What do you spend two hours a day doing?

• Scrolling social media
• Watching TV
• Traveling to & from work
• Gym (including travel, workout, shower)
• Housework (laundry, dishes, cleaning, tidying up)
• Preparing food
• Eating meals
• Socializing with friends

These are all pretty normal things that many of us would spend 2-hours a day on.

Did you realized that a two hour time block a day adds up to 1 month a year?

I did not.

If you think about your waking hours, it is actually 1.5 months a year.

Wow.

Spending 2 hours a day scrolling social media, is like spending all your waking hours from January until mid-February watching social media.

Spending 2 hours a day travelling to & from work, takes you from mid-February until the end of March.

Look at that! Hanging out on social media and getting to and from work just got you through the worst of our Canadian winter!

This surprised me.

A couple of hours of tv a night doesn’t seem like a lot. Watch the evening news and catch one episode of a show you enjoy and BAM…a month and a half of your life used up!

We may not condense any one activity into 1 & 1/2  months straight but, when you look at it through this lens, no wonder time seems to fly.

The 2-hour a day realization gave me a new perspective on my time.

How You Really Spend Your Life

We spend 4 months a year tucked into our beds snoozing.

We are wide awake and living life only 8 months of every year.

The rest of the time we are hibernating like bears!

Of the 8 months we’re awake, 4 months worth of our waking hours are spent at work.

This surprised me also.

It feels like I spend much more than 4 months of my life working!!

That leaves 4 months a year for EVERYTHING else.

Everything.

• Chores.
• Adventures.
• Time with family.
• Staying in shape.
• Hobbies.
• Going to the dentist.
• Filling the car with gas.
• Self-care.
• Getting the groceries.
• Mowing the lawn.
• Reading a good book.
• Taking a vacation.
• Celebrate Christmas.

Everything else!

Sleeping – 4 months a year.

Working – 4 months a year.

Living Life – 4 months a year.

Are You Living Life To The Fullest?

Many of us feel like we are wasting our time, or worse…our lives.

We get distracted in front of the tv or hanging out on social media for too long.

Have you even been annoyed at yourself for sitting around on your phone all day and accomplishing nothing?

Ever feel like you’re halfway thought the month and you haven’t gotten to that “one thing” you really wanted or needed to do?

Do you have a list of projects that are half-finished (or maybe not started at all)?

Places you’ve intended to visit, restaurants you’d like to try, and festivals you miss out on every single year?  (I’ve yet to make it to Nova Scotia’s Apple Blossom Festival, but it is on the list!)

Life has a lot to offer. It seems we only have 8-hours a day to live life to the max!

If we are not intentional about how we spend those 8-hours a day, it is easy for our time to get away from us.

A New Lens

We have 8 magical hours a day that are not committed to sleep or work.

If we simplify a little (and why wouldn’t we?) we can think of every hour that we spend daily on an activity as taking up 1/2 month of our lives each year.

Again, please allow me a bit of a simplification, but as we are living life only 4 months a year, generally speaking we have 8 time slots to fill annually.

What are the 8 things you are focused on right now?

Grab a piece of paper or start a list on your phone.

Think about your day in hour blocks. How are you spending your time today?

You probably spend an hour a day on housework. Another on meals. Another in the car diving to work or running kiddos around. Maybe 2 hours in front of the tv or on social media.

How else do you fill your time?

Some people will spend an hour at the gym or walking the dog.

How many minutes a day do you spend stepping outside for some “fresh air” (i.e. smoking?).

Do you spend time on hobbies or participate in group activities or a club? Or maybe your children do and you spend a lot of time at the hockey rink or baseball field watching their games.

See if you can come up with the list. It doesn’t have to be perfect but it is helpful to know how you are generally spending your time.

This Is Your Life

Now look at your list. This list is your life.

How do you feel?

Are you living it to the fullest?

I hope that you can say that most of the things on your list make you feel happy and fulfilled.

