You hear it all the time – “I need more time.”. But where do you ‘find’ it? You don’t ‘find’ it of course, because it is not missing. You can liberate it however if you are missing something. Huh??? Here’s one place to look that you probably wouldn’t consider.
Look at your bed. One secret to finding more time in your day is to sleep more. Sound crazy? Maybe. But according to James Maas, Ph.D., a Cornell University sleep researcher, sleep deprivation is a time thief. “Being sleep-deprived makes you do everything more slowly and with less focus. Most people don’t realize what it’s like to be fully awake and how much they can accomplish when they are.”
When every mental, emotional and physical function is working optimally, you get things done faster and better and that liberates time. Are you laboriously replying to e-mails or are you firing off answers? Are you struggling to decide what to do first or are you focused on what you need to accomplish today and knocking off your to-do items with speed and accuracy.
To test if sleep deprivation is one of your time thieves – other that looking at how often you you grab for coffee to perk you up – add one hour of additional sleep to your night. A study done at Henry Ford Hospital’s Sleep Disorders and Research Center in Detroit, MI showed test subjects who slept one extra hour experienced a 25% jump in alertness.
Who knew you could liberate time by using for something but you can sleep more – it’s a good investment of your time!
How you choose to spend your time is how you are choosing to spend your life. Do you want to spend it on full alert and fully engaged in everything you do or do you want to stubble through it, half aware and half asleep? I know my choice and it starts by slowing down by 9 pm (no more engagement with work or the outside world) and in bed by 11 or so.
Sleep one extra hour for the next week and let me know if it helps you liberate time.