I bumped into Kevin Kruse’s book on productivity while perusing Amazon the other day. A highly rated book with hundreds of 4.5 stars and above reviews!
I surely wasn’t going to miss this one, so I bought the book and tore through it. Honestly, it’s chockfull of elementary stuff that most people don’t care to apply. The best part is the interviews section where the author gives us a glimpse of how the minds of entrepreneurs, Olympians, and A-grade students work, from a productivity perspective.
If you’re new to the game of productivity or time-hacking, buy this book as it might be the only book on the topic you will ever need. It’s got more tips than any other text on the subject could offer.
The key is, as with all things, to be able to apply these concepts into your day-to-day routines. And that calls for some level of discipline on your part, besides a change in perspective. Speaking of which, Kevin talks about the “1,440 minutes” concept, which hits home for me.
The big idea is that there are only 1,440 minutes in a single day and how bringing that to his conscious has helped him change almost every aspect of his life. It helped him not only put the time in perspective but also influenced his peers, colleagues, and family members to change the way they operate and see things.
Something about the “1,440-minute” concept didn’t sit well with me. You see, we’ve got to factor in sleep since most of us spend 1/3 of the day resting and recharging ourselves. At least that’s what is recommended. So, we technically don’t have those precious minutes that we’re dozing away. Not that anything’s wrong with that.
I just wanted to be realistic about the actual time we have in a single day, which means I couldn’t possibly accept 1,440 minutes. And it turns out, after reducing the (recommended) number of hours we’re asleep, we have roughly 1,000 minutes — 960 to be exact.
That’s 480 minutes less! Now, I don’t know about you, but for me, it ups the stake! There’s not enough time to procrastinate the essential things or fail to plan or mull over the unessential aspects of life. We don’t have a lot of time on our hands and what we choose to do with our limited-time determines our purpose on this planet.
One thousand minutes isn’t a lot. So, we’ve got to:
- Be conscious of how we spend it.
- Be willing to say no to things.
- Be ready to fight (sometimes, literally) for your time.
We know that we can go broke and can still bounce back to make a helluva lot of money. But time, once gone, can never come back. Let that determine how you choose to spend the rest of the day and your life.
Life’s ticking away.