I remember when I was talking to this veteran guy. He’s been in the military for 20 over twenty years. He was about to get his pension but was distraught/upset because he didn’t appreciate how much time had passed since he served. 

He never figured out what he cared about besides the job his superiors assigned him. Starting over without orders or a boss to follow was uncharted territory. He felt he had wasted the past twenty years following orders without question. It was time he could never get back. 

The biggest waste of time in your life is when you don’t figure out what you’re uniquely good at, what you enjoy, your strengths and weaknesses, and what you can offer the world that no one else can.

Most people take the tasks and things assigned to them by others without question. They don’t assign themselves projects to learn. They’re afraid of failure. Maybe they are not curious and are content with being just OK. They do the minimum—whatever life hands them. 

We have so much more potential. We’ve got to experiment and find out what we’re passionate about and how we can apply our unique skills to reality.

What Is Worth Your Time

When the veteran got upset, it was when he realized he had assigned his life away to someone else’s goals/wishes/desires. He didn’t have a clue what he was living for. He didn’t know what made him tick—two decades later.

The biggest waste of your time (and your life) is never questioning the things that you’re doing.

Take the time to figure out:

• Your deep goals 
• What you really care about (vision + purpose)
• What motivates you
• What kind of impact you want to create 
• How you want to live for your family, kids, and community 

When you don’t ask these questions, you go on autopilot, preventing you from reaching a higher level. You’re going to take whatever is given to you instead of giving back something unique with your gifts and abilities that only you can give. 

—This questions came from Quora.

Learn something new. Read books. Go on an adventure. Take a walk.

There are high-quality things we can do when we are not working, like activities for community, health, and spirituality, like meditation. When we have spare time, if all we want to do is relax, that has its benefits. 

Having free time doesn’t mean we aren’t focused—quite the opposite. Relaxation is productive when you’re intentional about it. Understand that if you’re going to relax with your family, you know the purpose of that moment, why you’re doing it, and who you’re spending the time with.

Understanding your intention and being decisive about your time are key attributes of living well. 

We only have so much time, so we have to decide how to spend it, including our spare time. Focusing on learning new things and writing music and books is fun and creative. It’s also rewarding in ways that feed the soul differently than work can. 

There is a way to integrate your personal goals with work. Find the areas that interest you and are naturally connected to your job or business. Ask yourself how you can integrate with your friends, family, and community to connect everything. 

You’re more fulfilled when you’re more integrated versus compartmentalizing everything. Even when it comes down to your time off from work and your job, you can still be productive: you can exercise and nurture your mind and spirit. 

Make the most out of the hours that you do have. Find ways to connect it together into a productive web that brings you joy.

Day the Do your goals freak you out? Do you think that the right time management steps will help you achieve them more quickly?

When we design our day, we don’t need to become fanatical about achieving our goals. But yet, this happens to many. We look at where we are and tell ourselves—this is not it, things need to change, I don’t like where my life is going. Should I give up? 

Thoughts like these might seem a bit extreme, but they flash across our minds more frequently than we’d like to admit. 

We think that discovering our purpose will help clear things up, but it often highlights the conflict between our goals and present reality. The good news is that feeling like we don’t have a handle on time (and our goals) is a common problem. 

By reading this article, you’ll learn 4 simple time management steps that will help you master time using Day Design. By the end, you’ll have a no-bullshit process to make progress towards your most important goals by improving your schedule. 

If you want to jump ahead, here are the time management steps we’ll cover:

• Select a Category

• Choose an Activity

• Set a Timed Interval

• Set an Interval Frequency

Time Management Steps: How to Achieve Your Goals with a 4-Step Process

As a Day Designer, we hold ourselves accountable to time, with results being the natural byproduct of repeated, correct effort. We know that, given enough frequency, results will take care of themselves. 

To be on the same page, let’s define results as actions we do or don’t take—an event with a yes or no output. By looking at results like this, we turn events into quantifiable data rather than emotionally charged evaluations of success. 

We either sent an email, or we didn’t. We either called a family member, or didn’t. We went to bed at 11 am, or you didn’t. 

The world teaches us that our results are the end all be all, but this thinking is limited. Regardless of whether or not we achieve the results that we want, we still can learn from the event no matter the result. 

Outcomes are What We Learn from Our Actions

What’s far more critical to achieving goals are the outcomes of our results. Outcomes are what we learn from either taking or not taking action. What did we learn when we did or didn’t send that email or make the call when we said we would? Did we even wonder? 

Most of us become distracted when we fail to accomplish the results we intend. The emotions strike up like a fire in our gut that can make us burn with guilt, even shame. 

These emotions interfere with our ability to understand why we didn’t follow through with what we planned. Counterintuitively, there is hidden insight in missing the mark that holds the key to future growth and favorable results.

Now let’s get into the time management steps.

1. Select a Category

As a Day Designer, five categories, or goal channels, make up 360 Productivity. 

They are:

• Health
• Work
• Relationships
• Community
• Spiritual

Every week, we’ll allocate time combined with specific actions for a goal in each category. By balancing each area, we’ll be on our way to elevating our overall quality of life. 

