We all have the same 24 hours in a day, right? So why does it seem like some people get so much more out of those 24 hours?
I have recently been asking myself this question and I came to the realization that a lot of it comes down to the little moments. It’s the five minutes waiting here, the few minutes between these tasks. It adds up to 30 minutes, an hour of wasted time that seemed inconsequential.
It was in those small moments that I reached for my phone. I didn’t need to search or scroll or browse but I thought the time didn’t allow for anything else. I didn’t want to idly stand by and wait so surely jumping on my phone for a game or two would be more beneficial. That wasn’t wasted time, was it?
But I quickly discovered that I would rarely be on my phone for the exact amount of time I had to “waste.” Browsing Amazon for one thing would usually lead to another and then another, maybe a completely different website. And suddenly, my ten minutes of time needing to be filled stretched into 30 minutes of time I needed to spend on something else!
I started writing down things that I could accomplish in these little moments. Some of them were creative and fun, others were necessary. But having a list of ideas to turn to has greatly helped me make better use of my time. Here are some ideas for those small moments without reaching for your phone:
Read a magazine article or chapter from a book
Clean mirrors in the bathrooms
Choose one room to dust
Walk around the block or your yard
Write down meal ideas for planning
Put in a load of laundry
Write a note
This is not an exhaustive list. Think of the things you need or want to get done and evaluate if you could conquer some of them in those little catches of time. Leave the list where you will see if often and start redeeming those small moments.
Photo by Ales Krivec on Unsplash