Everyone wants something. Whether it’s to become a millionaire, get married, or graduate college, people have no shortage of hopes, dreams, and goals. But results don’t just fall out of the sky. They take time. Effort. Intentionality. And many don’t purpose to be purposeful with their every action.
This isn’t to say you have to be working at all times! Working every minute of every day isn’t a recipe for success—it’s a recipe for burnout. Still, you want to maximize each minute you have. And there’s only one way to do that.
Be purposeful with your time
To be purposeful with your life, you must be purposeful with your time. Between your career, your family, your community, your health, and so on, you must choose which actions to take. You must choose when, where, and how you take them. And you must know your why behind it all.
Go to college. But don’t go just for the heck of it. No matter what degree you want to get, determine where, when, and how you’ll earn it. And know why you want to. Or need to. Perhaps the degree is a pre-requisite for your dream job. Perhaps it will allow you to better advance in a career path you already love. Knowing these things will help you be more purposeful with your time (and money) before you start spending it all.
By the same token, rest. But if you’re going to sit on the couch, play video games, or sleep in, do it intentionally. Don’t doom scroll when you should be doing homework or cleaning up the house. Doom scroll with whatever free time you’ve allocated for yourself.
We all have the same 24 hours every day. And one way or another, every minute will be spent. So, to be purposeful with your time, you must manage it.
You must budget it.
Budget your time like your money
Time management is similar to financial budgeting. You want to maximize every dollar, or in this case every minute. This isn’t a reactive measure—it’s not merely tracking what you’ve spent your time on. It’s proactive, creating a plan ahead of time and sticking to it.
Altogether, it comes down to allocating your time. You can do this with a physical calendar, Google calendar, or a whole host of other tools. How you maximize your time is up to you. But when purposing to be purposeful, you must maximize every minute like it’s a dollar.
After all, time is money. Don’t let yours go to waste.
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