Time to maximize what matters most to you. For most people….”Killing time is not murder, it’s suicide!” Tony Robbins and here
Oh, wait! There's another game on. I'll get to it later...
What does that mean?
This is a quote I like, even though it’s obviously shortened. It starts by emphasizing that you need to figure out what matters most to you and get busy working on it. There is also an undercurrent of time utilization or time management in the quote.
The quote finishes with a very emotional statement that killing time (wasting time) isn’t murder (obviously a very serious crime), but is suicide. Think about it for a moment. When we kill time, who is it we are hurting, someone else, or ourselves? The quote urges us to quit doing that and start using that time for something that matters!
Why is good use of time important?
I’ve said it before (here and here), and I’ll say it again. Time is the one thing we all have that is identical. Rich or poor, male or female, every race, creed or any other way we divide ourselves from one another. We all get 24 hours in a day, and seven days in a week. For as long as we’re alive, it is the same.
The only difference between us with respect to time is in how we use it, or fail to use it. If we are wise and disciplined, we can accomplish much with our time. If we are neither, we are much less likely to get anything worthwhile accomplished.
Where can I apply this in my life?
I also like this quote because of it’s emotional impact. Tony has been known to use emotionally charged words to get a point across. He seems to subscribe to Sir Winston Churchill’s dictum on subtlety. It certainly gets your attention and gets you thinking a bit, doesn’t it?
This time of year, it’s hard to not get drawn into watching football games. Bowl games are everywhere. My team is even on as I am writing this. In fact, I just got back from walking over and setting it to record so I can finish the blog first, then watch it. Temporal suicide averted, right?
We are rapidly coming on the new year. How will you use your time? In what ways do you kill time? And how does that impact your life? Grab some paper and write down some of the ways you have killed time this past year. List everything you can think of, and write down how much time you wasted doing it (hours per week or per month would be one way to measure this).
For me, the big time killer over the last two years was a facebook game. A few months ago, I quit the game and have spent the last few weeks un-friending all the people who only existed to support my game habit. I was wasting two to three hours per *DAY* on the game. Over the course of a year, that was over 1000 hours. The same as about half of a full time job.
Now that you have an idea of how much time you wasted last year, take a moment to mourn the time you killed, and the small part of yourself that died with it. Think of all the things you had hoped to get done this year that didn’t get done because of this wasted time. Take a few minutes to let it sink in. I know I feel pretty bad, and I hope you do as well.
Wait, what? I hope you feel bad? Yep! I’m going to use this bad feeling to motivate me to get busy next time I catch myself wasting time. I’m going to give myself hell for doing it, and use this bad feeling to drive the point home. I hope you do as well, it’s a useful technique, if a bit painful. But we are are wired to avoid pain, so it is effective.
Now that you have cleared some time on your calendar, take a moment to consider what you’ll do with all that extra time in the new year. You have numbers listed for hours, start figuring out how you are going to use that time to your best advantage. Start on your New Year’s Resolutions now. 8)
Then, as an added bonus, take a moment to consider what things that don’t actually qualify as “killing time,” and determine which one goes first, if you get in a time crunch. If you make the decision now, you will find it easier to get the extra time to finish a project or finish up an accomplishment.
So have a happy and prosperous New Year and don’t kill yourself, or time for that matter. And use your time to get the most out of that which matters the most to you.
From: Twitter, his twitter account @tonyrobbins and his facebook page
confirmed at : http://www.facebook.com/TonyRobbins/posts/10150438878594060
Photo by DaGoaty
