Riff is the first in a series about the lies we tell ourselves that keep us from doing great work and living extraordinary lives. With each new offering in the series, we’ll do a bit of myth-busting and box-breaking, then offer something to do. Sometimes, multiple things.Today, to kick off the series, we're starting with something we've all said, many, many times...Life-sucking Lie #1: I don’t have timeSure, there are some people for whom this claim is legit. But as you're about to discover in this week's Riff, that person is likely not you. And, not to worry, we won't leave hanging. Jonathan will also share 4 key elements to reclaiming time and turning time into an ally in your quest to live an extraordinary life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's not the box that society puts us in that limits who we become. It's the box we put ourselves in. Hey guys, this is Jonathan Fields from Good Life Project. And today I have another Good Life Project riff. Short and sweet thought piece that kind of takes you inside something that maybe will help unlock one of the paths or processes or secrets to a life well lived. Today's episode is brought to you by Camp GLP. That is our once a year gathering for entrepreneurs, makers and world shakers. We literally take over an amazing sleepaway camp to create summer camp for adults

with a strong focus on really creating a fantastic life and also building something deeply meaningful in the world. If that sounds awesome to you, check out the details at goodlifeproject.com slash camp, or just check the link in the show notes. I'm Jonathan Fields. This is Good Life Project. So we are the primary authors of the thoughts, words, and limitations that tend to do the most damage to our potential. It's the stories we tell ourselves, the lies that stop us from taking action. There's no mystery to success in any field. It's a process of moving through what I call the thrash, honing direction and then acting consistently every single day. Action, however, ain't easy, especially action that exposes you to judgment or to the unknown. Joseph Campbell's abyss,

we don't like being in that place where we don't know how things are going to turn out. So our seemingly rational brains conjure up all manner of reasons not to act. But in doing so, they also keep us from what Campbell said lies deep inside that abyss, our treasure. This is the first in a series about lies we tell ourselves that keep us from success. And with each new offer in the series, we'll do a bit of myth busting and box breaking, and then offer something to do. First up, the I don't have time myth. So there are people in this world for whom this claim is valid. If you're a single parent working multiple jobs to keep a roof over your kid's head and put food on the table, that may be you. If you live in a developing country and spend every waking hour providing for security and sustainability, that may be you. If you have

little access to education and no online or local access to tools, to mentors and resources, you likely qualify. If you've eliminated all non-productive activities like TV, web surfing, social media, passive non-learning media consumption, drinking, smoking, killing time, then you probably are that rare person who gets a pass. But simply by the fact that you're here, listening to this now, makes it unlikely that you are that person. For the rest of us, and I raise my hand here, the I don't have time lie simply doesn't apply. Because with the exception of the above, time is never really about time. It's about four things. Awareness, intentionality, prioritization, and action. So let's talk about these. Number one, awareness. In order to change your behavior, become a master

of time and an action investor, you first need to become aware of how you're spending your time. Awareness is the precursor of deliberate change. Most of us have no idea how much time we're really wasting on a daily basis, especially because an increasing volume is being lost to the digital divide in hundreds or thousands of microbursts. A few seconds of texting or status updating here and a few minutes surfing there adds up to hours a day without you being even remotely aware of the cumulative attention sinkhole you're digging. So three ideas to build awareness for you. One, install some sort of time tracking application on your computer. Rescue Time

is a really neat example of this. It tracks where you're spending your time in the background all day long. So if you use an Android-based mobile device, you can install it there and then track actually your mobile time stuff too. iPhone users, as far as I know, I'm not aware of that app being ready for it, but you can certainly do a lot tracking your desktop time. So two, assess end-of-day time allocation. Before you go to bed for seven days, walk through your day and write down your data. Time on the phone that was non-growth-oriented, time-consuming non-growth-oriented screen or other entertainment. That could be videos, games, TV, etc.

