New Years and my birthday used to feel so important and lately they just show me how time passes faster and faster.
When I was younger they were celebratory. I craved people, stimuli and good times. These milestone days marked the passing of time and in truth, it was a way to measure growth and progress.
I started writing this on January 13th and over the last couple of weeks very little has changed for me. I’m still a workaholic. I still have 2 jobs chasing money to deal with credit cards. I now have the money to pay for things like my recent 1000$ towards my car.
My normal hasn’t been satisfying lately, expedited by facing the finality that comes with parental death.
I feel this desire to start the next chapter of my life. The current chapter is turning out to take longer than expected with a lot more hurdles than I planned for. Which is life. I knew it would be like this but my impatience has grown. I’ve reached the point where I need to develop new habits should I want to win in life.
Which brings us to talking about today’s topic, recognizing that creating meaningful change comes with disrupting the status quo.
Doing the same things will only produce the same results
If my life goals stopped at making enough money to pay my bills, Netflix & Chill then have some fun, I’m there already.
I could slow down how many hours I work, pay off my stuff over a longer period of time and really enjoy life. The path I’ve been on recently is good for generating enough to deal with immediate problems. It’s not what I need to achieve my creative and professional goals.
I don’t have a lot of free time. I max out my schedule and don’t complete enough of what I set out to do. I try to pick the right work to focus on but I’ve been living distracted. The last couple of years my follow up game has been very weak as I worship Daddy Visa and Mommy MasterCard religiously at the cost of all other priorities.
As I visualize this year, I see myself doing more music and content related things. Unless I start to focus on new habits that support those new goals, it’s never going to happen. As an example, I need to spend more time listening to beats as I drive instead of podcasts.
Podcasts are great but to write new songs I need time to hear new beats. There’s no way around that. The musical process is a process that requires time and dedication.
I recently started to force myself to read and work out again to keep my brain and body more on point. In the mornings I’ll walk around this loop in my apartment and read, clocking between 2-4 KM. I even started with my exercise bike sessions for better cardio (important for recording and performing music).
Each of these things has thrown off my equilibrium and my life feels sloppy.
A clear grasp on how I spend my time will give me what I need to regain control.
Mapping how time is spent is the only way to visualize to others how long things take
This is exactly as boring and tedious as it sounds but without that level of intimacy with your calendar, tracking time is a struggle.
I first practiced this exercise when I worked in corporate land. My boss didn’t understand how come I wasn’t pushing projects forward. In his mind I was wasting time.
This created a problem because this was my first real corporate role, I needed to prove my value.
I ended up mapping out my life in 15 minute intervals. Week over week. I was super honest too, I snitched out long breaks and how late I was in the morning because it was important to emphasize what was actually happening.
After a while it became clear I was doing overtime hours to keep up. My life was made up of weekly tasks and projects. The recurring weekly tasks were so time consuming, that to deliver everything my boss wanted there was little time left for projects.
My biggest time spent went into reporting as I had to calculate reports manually, with excel sheets, finding the data I needed from wherever I could. All these modern dashboards with full customization weren’t available for lowly middle managers like me. Half the data I needed required pulling stats from three different places and doing manual math.
My entire Monday was spent on reporting.
Finally I presented my colour coded excel sheet to my boss and he could see that I was not making excuses. There was a clear business case for hiring someone to help. By meticulously tracking how long everything took, the volume of work became tangible and it helped my boss decide to make my life easier.
I proved there was no more room to optimize. We either changed the system or got more help. My boss chose more help unlocking managerial experience in my life.
Before getting to the point of hiring helpers, there may be an opportunity to create more time in my life.
Here’s how I will do it.
Do a deep dive into how you use all 168 hours of the week
Whenever I get serious about time management, I perform the same kind of exercise I did for work only for my entire week.
I manage it all in Google Sheets and Google Calendar. It is not a quick nor painless process but it’s the first step to getting organized. Documentation creates accountability.
