Introspection: 'I don't get time to do it'

(Expressed opinions are personal.)People complain about having no time for - exercise, reading, travel, meditation, learning, and many other things. 'I don't get time to do it,' is a very common sentence we keep hearing from everyone. When you ask someone what their hobby is, the common reply would be they don't have time to develop a hobby. If you ask someone how many books do they read a month? Same answer. If you suggest a friend to watch a class on a learning platform, the reflexive answer would be of having no time. A very common complaint in today's world is that people have no time. Life has become so fast and everything seems to have lost our attention. We do not pay attention to ourselves, to our health, our family, and even our personal growth. While modern equipment and gadgets are available to make things faster, why is it that our time is more occupied than ever? One simple reason is that now we are certainly doing more things than ever. We are engaged at many fronts and expected to perform well in all those areas. But the question about not having time for anything demands a revisit to our time schedule. I will tell you a story of an old lady who was living alone in a house. She would wake up in the morning, finish her daily routine and do prayer for two hours. Then she would prepare food for three hours and spend an hour eating the food. Afternoon siesta and cleaning of the house will take three more hours. By then she would be ready to prepare dinner and evening prayer and post-dinner cleaning. She had no time, despite having no other job than eating and keeping herself managed. This may sound crazy to many of us, but it is human tendency to fill all available time with whatever work we have. I can claim if we want to fit in anything extra in our schedule, there is always a possibility to do so. Have you ever tried to fit in anything new in your schedule? If you find it so difficult to find out where your time goes and why are you so busy, start maintaining a diary - it may be a note on your mobile or a proper paper diary. When you wake up, write time. Note how much time did you take to finish your daily routine. Time for breakfast and other activities may also be registered. When did you start work and what task is taking how much time. Keep scribbling time for everything and at the end of the day, before going to sleep, just have a look at the whole day timeline. If it doesn't give you any message, keep doing the same for three more days. You will grasp, there is a lot of activities where time could be saved. You will discern it is not impossible to accommodate the new activity that you desire to pursue. You will have to be realistic about the allocation of time to any activity. You will identify there are many time robbers which take more than necessary time. Many activities that you are involuntarily engaged in during the day are not at all important for you and they can be easily discarded out of your schedule. Therefore, the busiest people always find time to do everything while those who have less work find it difficult to add any activity in their day. It is because busy people, senior and responsible people, have learned to make space for every important activity in their day. So, the conclusion is that in case we want to seriously pursue something but have no time, start maintaining a diary and take a review of time spent during the day.