How To Free Up Time To Enjoy Life?

You know that time does not wait for you for the perfect moment, and, if you are postponing being happy for a future time, it's your time wasted in pursuit of happiness. You know that your time is limited and is moving. This minute gone is gone forever. How to free up time to enjoy more of your life? 

What are you busy with?
Traffic, news, TV, sports, politics, gossip, sleeping, meetings, outings, shopping, waiting in line, social media, running errands, cleaning, makeup.... etc.

All of the above activities take majority of our time during the day, and night, and all of them are okay at one time or another to be experienced. The only thing that creates a problem is when you do one or two of the same activities over and over for a long time. Obviously, you enjoy some of your activities and dread others. This is your normal routine life, but if your normal routine life has become chaotic and stressful, then it's time to do something different. When you don't have time for the simple pleasures of having a quiet time, or enjoying a cup of coffee with a good book, or taking the time to exercise or meditate, then it's time to change because if you don't change now, you'll never stop the rat race that you are in right now. 

You go about your day as if it'll be better the next day, and then the next day, but months pass by before you see any changes. Precious time has gone without you fully enjoying it. We've all been there, and it's just not worth it. You don't have to be busy every minute of your day to be productive. 

Here's th​e big idea:
It really doesn't matter who you are and what you do, you get 24 hours in a day. What you do with that 24 hours, it's all up to you. You have a choice to fill up your day and night with your favorite activities. Of course, you need to do some activities whether you like or not, like brushing your teeth, shower in the morning, cleaning after yourself, or doing your laundry, but asides from these necessary chores, some of your activities that does not make you happy are not necessary. By eliminating them from your day, you allow that slot of time to enjoy doing something that you love. 

If we categorize our activities into the following FOUR categories, we will be able to eliminate a few of the activities that have taken majority of our time.  

1. Must do: life & death related activities for ourselves and our family. Majority of the things that we feel we MUST do are optional.... We only tell ourselves that so to make ourselves special or important. For instance, we Must go to that party; we Must buy a new dress; we MUST check your Facebook ten times a day. The only things that you Must DO have the following criteria: You MUST take yourself or your child (or dependent parent) to the doctor if you or they are sick; You Must assist an immediate family member if they are going through life threatening emergency and we're the only one available.  
2. Should do: everything that your heart desires and gives you pleasure. You have been putting this type of activities on the top shelf of to do list and then it takes forever to get to them. These are activities that brings you more joy and are very close to what you truly want in life. 
3. Have to do: Nothing - because when you have to do something, it's because of someone else's expectation or out of fear of something. Unless someone has put a gun on your head, you really don't have to do anything. You can always come up with a reason why you didn't do something or didn't go somewhere. Fear plays a big role if your attitude is mostly asks you that you have to do something or otherwise.... 
4. Need to do: eat, sleep, work; exercise; personal chores, groom, learn, relax. These are the your basic needs activities. Sometimes it goes off balance, but you need to do these kind of activities even if you live in a jungle by yourself.

Action P​lan:
Now, it's time to evaluate your daily activities and eliminate things that does not fit into any one of the categories above:

1. Record your daily activities for a week
2. Categorize based on the above criteria everything you did during the past week
3. Go over each one of them and ask yourself can I live without it - ask yourself why three times before getting to the final answer. For instance, can you live without watching the news? the answer is yes. Why? because I don't need to know what's happening in the world three times a day; Why? because it's other people's problems. Why? because it makes me feel depressed or scared. 
4. Eliminate everything from your HAVE TO DO category & place a few of them into GET TO DO category. This is how you approach your activities from gratitude and joy perspective. It's a very important action plan to having more happiness throughout your day. 
5. Think how can you delegate, negotiate, or re-arrange some of your need to do activities so you can free up some more of your time.
6. Schedule to add more of your should do activities into your day. This is where happiness within shows up in your life and this is when life is simple and good. 

It's important that you take action now, because the time to do it is now. Your life won't wait for you. If you are wondering why you need to do this, please refer to the article why happiness matters. And, if you like to know what makes you happy, download the Define Your Happiness Worksheet below and start your journey. 

Remember, that your natural state is to be happy!

Love,

Now, it's your turn. Please leave a comment below AND let me know what activities did you eliminate from your life and what did you add.... I'm most appreciative of your time and participation.