For now, let’s start with Health as our area of focus.

2. Choose an Activity

Now that we’ve chosen a category, we need to decide what action we will complete. Since we’re focusing on Health as an example, let’s choose walking as the activity. 

You can substitute any form of health-related activity like running, cycling, and swimming, but let the action dominate your mind instead of the results you want from that activity. 

Instead, if you lead with getting healthy or in fantastic shape, these unmet results will often bring up reminders of times when it didn’t go well. (We’re here to take action, not dwell on the times when we let ourselves down.)

As we’ll see, the power starts from being intentional by combining a goal category with a specific activity.

3. Set a Timed Interval

Time is our greatest ally and tool for action. We will use it well by setting a timed interval around the activity—15, 30, 60 minutes. 

If you haven’t exercised for a while, use short intervals. Even less than 15 works well. We tend to overcompensate for the lack of taking action by punishing ourselves with too much effort. 

It’s the time when you haven’t exercised in two years but promise yourself you’ll work out for two hours. It’s not that you can’t do it, but trying to make up for lost time or going overboard right out of the gates isn’t sustainable. 

We can’t maintain extremes for very long. We get burned out, tired, or think we’re just not cut out for it, which is why we quit.  

Instead, select the least scary interval—5, 10, 15 minutes—that you can commit. Make it insanely doable. Let’s start with 10 minutes.

Avoid the habit of defining your health goal, like getting a sexier body or losing 50 pounds. Remember, that’s the result you want, which can act as a double-edged sword. For now, it’s simply a walk for 10 minutes. 

Keep it simple—it’s not about a particular length of time or reaching the goal now. You’ll know your interval is the right starting point if it will get you to take action without excuse.

4. Set an Interval Frequency

The final step is to set the interval frequency, or how many times you’ll complete the activity during the week. 

The same rule applies from setting timed intervals—don’t go overkill by promising yourself that you’re going to work out 2 hours every day. 

Start with 1 to 3 times a week, and stick with this frequency. You can set specific days like Mondays or Wednesdays to complete the activity, but the number of days per week is usually better, as things can come up. 

What’s more important than completing the specific task every Monday or Wednesday is that you do the activity during the week for the agreed-upon sessions. 

If you decide to go to a fitness class and miss it because you had to stay late for work, don’t wait until next week for the class. Instead, complete a health-related activity, so you’ll hit your interval frequency target.

Improving Your Weekly Schedule

Anyone familiar with the Eisenhower Matrix knows it’s a fantastic way to prioritize tasks, classifying them on a scale of importance and urgency. But most folks use it for big goals or work challenges and are still unsure how to balance short and long-term goals with their schedules. 

That’s where Day Design simplifies the process by offering a different way to improve our daily schedules. 

Here’s the process again: 

1. Select a Category 
2. Choose an Activity
3. Set a Timed Interval 
4. Set an Interval Frequency

Now apply this simple process to each 360 Productivity category. 

By using this system, we can monitor our progress at the end of the week by how frequently we honor time. When seven days have passed, we can answer a simple question—did we complete our intervals when we planned? Yes or no? This data is helpful because we can then ask why or why not.

During an interval, we don’t place much emphasis on what happens. Even if we didn’t get everything done that we hoped, it’s ok. Every day is different. 

Maybe you walked a half-mile today but two miles on Wednesday for the same interval. What happened? Although it’s essential to check in and give yourself feedback, labeling these results better or worse is missing the point. 

What about the fact that we took action on those days? What did you learn? Maybe your timed interval is too long or your frequency is too often.

Time Management Steps That Work 

Results happen when we accumulate a progression of intervals over time. That’s why frequency is one of our most powerful tools. Add frequency. And more frequency. 

What happens to us can be more profound—our beliefs change. New behaviors generate new beliefs as we reinforce them over time. Each time we complete an interval, we whisper new beliefs to our subconscious. Through the process—by answering this frequent yes—how we feel about ourselves will change. 

Frequent actions are the seeds to grow new associations. As we get closer to reaching our goals, they’re not the giants they used to be. They’re smaller, almost laughable. We know that we can do more because we’ve proven it to ourselves. 

When we reach a goal, an excited what’s next? will be our response.

Do you want to learn more proven strategies to improve your time management? Sign up for the free Day Design Video Course.

Does effective time management have to be a chore? 

We have plenty of time when we get more specific with how we spend it and why. When we use our time to work, being busy with our business, how often do we put our health on the backburner? 

What about developing our relationships with our partner or our kids? We don’t come home for dinner because we need to work. We’re not there to tuck them in at night, and they’re asking where’s mommy, where’s daddy? Daddy is working. Expect this has been going on for years.

We think that we don’t have enough time that we have too much to do. 

The amount of work that we have to do is not the issue—the problem is that we’re not working effectively. We will always have more things to do than time to do them. We have to become more selective with how we use our time. 

