Are you always crunched for time? Or even worse… do you say you have no time? Listen up!
Matt Henderson:
Hey, everyone. It’s Matt from The Business Mind Podcast. Do you feel that you’re always trying to find more time in your day?
Welcome back. Today, we are going to discuss something that is happening to me nonstop, I felt like, and something I had to nip in the bud. I think many of you are going to have the same experience going on. Maybe you figured it out already. Maybe I’m the last one to the party. Maybe you guys haven’t figured it out yet. But let’s talk about it, because I don’t know many people who say they’ve got enough time to get everything they need done during the day, and it’s a problem. I mean, it’s a massive issue for me. I mean, I’ve been trying to work on it for, I don’t know, probably two decades. …I guess I used to feel like I got more done. Right? But I don’t think I was actually getting more accomplished. I just may have been doing more things. What do I mean by that? Well, it’s like the difference between being busy at work and actually getting work done. You can be very busy at work. It doesn’t mean you’re actually getting all the work done that you need. In the same light, I mean, are you finding that in your day-to-day lives?
I had to come on. I wanted to talk about it. Because, something that was hitting me a couple years ago, two years ago, I was on a much more regimented path. I know the term “regimented” sounds, at least to me, it sounds negative, and I don’t want it to be a negative thing. But there is a certain way to go about feeling like you’ve accomplished a lot in your day and in your time that you have. That’s what I’ve been working on getting myself back to, because like I said, I just haven’t been feeling that way. I don’t actually feel regimented. I feel like I just needed more structure to my day, and I think that’s a lot of people.
Now, when you get up, do you know what you’re going to do every day? I’ll bet 99% of people don’t. You’re probably not too dissimilar from most of the working class and whatnot, and you get up and you go through the same routine day in and day out. Right? And it drives you quite literally insane sometimes. For those of you who are old enough, I’m going to definitely date myself here, but if you remember the days of, in the United States, we had the Dunkin Donuts commercials from, oh geez, it was probably the mid to late eighties or early nineties or something like that. I’ll describe it to you. It was a commercial, and this older, overweight gentleman would wake up to the alarm clock, and all he would say is, “Time to make the donuts. Time to make the donuts.” It always seemed like it was the same day happening over and over and over again.
I know a lot of times I feel like that, and during this COVID time, I really have felt like that. I mean, just every day seemed to be quite literally the same, and everything just kept going on the same. Due to that, I feel that bad habits, they set in very quickly, very easily, during times like this. And youknow why, it’s because there wasn’t a lot of structure to the time now that we had. Many people, with the COVID 19 outbreak, everyone has been stuck at home. Jobs were put on hold, people were furloughed, or maybe their businesses closed. I mean, a lot of tough things have happened. What takes place during that is kind of like when someone just loses their job, because maybe they got fired or something along those lines, and people tend to leave and have this very unstructured lifestyle that sets in, because they’re so used to having this regimented pattern they follow every day. So, what do you do to combat it? What do you do to not feel the doldrum of the routine?
It’s something that I had to sit down and speak with my wife about, because I could see it setting in for me. Initially, I just felt that this COVID time would pass and everybody would feel better, including myself, and we would get back to a normal lifestyle. Right? We would go out to eat, or go see friends, family, relatives, all of that kind of stuff. Some of you, I’m sure, have been, and that’s to each their own. For me, I’ve been under a heavy quarantine. My wife and I have had a lot go on in the last few months, we just couldn’t take the risk. If you listened to any of my episodes, you’d know why. So we just couldn’t take the risk at this point.
I ask everybody, if you’re in that position, if you feel that way, if you feel like I feel, I wanted to tell you what I’ve been doing, because it’s definitely helping. It’s not very difficult to do, but it’s going to take something that all of us lack. What I want you to do is, I want you to start with some structure. You have to start with some structure. What do you want to accomplish? What are your goals again? Maybe it’s time to reset.
I did a podcast back in the beginning of the year, and it was all about resetting and figuring out your path for at least the next few months or 12 months, if that’s the kind of person you are. It might just be that kind of time again. A lot has changed. People are in awkward positions that maybe you haven’t been in before. A lot of people are unemployed or just out of work currently, waiting for their jobs to start back up.
But what we lack right now is the structure that we always have during those times that we work. It’s a big bonus for working, the biggest thing that I feel I get out of it, is the structure of my day. You’re forced to get up at a certain time. You shower, you brush your teeth, you do whatever your morning routine is so that you can get to work on time. Right? And then partially through your day, you’re hungry and it’s lunchtime, and then you get a little break or something maybe in the afternoon, and then at around whatever time you guys leave work, five, six, seven, nine, I don’t know, but you know when it’s time to go home. You have structure. You got up, you did your stuff in the morning, you did your stuff in the middle of the day, you did your stuff at the end of the day. And then the late time of the day, you’re spending it with whomever, family, friends. Probably not your friends right now. Family, kids, your significant other, and then you’re off to sleep, and you do it again the following day.
Now, I’m not saying we have to have it so structured that it gets boring, because that’s the epitome of life right now, it’s just boring. I feel so, at least. But adding that structure back into your day, I feel, is what’s going to move everyone through this time. You need to structure it out, figure out what your points are that you need to have in a day so that you feel structured, so you feel like you have a plan, so you have goals. Where are you going with things? When are you going to get there? How would you know when you’re going to get there if you quite literally don’t even know when you’re starting or what you’re starting? So, take a little time.
For those of you who, unfortunately, have been stuck at home and your job isn’t available right now, I’m speaking with you guys specifically, because I know many of you are struggling with it, and structuring your own time can be difficult. It’s different. It’s not the norm for a lot of people.
Kids used to structure your time, probably, because they had places they had to be. Events, school, sports, practices, dance recitals, whatever it was, they had places they had to be. That structured your time, because now you had places you had to be.
But in a time when all of that went away, have you sat down and worked out how you can structure out your own life? Maybe you don’t have to live by the times and the timeframes that everybody else has put out there. Maybe you can just do it on your own time, figure out your own settings and figure out what you’re going to do in order to grow and become the businessperson you want to be, or to be the employee you wanted to be, or whatever it is to you. But take a few minutes, think about how you’re handling this time right now, and think about your structure. If you’re feeling down and out, if you’re feeling really bored, like you need to get out, you need to go do something, maybe take that time. Structure it.
Now, are you maximizing your day? Are you making the best out of everything? Are you making the most out of what you have in front of you? Yeah, I hope so. But if not, if you need more help, reach out to me. You can get in touch with me at Matt, M-A-T-T, @nestadigital.com. That’s N-E-S-T-A digital.com, and I’ll gladly give you any advice that I can in order to help move you forward and get you back on a path to success and really figure out where you can be in your life. Okay?
Now, I’m going to just cut it off there, because I’ve got to run in and take care of a few things, but take some time today. All right, everyone? I hope you guys are doing great, and if I can be of any help, please reach out. If you got anything from this episode today, please tell your friends, your family, everyone take a screenshot of this and just share it around on social media, if that’s what you’ve got. All right, everyone. I appreciate you coming and listening, and I will talk to you guys all again soon.