There are 525,600 reasons why time management is important for success. Each one is unique in its own way…
Every morning I wake up around 5:30 AM (depending on how many times I say, “Hey Siri, snooze.”). But no matter what, I’m up by 6 AM.
I don’t say this to imply that I’m a morning person. Nor do I think you have to be one to be successful. Because I’m not a morning person, and by all measures, I’m successful.
I wake up because Cameron has to be at school by 7:00 AM for baseball weight lifting. And the drive is roughly 45 minutes from our house.
It’s a choice we made when we decided that we were going to send our kids to private school and live on a lake. In Charlotte, those two things are generally on opposite sides of the city. So, for the last 10 years, we’ve made that drive twice a day.
Until this year, the kids have been at the same school. But the school they attended doesn’t have a high school. So now, Cameron and Cole go to different schools.
And this causes some inconvenience.
Once I drop Cameron off, it’s a fifteen-minute drive to Cole’s school. At which point, he cannot get out of the car until 7:45 AM. So we sit in the carpool line for 30 minutes.
And to understand why time management is important, you have to understand those 30 minutes.
We’re usually first in line. About five or so minutes after we get there, the line starts filling up. These people have to be at work likely by 9:00 AM. So they want to drop their kids off right at the bell to get to work.
Each person sitting there – including me – has theoretical “dead time.”
“Dead time” is time where, if you don’t have a time management plan, you aren’t productive. And it’s not relaxing. You’re sitting in a car doing nothing. Maybe you can check some emails. Perhaps you can do a conference call. But I will guess that most people surf the internet. Flip through TikTok. Swipe through Instagram. Get caught up on Facebook.
It’s planned non-productive time.
In each year, you are allotted 525,600 minutes. Each one is unique. You never get them back. Those fleeting minutes are why time management is important.
I don’t know when I wrapped my head around this concept of fleeting time. But fleeting it is.
And now, I recognize that time is my most valuable asset.
You’ll never get your time back. And you never know how much you have left.
For me, especially this year, with this project – one percent better every day – I don’t want to waste any of it.
So now, I’ve resuscitated that dead time.
I use it for two purposes. First, it’s rare time that I spend only with Cole. So I use it to be present, in the moment with just him, having whatever conversation he wants to have. Sometimes he doesn’t want to have one, and I prod a little. But I don’t force it. He’s a somewhat moody pre-teen.
When he doesn’t want to talk, I pull out the notes app and I write. This post is being written on my iPhone.
That 30 minutes of dead time, over the approximately 180 days they are in school comes out to 5,400 minutes, or 3.75 full 24-hour DAYS of potentially wasted time. More than 1% of the entire year.
Break that into 8-hour workdays and I’ve picked up 11.25 working days per year of productive time. That’s why time management is important.
I realized that by just eliminating that dead time and using it toward something on my improvement list – like being present with my family or creating content – then I can magnify what is already an obvious one percent improvement in time management.
What can you do with an extra 11 days per year? Launch your new product? Take that dream vacation you “don’t have time for?”
If you think about it, you’ll probably realize that you life is filled with dead time. Time where you could be productive but you’re not. And you’re not really enjoying it either. I know if you said, “Ben, cut out one episode of whatever TV you’re watching every night. Do that for 180 days and work on something. In six months you’ll gain enough time to take an extra week of vacation in the Caribbean.” I’m making that commitment.
That’s why time management is important. Because if you spend it wisely, you actually can get more freedom to actually enjoy it.