In this article, you’ll learn about Day Design—a system that provides a happy alternative to how we typically approach effective time management. You’ll also learn a secret from the longest living people in the world about their remedy for a balanced life.

Effective Time Management Using Day Design 

As a Day Designer, our goal is to become 100% productive in each area of our lives. 

We make time for everything valuing quality engagement over quantity. There is no way to fulfill all our deep goals in short amounts of time. Our focus is on stacking activities consistently in the areas that matter the most. 

To apply this, we do our professional work during working hours (whatever we decide they are) and make time at home sacred for relationships and spiritual productivity. We orchestrate each part of our day to include the meaningful aspects of our lives. Not once in a while, but every day. 

A Day Designer controls their schedule, time, effort, and energy. They know what each moment is for and what activity will provide the highest level of achievement. 

We need to modify our urge to blur the lines by creating clear distinctions between our goal channels. The categories of productivity are interrelated—that is true—but trying to do everything at once is not giving our best with our best. Working in this fragmented manner gives us fragmented outcomes.

Planning for the Future

We’ve been focusing on our future dreams. We’re working hard now to enjoy life later. It’s all about making smart sacrifices. Right? But what we’re sacrificing for the sake of a better future is more than time. It’s our current happiness. 

We’re distant and not present as life unfolds before our eyes, our life. We’re using our imagination for our plans but fail to see the beauty that is the dream we’re already living.

What if we made the process our goal and contributed to all areas of our productivity? What if we won each day because we made the time for what’s important when it was the right moment. What if each moment was clearly defined, not to torture but to empower our frantic minds. We would know that it’s ok to make the most of what’s in front of us because we planned it that way. 

We find peace not from rigid control but from knowing when to let go.

Productivity Tips for Health Goals

We know health is essential but do we make it a pillar of our productivity? We acknowledge that we could improve our health by doing X or W, but what happens? We work all day then get some exercise if we’re not too tired. 

But we’re always tired. Go figure. 

When we say “we’re too tired,” we’ve used our willpower from all the decisions we’ve made during the day. We’re not physically but mentally exhausted because we’ve spent our decision-making abilities on our work. There’s nothing left over, which is why it’s harder to resist drinking, eating sweet foods, or deciding to exercise as it gets later in the day. 

That tired feeling at the end of the day has less to do with our workload and more to do with not moving our bodies regularly. When we incorporate regular exercise into our daily routine, we increase our willpower. We, in turn, have a deeper well to draw from, which allows us to make more decisions, hence be more productive. 

Willpower is what gives us the energy to make decisions aligned with our goals. That includes clear thinking and actions. 

In the book Ikigai by Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles, the lesson from the longest living people in Ogimi, Japan is profound. They are in a constant state of motion, not hurried or rushed, making movement an integral part of their productivity. They don’t lift heavy weights or run long distances. Nothing they do is extreme but rather calculated and balanced.

Typically, when we think of health, two things come up: our current fitness level and the exercise we need to do to change it (usually with a lot of resistance, even dread). We have to go to the gym. We need to exercise. We’re lighting a Looney Tunes stack of dynamite to our health.  

Let’s bring focus to what’s critical—movement. We feel tired because we’re not using our bodies, not because we’re not running 30 miles or lifting 500 pounds. Productive health doesn’t require grand achievement—a simple walk can do the trick. 

Frequent movement, not frequent agony at the gym.

Losing Mobility Was a Wake Up Call 

We often take our minds and a working pair of hands and legs for granted. We have to be around to make our goals happen. These are what bring us to our goals, both physically and mentally. 

Those with adverse health conditions or who have lost mobility understand how fleeting health is—the physical reminder that things have changed is there forever. 

I know because it happened to me.  

Years ago, I had a motorcycle accident and shattered my radius and ulna. If you looked at the x-ray, my wrist looked like the Milky Way galaxy, white particles (bone fragments) scattered through a vacuum of space. To this day, my dad still gets freaked out when he thinks about that image of nothing connecting my hand to my forearm.

Losing the ability to move my wrist, an essential skill for a performing musician, taught me how closely tied my goals were to my body. It was the first time that the ability to reach my goals vanished. 

Without the ability to move, how could I play music again?

I lost 30 pounds and developed an addiction to the prescribed painkillers over that intense two-month period. I didn’t want to eat or talk to anyone. I didn’t even go to work. I don’t know what was worse, the pain from the injury or the thought that I’d never play music again. 

It wasn’t until years later that I understood that I went through addiction and recovery. After multiple surgeries that spanned four years, my wrist has never been the same. 

Even without addiction or severe health problems, all of us experience similar things. As we age, we get a little slower, or we have less endurance. We say to ourselves—I should work out. I’ll get to it, eventually. 

But the thing is that our goals and our bodies are intertwined. We cannot take this for granted, which is why it’s vital to remain in a state of motion. 

I think about it all the time when I pick up my children. Sometimes I almost drop them because my wrist doesn’t rotate like it used to. It’s a reminder that decay is inevitable.

Be like the folks from Ogimi—in motion, neither hurried nor rushed, completely intentional with every move.