How to Get Your Time Back

You might wonder how some people can be so effective and seemingly have more time in their day to be productive and make an impact in this world. It may even seem that they have more hours on the clock. The truth is, they do.

In this post, I will help you identify the most common time wasters and remove them so that you can focus on more meaningful aspects of your life.

Common Time Wasters

Television

If you are an Average American, you watch TV for 2 hour and 46 minutes per day. Cut back or remove this activity completely, there is no excuse. You don’t need to rewatch The Office for a 7^th time. Your time is better spent fixing your own life instead of watching the news for hours on end. Time Saved: 19.3 hours per week

Social Media

The Average American also spends almost 2 and a half hours a day on social media. While it is nice to stay connected with friends and family, you can catch up in much less time and while doing other tasks. Time Saved: 16.8 hours per week

Commuting

The Average American spends 27 minutes each way on their commute. Assuming a 5-day workweek, this is 4.5 hours per week! If you are one of the commuters, and especially if you are in a white-collar field, I would encourage you to negotiate into a remote working arrangement. If your boss will not let you go full remote, shoot for hybrid. 2 days with a commute is still better than 5. If your management will not let you work remotely, try to find a remote role within your company or even in another one. You will save time, money from gas, tolls, wear, and tear, and help the environment. Time saved: 4.5 hours per week

Cooking

The Average American who is their household’s meal preparer spends roughly 51 minutes per day (7 hours per week) preparing food and cleaning up. For simplicity, I will assume that this is spent across 3 meals, meaning that 20 minutes is spent preparing or cleaning up per meal.

Meal Prep Can Help You To Save 2.6 Hours Per Week

I would urge you to meal prep two meals per day, reducing total weekly time and ensuring that you hit your protein targets. You can still cook one meal per day if you want to. It takes me 2 hours per week to batch meal prep 2 meals for each day. Assuming you still cook the 3^rd meal, you are at 260 minutes per week spent cooking and cleaning up, vs. 420 minutes. Time Saved: 2.6 hours per week

There are other ways to increase efficiency in your life, but most require an investment (paying somebody to mow your lawn, do your laundry, etc). By doing things that are completely free (cutting out TV, social media, and meal prepping, and negotiating a remote role), the Average American can save 43.3 hours per week, or over 6 hours per day!

You are not average; you are better than that.

If you are an Average American, and you take my advice, you can get 6 hours back in your life every day. You can get over 40 hours back (a full work-week!)

Ways to Spend Time Without Rotting Your Brain

If you followed my advice, you got precious time back in your life. It is important that you do not fill it with activities like drugs, alcohol, and video games.

To use the time wisely, you could:

Weight train 3-4 days per week
Train for a marathon
Spend time with your family
Walk your dog for a few miles every day, spending time with your significant other
Volunteer in your community
Start a business
Get a second job
Invest in yourself by learning new skills
Get a college degree, or another one
Call your friends and relatives and spend time with them in person
Become a more active member of your church
Read
Go on dates with your significant other, or find one
Start a new hobby
Re-engage with your existing hobbies
Clean and organize your house
Learn a language
Start a blog
Hunt and fish
Start a garden and grow your own food
Go for a hike
Travel
Get more sleep

Getting more time is not additive, and you do not have to give anything that actually makes your life better up.

To get more time, you need to subtract the nonsense.

Benefits of Getting Your Time Back

If you cut out the mindless consumption, by the end of the year you can have:

Gotten in shape, adding years to your life
Formed better relationships with loved ones
A more effective, functional home
A happier, more aligned family
A better community
More brain plasticity
More money in your pocket
A more informed perspective
A more lasting impact to the world

I hope that this post was helpful to you and woke you up to potential time-wasters in your own life. The specific time wasters are not identical between people, but they are similar for the general population. I want you to become a more effective person, and to lead a more fulfilling life.

In summary, the way to get more time in your life is to remove the noise and focus on what matters. You will not make an impact, build anything meaningful, or leave a legacy by spending time watching TV or doomscrolling on social media. Buck the trend, beat the average.