There are 525,600 Minutes in a Year. What Will You Do With Yours?

Made famous by the Broadway production, Rent, this song runs through my head every year about this time. Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes. How do you measure, measure a year? Got you singing, didn’t I?

During this season of goal-setting and new beginnings, I challenge you to think about your time. It’s the one thing you can never get back. So many people spend their time doing things that bring them no value, don’t move them forward, and that they don’t even enjoy. Yes, there are things in everyone’s life that have to be done whether we want to do them or not. The trash needs to be taken out. You do need sleep. And the IRS will require that you file your taxes. Every year.

But, as you’re setting your goals this year, really think about your time and where you want to spend it. Do you need to be doing everything on your list? Are the goals you had planned for the year really the goals you want to work towards? Do you get to spend enough time doing the things that light you up?

Delegate or Outsource
One of the easiest ways to get your time back is delegate or outsource tasks that don’t need to be done by you.

I tell anyone who will listen that they should have a cleaning person. I realize this doesn’t always fit into the “budget”, but I genuinely don’t believe anyone should clean their own house unless they love doing it. If you think you can’t afford it, think about the value of your time. You could earn enough to pay someone else to clean your house during the time you spend cleaning it. I’m not saying you have to go get a part-time job, just so that you don’t have to clean your house, but this helps bring the conversation into perspective.

One of the very first things I outsourced during the early years of owning my business was cleaning my house. At first, it was because I would much rather spend the 4-5 hours it took every other week to clean my house on my business. Investing that time in my business, gave me 10 times the return on investment that I paid for someone to clean my house. And, after I had young kids and a young business, I preferred spending my weekends with my family over scrubbing toilets. If your time is important to you, you can find the budget to pay someone to clean your house. Maybe it’s meal prep. Maybe it’s administrative tasks in your business. Whatever the thing is in your life that takes your time, but drains your energy and doesn’t have to be done by you, think about how you can delegate that task or outsource it.

You Can Change Your Mind
One of the hardest things for high-achievers to do is to give up on a goal. We feel that if we’ve set the goal, we must hit it. Even if it no longer serves us. Now, I’m not telling you to just throw in the towel when things get hard. Setting goals and doing what’s necessary to hit them is the best way to move the needle. Just don’t get so focused on hitting every goal you set that you forget to re-evaluate whether they are still the right goals.

This year I had set a revenue goal for a specific line of business. Every month I would look at that goal and think, “that’s not the priority right now.” And, the next month, the same would be true. I finally had to level with myself and re-evaluate the goals. I had changed direction. I had simplified. And, I realized I had no intention of making that line of business a priority. Not this year. And, possibly not ever. It wasn’t because we missed the goal, it’s because we decided to take the business in a different direction.

It’s ok to change your mind. If a goal no longer makes sense or if you have tasks on your list that you don’t need to be doing anymore, you can change course. Stop doing things that no longer serve you. Stop chasing goals that no longer make sense.

What Lights You Up?
Do you get to spend enough of your minutes doing things you enjoy? Things that bring you energy? Things you’re good at?

Whether it’s with your work, with your family, or with yourself, try to spend as much time as you can doing the things you want to be doing. Block the time for exercise. Set a date for time with your spouse. Dedicate time for deep work. Make space for doing the things that light you up. You’ll be more energized. You’ll get more done. And, you’ll get more enjoyment out of your work and your life.

You only get so many minutes each year. Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred, to be exact. What will you do with yours?