It’s not “how much” time we have, it’s how we use it that’s the problem. Most of us spend our days trying to get more done than there’s time for. Or so it seems. When we retire, we have time in our days but we start to see the whole of our remaining lives as too short to do the things we want to do. Both of these approaches rely on the mistaken idea that “There’s not enough time.” Most of what we blame on the amount of time we have is really the result of not using what we have effectively.

Have you ever been in a tight spot time-wise where you had to get a lot of things done quickly? Your performance goes up two notches. You focus on only what must be done with laser-like sharpness. Quite often, everything gets done with time to spare. If you can do that in the extreme circumstances, why can’t you do it every day? Because we don’t take charge of our time that way on a day to day basis.

You can “have enough time” if you do these three things:

Be clear about what you really want to be spending it on.

If your ten-year-old son (or grandson) walks in the door bleeding profusely because of an accident with his bicycle, your time needs to go in a new direction. But when he asks you to drive him to the skate park? Too often, whatever anyone else asks of us gets priority over what we really want to get done. Some of those things are unhealthy along with being off path. (Office gossip, smoke breaks, and petty arguments are easy examples.) Nobody wins when we do that. Letting other people take whatever of your time they choose puts your own life on hold. Not fair—and in the case of children, a really wrong message to send about how the world works

But what if it’s your boss that’s doing the asking? Well, there are times to draw the line there, too. How much of your week should legitimately be dedicated to your job? For many of us, that number is more than “40 hours a week”–but it should not be infinity. “Okay” may need to be replaced with “I can do that, but which of these other things do you want me to leave undone to get to it?”

Be strong in saying “no” to things that aren’t part of your priorities.

Your best friend calls suggesting a Saturday shopping trip. You’ve been planning to redo your garage storage with your sweetie that day. Do you say yes to your friend because, well, she’s your friend? Or maybe your sweetie tries to opt out because one of his buddies has suggested a golf game. If you get that laser focus going, you can do both, but do the thing with the priority first.

Your success with “no” is going to be a function of how you go about it. Sometimes you don’t even have to say it—you just have to not say “yes.” Sometimes the “no” that you need will come out as “Thanks for that input. I need to get back to this project now.” Sometimes it will be “Great to see you” as you walk the person to the door. Kindness and saying “yes” aren’t synonymous. True friendship rests on mutual respect and good business relationships depend on sincerity. If you don’t want to spend time on the interruption, say so with a smile and get on with what you need to do.

Commit to spending every single second of your time well.

We assume we need huge chunks of time to do big projects. Quite often, the small bits that are available in the everyday routine can be every bit as effective. Every big job is a collection of little jobs that need to be done in a particular order. This is just as true of writing a novel as putting in a vegetable garden. Ticking off one or two of those little things several times a week will get you a lot farther than waiting for that big chunk of time. Those rarely materialize.

Committing to using every minute well becomes even more essential when you retire. It’s easy to fritter away the remaining decades of your life doing “whatever.” Most of us have no idea how long our lives will be. It’s far better to plan for the long run and die before you get it done than die years after you ran out of things you wanted to do. Make a long list. Add to it again and again. Be bold–if you want to get a degree in paleontology the year your turn 87, go for it!

Your time is yours. Covet it. Use it on purpose.

This post originally appeared in the April 2010 issue of Barbara Morriss’s online newsletter Put Old on Hold
**********
Mary Lloyd is a speaker and consultant and author of Supercharged Retirement: Ditch the Rocking Chair, Trash the Remote, and Do What You Love. Her passion is in capitalizing on the potential of those over 50. For more, please visit her website http://www.mining-silver.com. She can be reached at mary@mining-silver.com.

Tags: living well as we age, managing stress, Retirement changes, Skills

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 6th, 2010 at 8:09 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.