You can use whatever method you want, but you need an easy way to retroactively track how you used your weekly hours. Because people always bring it up, I don’t care if you use pen and paper, but working literal stacks of paper after is going to suck. I strongly recommend using a digital app that syncs across multiple devices, there are a gajillion free ones in 2025.
When I track activities, I stay specific enough that I know what I am doing at that moment as categorization will come later. I like to use Google Sheets. I write out my activities in 15 minute intervals. Then I colour code those activities based on what project/group they are a part of.
Here are some examples of activities:
Pooping
Getting ready to go outside
General home cleaning/chores
Consuming streaming content
Sex (if it does take you 3 minutes… read above)
Food (eating and prep)
Travel
Shopping
Doom scrolling
Calling your mother/other socializing
Planning your next week
Once I have everything mapped out, take some time to group similar activities into categories like:
Music projects
Podcast projects
Blog projects
Boyfriend duties
Life Chores
Family/Friend commitments
Work
Recreation (when separate from socializing)
After a few weeks of tracking my life there is a foundation for the awareness required for meaningful change.
The immediate tactic is to figure out how much time I spend doing chores and how much of time is free for projects.
I will create a new document that becomes a template for my future planning. This file is a projection for future weeks based on what I tracked in the section before. To be effective I first need to understand my regular commitments.
I will map each of these onto my template document.
The rest of my life is more variable but needs to be planned for. This includes all the chores I actually do. Thankfully because of my past history I’m aware of how long they all take. There’s no guesswork left.
I base this template on how I currently live. While it’s nice to picture myself miraculously saving time on food prep next week, that will likely not be how it plays out. If it takes an hour to make supper, that is important information.
I stay as honest as possible here or the whole thing won’t work. This is for me. No one else needs to see it.
The weekly template should not include one off or monthly tasks, those get added with weekly planning.
Only plan for the work you will get done each week
Most of us have goals and a giant backlog of work we need to take care of.
I treat the entire planning process like its own project. Think of it like the project that oversees all of your other projects. It’s an hour or two each week dedicated to planning out the calendar for the following week.
I review every project and see what work I actually did last week. Then I update the priorities for this week based on what still needs to be done. This part is easy peasy.
I open a project file and look at the list of To Do’s. Then I perform a quick time estimate for how long each task will take. I choose a few tasks I can get done with the time I allocate to that project that week. Then I ignore the rest of the tasks. They will get their time one day.
I exclude weekly recurring tasks from this exercise.
Regular work should already be taken into account with your template. If not, I recommend creating a new slot dedicating weekly time for it on your template. Since it’s all so routine, it’s a waste of time to track those tasks each week. I do them when required and move on.
I don’t think it’s worth getting too detailed in your calendar. Project files tell you what you need to do. The calendar is for when I work on each project.
Here’s an example from October 2020 when I was on point with my planning.
This brings us to the next thing we need to discuss today, discipline.
Report on how last week went with full honestly
It’s pretty easy to have your plan ready to go each week.
One of the easiest dopamine that week will be taking the time to plan.
Plans require discipline and discipline requires practice. There are weeks I follow the plan religiously and weeks where I get distracted and things slip. One of the best ways to keep me focused is to report on how my past week went.
I use my planning session to think about why my week went the way it did. Unexpected things happen. It’s worth taking a look at what they are. It’s also worth seeing where you let yourself waste time.
Now I don’t think you should be too hard on yourself. Chances are you forgot to plan recreation. If you are going to play mobile games for an hour a day, it’s probably better to just put it on the calendar in a category like recreation and call it a day. At least you can then plan around it, and not feel guilty.
What I am trying to do each week is to make my ideal plan calendar match how I actually live that week. That being said, it’s okay to change things around on the fly. Our planning process is a set of guidelines, not hard facts.
By using a slick calendar app I can just rearrange stuff in real time. Unexpected partying or other fun is worth pursuing, as long as I stay aware that by going to the party I’ll probably need to make time for whatever you are not doing.
Each week I update my new calendar based on taking into account new pitfalls to watch for.