If you are feeling bored or dissatisfied with your list, don’t despair.

Just by creating this list, you will find that you start to be more picky about how you are spending your time.

Must do. Says who?

I hear your monkey mind (the little voice that chatters in your head).

It is saying that you everything on your list must be done and you have no control over your time.

Your kids need you to run them to school. Your sister counts on you to be her dog sitter. The church group relies on your maple fudge for the bake sale. Someone needs to buy groceries!

Of course, there are some things that must be done during those 8 hours.

Make it a life goal to minimize the “must do” in life and maximize the “want to” instead!

Minimize The “Must Do”

As I simplified my life I eliminated many of the things I used to think were necessary at one time.

Things like:

• Wearing makeup
• Putting in contacts
• Dyeing my hair
• Driving 2 hours to and from work everyday.
• Watching tv
• Going to the gym

There is nothing wrong with any of these things.

They do take up time, however, and I decided these weren’t the things that I wanted to do with my time.

Instead of going to the gym, I go outside. It makes me happier to be in nature. I hike, snowshoe, paddle. Whatever.

This little tweak to my time makes me happy to exercise.

I don’t watch tv, but you will find me on YouTube.

Following van life, permaculture gardening, and watercolor art channels. Things I am interested in that don’t show up on mainstream tv.

I feel like I am learning rather than just zoning out in front of the tv.

It makes my life fuller.

Make The “Must Do” More Fun

Make a real effort to make the must dos enjoyable.

I used to hate making lunches to take to work. 

I did it every day and I was tired of sandwiches and leftovers.

I went to Pinterest and started looking for ideas.

I now have a board called “Grown Up Lunch Box” with 90 pins on it.

I also own a Bento box. (Two actually, which is a big deal for a minimalist!)

I enjoy making my “grown up” lunches.

I’ll buy special treats to add. Olives, avocado, hummus, fancy cheese, and sometimes smoked salmon are featured in my lunches.

It seems silly, but it worked.

A dreaded daily experience has become fun.

Sneak The “Must Do” Into Your Routine

I wasted every Saturday morning cleaning.

I would rush to get it over with and get to the fun stuff in my day.

Now I sneak in much of my house cleaning into my daily routines.

This is a FlyLady thing. If you don’t know who FlyLady is check out this post: What’s a FlyLady? (And How Can She Help You Simplify Your Life?).

I make my bed so I can lay out my clothes to get dressed.

I keep the cleaners right in the bathroom and will give the sink a “swish and swipe” (FlyLady terminology) after brushing my teeth.

I have a habit of starting a load of laundry each morning when I get up.  I throw it in the dryer before I leave for work. I fold it and put it away when I get home and am changing out of my work clothes.

I’ll tidy a zone each week (more FlyLady stuff).

I rarely do any housework on Saturdays anymore.

As a bonus, my house is always clean for me to enjoy.

After YEARS of hating housework, I don’t even feel like I do housework anymore.

Maximize The “Want To”

How do you want to spend your time?

What are the 8 things you want to focus on this year?

Can you make a list?

This is often the sticking point.

We have been on autopilot for so long that we really aren’t sure what else we would do with our time…if we weren’t doing what we do now.

We are so used to thinking that we don’t have time for anything else in life, that we haven’t thought about what else there might be!

Imagine your ideal day. Think about what a living life to the fullest means to you.

Does it mean adventures & travel? Quality time with family? Maybe you are a thrill seeker and you want to run marathons or climb mountains. Perhaps the good life is having the time to curl up with a good book.

Not sure?

What is something that you are waiting for retirement to do?  What’s on your bucket list?

Those things that you dream of doing “when you have the time” are the things that, if you were doing them now, would contribute to living life to the fullest.

Pull something from the bucket list and start spending time on it.

Sleep 8 hours a day.

Work 8 hours a day.

Spend 6 hours a day doing the musts (if you must).

Keep 2 hours a day for your interests. Those things that make your life fuller.

