Living in an Air Castle V

On By Gregory HakeIn Observations on Life

“The one great defense of humanity against the charge of unfulfilled duties is ‘lack of time.’ The constant clamoring for time would be pathetic, were it not for the fact that most individuals throw away more of it than they use. Time is the only really valuable possession of man, for without it every power within him would cease to exist. Yet he recklessly squanders his great treasure as if it were valueless. The wealth of the whole world could not buy one second of time. Yet society assassins dare to say in public that they have been ‘killing time.’ The time fallacy has put more people into air-castles than all other causes combined. Life is only time; eternity is only more time; immortality is merely man’s right to live through unending time.” ~ William George Jordan

In the interest of time I will keep my post brief today. Time is our most precious commodity, and while we cannot change the number of hours in a day, there are several things we can do to “expand” time:

  1. Declare an end to complaint in your expression. Whenever you find yourself on the verge of complaining, look instead to appreciate something else in your immediate circumstances. Rise above the negativity and propose solutions where you would tend to reiterate the problem.
  2. Reshape a bad habit or two. Every bad habit represents time lost in more productive pursuits. The loss is incurred in the present but the real damage is not apparent until the future.
  3. Get your priorities straight. What matters most to you? Focus your energies in relation to that and you will become significantly more efficient.
  4. Stop majoring in minors. It is easy to get off on tangents, especially when you are faced with something you don’t feel like doing. Don’t sharpen your pencils all morning when you should be moving your affairs forward.
  5. Do the thing you are least looking forward to first. Procrastination is the thief of time.
  6. Cut your losses. Stop moving in the wrong direction as soon as you realize you are. Don’t give lethargy, regret or futility the time to take hold and most importantly, don’t throw good money or effort after bad.

I wish you a productive day!

15 thoughts on “Living in an Air Castle V”

  1. Colin's avatar Colin

    Time is something that you can’t get back once it is gone. It seems to me that we spend so much of our time doing things that are not primarily related to our priorities, and that is something that I don’t want to regret in years to come. Focus is like a muscle. When you aren’t used to using time in a focused manner, it seems hard, yet the body and mind adapt to these new demands quickly. If you start today, it won’t be long until it’s second nature!

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  7. David R's avatar David R

    Practical and insightful points! Time may seem limited, and in a sense it is. From another perspective, however, time is abundant and infinite in its possibilities. A few seconds can seem forever even as a week can vanish into what seems like a few seconds. What quality is born through us into the vastness of the present? That would seem like the key question!

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  8. Coco's avatar Coco

    Time is free but yet it’s priceless. You can’t save it up but you can waste it. It can seems a paradox but I think Kipling got it right in his famous poem “If”.
    “If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
    Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
    And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!”
    What constitutes the worth is as individual as each life. Discovering that for ourselves is the difference between killing time and spending it. If we get this subject right we do gain the world, thanks.

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  10. Doug's avatar Doug

    How we use our time is the bedrock difference between success and failure. In business I have found putting a dollar value on your time is helpful, especially if you are self employed. As you structure your activities ask yourself is this what I would be doing for if someone was paying me $100 per hour? I also ascribe to doing the most important functions first, hopefully they are not always the least liked. Thanks for your list.

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