Look for time waste and opportunities to do more than one thing at a time
There are probably quick and easy wins you can adopt right away.
A great way to get more done with the time you have is to double up when you can. When I was younger I used any time I spent doing dishes and showering to practice rap. I had to do dishes, it took a solid 15-30 minutes. That’s a good daily rap practice time too, why not do them at the same time? I ended up learning how to freestyle and I had clean dishes.
Then I moved in with my girlfriend and my whole life changed. I started using my bus rides to work to write music and wrote a miserable, in tone, album about going to work. I leveraged that extra time dedicated for public transit to produce art.
Try and identify places in your life where you can double up and you will get more done without any drastic change.
After the double up, I am looking for time I objectively could use in better ways. I can either sit there and watch TV in the morning, or I can do my “read and walk”. The answer to which I choose is based on if I’m trying to achieve my goals or if I’m giving in to the moment’s desires.
Let’s use a less me-centric example.
Sometimes pooping only takes a minute but you still sit there for 25 minutes because the bathroom is peaceful. As the weeks go on, for me, it may become a bit harder to rationalize 3 and a half hours of poop time each week. Tracking time is like tracking your money, you start to see all the Starbucks coffees you indulge in.
I’m not here to tell you what your priorities should be. Only you can look at how you spend your time and decide if you are happy with how that calendar looks. If you are, then you may as well stop reading now. If you want to see new results, you gotta change how you do things.
Thankfully none of this means overnight drastic changes.
Identify new habits you should take on to achieve your goals
Our ideal states often require some cold turkey changes.
Unfortunately most of us are bad at cold turkey changes.
What we tend to be better at is incremental growth. My cousin Ben makes incredible art pieces. Physical commodities you can buy. He also hates social media and marketing.
While he can outsource a lot of that, there is still a part he has to play. Mostly in documenting his art and his process. He has a job and a life, trying to add all this extra work is incredibly overwhelming.
Now instead of giving up sleep for more hours, there are small things he can do. Setting up cameras that capture his whole process, taking a picture here and there. Adding gradual notes to a file on what inspires each art piece he makes as he has them.
Each action, taking a few minutes to put into motion, will flow from conscious thought to muscle memory. He needs to make a few tweaks to what he’s already doing to lay a few foundations. All without stressing how long it takes, it’s just something to start working towards.
A few baby steps that are clunky will inevitably become well versed fluid action. Previously scary chores will become the new baby steps you need to take next. Step by step you crawl your way to a place where all of a sudden you are hitting new thresholds.
Time mapping also helps us when we actually do have time for more.
Unfortunately once you add new habits you’ll realize you no longer have as much time left when the week is done. You need to pay attention each week and adapt as needed. Don’t be surprised if your Netflix time goes down but your money making goes up.
It is a process that will always give you a real return on investment.
Taking the time to plan is always worth it when you do the work
The main reason I plan is to make sure I can keep all of my promises.
I find that the closer I get to my dreams, the more confidence I have. This leads to a lot of real improvements in my quality of life. Taking the time to plan will have real life payoffs for you.
People appreciate those who can honour their commitments. Time management, done correctly will give you the toolkit to live up to your word. When you know what your calendar looks like, you don’t double book or overcommit. You are able to say yes, or no, based on what you can do.
People also like clear communicators. Being able to express how you spend your time helps others empathize with you. It will probably also help you attract more mates.
The main thing to remember is that it takes practice to get good.
If it takes you two years to plan properly, but you learn it, the rest of your life will still be better.
What matters is that you take the time to start.
Now if you are struggling and need some one on one coaching, feel free to reach out. I’d be happy to help you get your life organized. I write this from a place of years of trial and error.
Let’s work together to make your life better.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone
P.S. This blog is longer and more detailed than what I did last year. I prefer having the time to write a longer blog that says and does more than whip up fluff pieces. I will publish way less this year but try to help you way more with what I write. If you fucks with the cause, please throw some cash like I’m a stripper using my words to shake that ass.
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