Then count the total number of text messages sent and received and the total number of status updates, Instagram updates, Snapchat, story checks, all those little things and multiply by at least a minute. Why one minute? Because even though it may have only taken you five or 10 seconds to compose or read each one of those, there's also a cognitive ramping cost for every single interruption, meaning it takes you time for your brain to get back to where it was and refocus again. Add up all the time and record the total number of minutes for each day. You may be a little horrified when you do that. I know I was. Three, build a meditation practice, more specifically a mindfulness practice. So this is not an instant solution, but over time it trains you to more easily notice where you're

placing your attention. The best way to learn is live instruction. If you don't have access to a mindfulness teacher locally, then check out different apps online. There are a whole bunch of them now. I use Insight Timer as a great timing app for my meditation. And within that, there are all sorts of guided meditations, many of them for free, that you can explore. These things are a great way to ease into the practice with guided instruction. Start only 10 minutes a day. And by the way, those 10 minutes count as growth-oriented and awareness building. So no need to note those on your daily time sync journal. All these awareness increases and processes set you up to be better able to do number two, and that's be more intentional

and prioritize. So once you start to become more aware and all too often horrified at how you're really spending your time, you also tend to awaken to the possibility of redirecting your efforts in a way that fuels the outcomes you truly want, rather than the outcomes that come from a reactive and distracted approach to life. Awareness creates both the inspiration and the space to become more intentional about how you invest your time and prioritize what matters. Write down what truly matters to you. Write down what success looks like to you.

In all areas of life, then deconstruct it. What are the steps along the way that would bring you closer? And what are the actions you'd need to take to make each step happen? Write it all down. Take time. This is hard work. So then before you go to bed each night, write down the one to three actions that you can take the next day that'll move the needle the most in the direction of your most meaningful outcomes. Only write down what can be accomplished with assurance in a single day. If it's part of a longer-term process, that's fine. But for this exercise, chunk the action down to a single-day task.

Do not wait until the morning to do this, by the way. If you do, it'll rarely ever happen. Then take high leverage action before anything else. When you arise the next day, re-examine your short list of actions. Your willpower is always at its highest levels in the morning. So as the day unfolds, your self-regulation tank runs pretty close to dry. So do these high leverage actions as early in the day as possible, especially if they're high leverage, but you don't perceive them as being overly enjoyable.

So if your action is to meditate or exercise, do it first thing in the morning, even if it means waking up earlier and going to sleep earlier to make it happen. Fun little mini case study. We've got someone on our Good Life Project team named Casey or Christopher Carter, whose unofficial title is Time Bender. So the guy works a full-time job with a fair amount of travel. He's got a wife and three little kids, spends a lot of time with all, not just face time, but quality time. He runs and exercises nearly every day and meditates another hour to two hours a day.

He writes, he performs music, he's building his own outside brand as a mindfulness and business evangelist and trainer and speaker. And that full-time job, it's not actually with GLP. He works for us on the side and gets more accomplished in the time he gives us than most other humans. A full-time high-level job with travel, a wife with three kiddies, maintaining a home would be enough for your average bear to say, that's it. I simply don't have time for more. No time for exercise or meditation or music or friends or a future business side hustle or a second job with a completely different venture. He has every reason in the world to justify inaction beyond his core commitments. But instead, he gets up every morning at 5.30 and optimizes nearly every minute of every day on a level that

allows him to do what no one else does. Notice I didn't say what no one else can, because with rare exception, you can. He does all this because he's cultivated a fierce awareness practice. He chooses every day, even when it's brutally hard, to focus on entirely what matters, on high leverage action, on what he'd call right action. So now it's your turn. Are you ready to take this challenge, to do the work, to move through the first big lie that keeps you from success? As always, if you have more ideas,

strategies, tips, or tools, feel free to share them and to share this episode if you found it valuable. And we'd always appreciate, I'd always appreciate, if you felt like this was valuable, share it with friends and head on over to iTunes and leave a short review. I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. Thank you.