You might think that you’re already booked solid, but the truth is that it’s not that difficult to find an hour for yourself by stealing a little bit of time from other activities.
Everyone needs a little quiet time because, without it, stress, depression, and anxiety tend to creep into our lives.
Creating an extra hour each day for reflection can really pay off over time.You’ll find that the quality of your life improves when you make time to reflect on your goals, dreams, and desires.
Focusing your mind on what’s most important to you enables you to go after those dreams with a passion and bring them to life.
Try these ideas to find that extra time to reflect:
- Re-purpose some of your TV time.Television is a significant time waster. Most people average 4+ hours of TV per day. If that’s you, this is an easy place to find an hour.
- Spend less time on the internet.The net is a great source of information, but it’s also an easy place to spend a lot of unproductive time. For example, how much time do you spend on social media websites reading about what your friends are having for dinner? Really? Just cut back and use the time for yourself.
- Early to bed, early to rise…If you can get up an hour earlier, that’s an hour you have to yourself. There’s something quiet and peaceful about the morning that you don’t get at other times of the day.
- Limit your email time. Plan a specific amount of time, once per day, to check and reply to emails.
- Cut out some shopping. Drop all your shopping (except grocery shopping) for a month. It’s just a month. You can go for a month without buying anything, can’t you?
- Take a longer lunch break. If you’re getting your work done, maybe you can extend your lunch and get your solitude in the middle of the day.
- Skip the news. Go for 30 days without watching, reading, or listening to any news. You can go back after a month if you really miss it.
- Drop some of the extraneous after work activities. Instead of all the other things you might have planned, use some of this time for yourself.
- Ration your reading time. Keep the most important parts of your reading activity and limit the non-essential reading to a set amount of time each day.
- Cut down on your playtime.It’s certainly important for your well being to take time to relax and participate in activities that you enjoy. However, if you find that you play video games for hours at a time or spend frequent evenings out on the town, perhaps you can shave a little of this time off for reflection.
These are 10 ways you can find another hour, and you can easily find 10 more. If you use just 4 of these ideas each day, you would only have to cut out 15 minutes of each activity to find your hour.
How can you use that hour to create a more fulfilling life? Try these tips:
- Review your goals. Remind yourself of your goals every day. How are things progressing? Is your plan to reach your goals moving you forward? Just reading them each day is helpful.
- Think about your day. Each day, ask yourself what you’ve learned. What did you do well? What mistakes did you make? Can you make choices that serve you better? How? What are you grateful for today?
- Imagine if each day were a little better than the last, on the average. What would your life be like a year from now?
- Meditate. Escape the hustle and bustle of life and quiet your mind.
- Journal. You’ll be shocked at how much you can learn about yourself when you write down your feelings. Plus, a journal gives you a venue to write about your challenges, reduce your stress about them, and work through them to find solutions.
Give yourself the gift of an extra hour each day for reflection. An hour a day can be transformational – find your hour and take advantage of it. You’ll be so glad
