A/

/ The finiteness of time

A clockThere are 24 hours in a day. Regardless of who you are, that number remains fixed. Whether you’re rich or poor, successful, a failure, boring or flamboyant, male, female, gay or straight, black, white, orange or green, you get 24 hours. No matter what you do you can’t change that (well, unless you go into orbit, but let’s not go there). No amount of money will add even a second more to your day (well, again, unless you go into orbit, but I digress) . So the question needs to be asked, how do you spend the 24 hours you’re given every single day of your life?

24 hours sounds like a lot of time, until you factor in all that you have to do in a day. For example, you can’t go on for very long without sleep. That will take anywhere from 6 to 8 hours out of your day. Then there’s work and the commute, 8 to 10 hours. You’ve got to eat and drink, say that takes an hour or two. That leaves you with anywhere from 4 to 9 hours of time to yourself. Then again, if you go to the bathroom, do chores and spend time with your family you might only be left with a couple of hours at most, if that.

So with the limited amount of time you’ve got left, what do you do? And how effectively can you do it? I mean, if you want to write a book, learn a new language, take a class, maintain a blog, start a new company, write a program, work out, paint, read, or work on an anti-gravity device in your basement you need time. Some people eat on the go, others sleep less. What do you do?

I often get caught up with several activities that I’d like to pursue and ultimately every one of them suffer due to a lack of time. The suffering is usually proportionate to the amount of stuff I try to do. I started writing a book in November of last year (well actually a couple of years ago, but really took a shot at it in November) but that came to a screeching halt when my time became fragmented. My blog’s recently suffered a similar fate. I’ve got at least a million different web projects I’d like to embark on, several ideas I’d like to write about and explore, and at least a few learning endeavors I’d like to pursue but have zero time to do any of them. I’m constantly struggling with the finiteness of time, which is why I look forward to retirement.

So, how do you deal with the finiteness of time?

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