Are You Wasting Time or Investing Time?

Every minute of your day is either wasted or invested.

Ah, yes, but sometimes the “wasted” is invested in sanity!  Nevertheless, the quote above has a great deal of merit.

I read a really good weight management tip years ago that went something like this:  Before each bite, ask yourself, “Am I even hungry?” I often ask myself this very question as  I’m reaching for a cookie, chocolate kiss, or possibly even something healthy.  Sometimes I’ll say, “Yes, I am!” and complete the transaction – other times I’ll say, “No, I’m not” and complete the transaction.

Point is, I do try to keep myself honest.

We can do the same with our time management.  If we periodically ask ourselves during the day, “Am I wasting time or investing time?” – I think we’ll soon realize that many of the things we do during the day are like black holes.  Our minutes and hours fall into the vastness never to return again.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for unwinding and I’m a huge fan of recess.  Even when I was a little girl, I was always the first one to the playground.  Some things never change.  On any given evening, you can find me, my husband, and Alexa (our baseball-addicted cat) watching St. Louis Cardinal baseball,  UK basketball, or a long-awaited NFL game.  Or you might find me noshing on snacks with a few of my daughters, watching “The Biggest Loser” (LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this show!), Amazing Race, etc.   Another favorite recess activity is to spend time with our cats – when I can pull Alexa away from baseball, that is – and my daughter’s hamsters (Have you ever watched a hamster stuff its face full of food? Fascinating.).

I don’t consider ANY time spent with my husband, daughters, cats, or hamsters wasted.  Anything that makes you smile from your toes all the way to the tip of your head is time well spent.

However, there are plenty of activities that we all lose ourselves in on occasion – activities that sponge up our minutes and leave us with nothing to show for it. I suppose that, really, it’s an individual thing that each person has to determine for himself/herself.

Someone once said, “Every moment of one’s existence one is growing into more or retreating into less.”  I guess it’d be a good idea to hold each of our activities accountable:  Is the activity helping us grow or causing us to retreat?  Am I wasting my time or investing my time?  Can the St. Louis Cardinals win it all? –  Ah, the important questions of life.