Monkey mind is back.

Two hours a day seems like a lot.

Where will you find 2 hours a day?

Who will watch the kiddos?

How is this even possible?

The only way is to just begin.

Strategies To Get 2 Hours A Day

Eliminate

Look at your daily tasks and ditch something!

This is the easiest way to find time. Just stop doing something you are already doing.

Look at your time critically.

Why are you transferring the dog food to another container? The dog doesn’t care. Feed him straight from the bag.

Tired of moving the foot stool every time you vacuum? Is it never used anyway because it is always piled up with stuff? Get rid of it. You don’t have to clean under it anymore, and you don’t have to clear it off any more.

If nobody ever wants to feed the fish or clean the tank, why do you have them?

Stop sweeping the spiders off the garden lights. You are never out there at night anyway. Take them down.

Streamline

Work smarter, not harder.

Pick up your groceries on your way home from work. You are driving by the grocery store anyway and it means you won’t have to return later.

Arrange with another mom to take turns taking the kiddos to their games. This way you both find some extra time!

Stop running to the bakery on the edge of town. Sure their buns are the best, but your family doesn’t need them every week. Save them for a special treat.

Making bacon for breakfast? Cooking extra and saving it for BLT’s later in the week will save you the frying time later.

Small changes add up!

Simplify

Pick the thing that you least enjoy doing and simplify that thing.

Not sure how?

Do a Google search or go to Pinterest to look for hacks.

This is what I did for housework and for making lunches.

If you hate deciding on dinner every day, set up a recurring menu. Do a roast on Sunday (beef, pork or chicken) and use the leftovers for hot sandwiches on Mondays. Taco Tuesday. Pasta on Wednesday. You can still mix it up – spaghetti, ravioli, etc. but at least you have minimized the decision making.

Hate sorting socks? Buy everyone in the house the same white socks.

Is your calendar too full? Drop the book club, get off the board, skip drinks after work, stop volunteering.

This does not make you a bad person. It makes you a person who is focused on living life to the fullest.

Try new routines to see if they make life easier for you.

Steal

Sneak some time from your 8 hour workday.

No, I don’t mean when you should be working!

Most jobs give you an hour for lunch and rarely do we spend the full hour eating.

Spend a half hour to get in your exercise for the day by taking a walk.

Use your lunch hour to read, knit, meditate, or call your mom.

Go online and do your bills and banking.

Using your lunch hour wisely frees up your after hours for other things.

Delegate

If the kiddos are old enough to complain that the sparkly top they wanted to wear today isn’t clean, they are old enough to do their own laundry.

You do not need to be the only person in the house who walks the dog. Set up a schedule, or delegate the task entirely.

Let everyone make their own packed lunch.

Say No

As James Clear would say The Ultimate Productivity Hack is Saying No. We often commit to things that we don’t have to do.

Sometimes we don’t even want to do them!

Learning to politely (we are Canadian, eh?) say no to invitations, meetings, and gatherings that we can avoid gets us back our time.

Start Small

Begin with 30 minutes.

After the kiddos are tucked in bed sit down with your sketchbook and doodle. Find the next recipe that you want to learn how to make and see what ingredients you are missing. Research your bucket-list vacation. Do a FlyLady routine.

This is how I began. I’d quit tv (because following my separation I didn’t have one). Instead, I’d tackle the FlyLady mission for the day after the kiddos were put to bed.

Before I knew it my household was clean and organized and I was living a better life! 

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was starting down the road to living life to the fullest.

The Simple Summary

Spending even a small amount of time on meaningful activities that you enjoy will motivate you to make room for more in your life!

Make space.

Even if you don’t replace it with anything specific right away, you will start to feel like you have breathing room.

Possibilities will open up.

You don’t have to have 2 focused hours a day right out of the gate. Just know that is the goal.

Living life to the fullest requires us to be mindful of how we spend our time. 

Don’t waste any more hours of your time.  Get started today!