Photo by Oladimeji Ajegbile

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

As I stared at my computer, my fingers hadn’t budged an inch. As far as I knew, my life was divided into 3 categories: time spent relaxing and enjoying “hobbies” (which often meant staring at my smartphone for extended periods of time), time spent working in exchange for income, and time spent sleeping.

Like so many people, I was weighed down by my daily obligations. I had dreams, sure — but everyone does, right? But not everyone has the time or resources to follow their dreams, so I settled on “being realistic” and started to normalize this idea that I didn’t have “enough” resources to follow my dreams.

An Hour Passed, And I Had Nothing To Show For It

For 60 minutes, I tossed and turned in my own head, waiting for the right moment to strike and “inspiration” to take hold. Those were also 60 minutes of time I spent doing absolutely nothing. In the end, I failed to recognize one important fact: time waits for no one.

It didn’t matter if I was angry about the political situation or worried about the Coronavirus outbreak. It didn’t matter that people could possibly disagree with what I have to say, or not like what I create. Did time stop for me so I could collect my thoughts and assuage my anxiety? Sure as hell didn’t seem like it.

Time Is Your Greatest Asset And Your Worst Nightmare

It’s time to face a very important (and scary) fact.

Your time is limited. One day, you’ll cease to exist. You have two choices:

You can waste your time worrying about it, putting off those crazy ambitions and doing nothing to ensure that you get what you are after in life.

Or you can spend that time telling your story to the world and inspiring others to learn from you and become a bastion of knowledge and hope in a world plagued with depression, fear, and learned hopelessness. The choice is yours.

Mastering your time requires that you understand the very idea of how it is spent as it applies to your life. Challenging as it may be, mastering your time can reap massive benefits for you in the end because it means that you can find opportunities to invest in yourself and your future.

Understanding The Four Phases Of Time

If there is one thing that can help you be more creative in short periods of time, it’s the act of visualizing how your time is sectioned off and sold to other people. Doing this forces you to see the big picture and understand what is truly important to you and (therefore) what deserves your time.

For example, most of us have structural time but barely use it to its fullest potential. I’m talking about the 1–2 hours you have before leaving for work. The 1–2 hours you spend constantly hitting the snooze button on your alarm or checking your smartphone, like I do sometimes.

This is what makes your structural time the most powerful form of time there is — nobody owns it, only you.

The thing about structural time is that it’s best used for reflection and recalibration of your personal goals. You don’t have to spend this time working — it’s better to use it as a means of decreasing the friction of responsibilities imposed upon you via your purchased time. This could mean meditating to empty your mind so as to come into work with a clearer head and therefore, improve your productivity. It could also mean figuring out a game plan for becoming self-employed and never having to clock in for a boss again.

This is what makes your structural time the most powerful form of time there is — nobody owns it, only you. Even better, you are in complete control as to how you spend it.

Change How Much Your Time Is Worth

We waste a lot of time. Even at work.

We like to think that we’re pretty productive most of the time. However, if you think about it, some of that time spent during work-leisure could also be spent building a high-value skill or facilitating relationships with potential clients in your chosen freelance expertise.

With the power of the internet, you can effectively control the direct value of your time by learning something that people will pay a lot of money for and utilizing that skill (in exchange for higher pay) in the future. The problem seems to persist in our love for instant gratification.

However, it remains no secret that the biggest contributor to long-term success is delayed gratification. That’s why at the expense of your energy, you must first learn to master your time.

Control Your Time, Control Your Energy

Time is the Great Equalizer. Time never stops or accelerates. Because of its constant nature, we can often lose track of how quickly it can seem to pass. It’s no mystery that the older we get, the quicker time seems to pass us by.

Controlling your time means that you are in a position to alter how you spend your life. You don’t have to be the most efficient person in the world, or aspire to be billionaire CEO. You just have to look deep within yourself and figure out what you’re trying to distract yourself from.

Life’s greatest gift is time.

Spend it on something that gets you ahead and gives you an edge in your personal life and career.

Spend it on the things that matter most to you.