When I first read this question, there were hundreds of answers directly below it. Rather than spending the time to really consider it, I let myself be influenced by others and my answer became biased. I urge you to actually spend time thinking about your answer to this question (and the following questions) before reading on.
I found that most people answered with one of three things or a variation of them:
Happiness
Money
Freedom
The real challenge is defining what these 3 things actually mean.
Happiness- What would make you happy?
A lot of people will be looking for something externally such as a partner, job, paycheck or family. They are often chasing things they are not in control of. When reading Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s search for meaning” it opened up a new definition of the word happiness. In short, the book is about his time in Auschwitz concentration camp during WWII. He saw and experienced some horrendous things. However, by finding purpose and being grateful for certain things in his life he still managed to find happiness and help others. It’s all about perspective, what do you see in the picture below?*
Money- How much money do you need each month to live your dream life?
Ever heard or said, “If I had enough money I could do that”? In Tim Ferriss’ book “The Four Hour Work Week” he talks about setting a Dreamline. Spending time thinking about what your ideal life would look like and all the things you would need to spend money on each month to work out the answer to this question. Rather than spending time being ‘busy’, work out what your goals are and then work backwards to find ways to achieve this.
Freedom- What would you do if you didn’t have to work another day in your life?
Many people would love to have the freedom to find their life’s ‘true purpose’, or get themselves fit and healthy. However, even though we would love to have ‘freedom’ we rarely would like to do what is required of us to get there. It’s a hard one for most people as we can’t achieve freedom until we know what we want to do with our time.
Initially, I thought I wanted all of these things. If I could choose just one thing I wanted it to be something that really did make a difference to my life and change me for the better. After thinking about what each of these required I settled on my answer.
TIME.
All of these things require time. If you had unlimited time to choose what to do you can achieve any/all of these things. However, we all have the same time, right? So why do some people seem to be so much more successful in their life? The answer is the way that these people focus (follow one course until successful). They can choose one thing and not be distracted until they achieve this. Then they do it again, creating a more efficient and effective use of time.
Since realising this I have recognised my most productive times of the day (hence waking up my wife at 6am on a Saturday morning to listen to my blog). I listen to podcasts or audiobooks whilst travelling, making breakfast or exercising. I set yearly, quarterly and weekly goals. I’ve used peopleperhour.com to delegate tasks (online personal assistant). I use apps such as ‘Trello’ and ‘Evernote’ to store paperwork and help remember what I need to do (food shopping lists are sooo much easier). I exercise and read every morning. I am grateful for so many things in my life. But, overall, I have noticed a change for the better in the amount of time I have each day.
So…. What is the one thing you want most in your life?
Tips for creating more time:
The one thing-
- Find the one thing that you want to achieve. The one thing that will make this year successful. The one thing you can do today to get closer to your goals. Do this before anything else.
- 66 days- the sweet spot for the length of time to create a new habit
Eat that frog-
- There’s no such thing as multitasking only switching between tasks. Complete one task then move onto the next. Put yourself in environments to avoid distractions.
- Do the most important/ hardest task first (if you eat a frog in the morning you’ll know that’s the worst thing you will do that day- so things can only get better)
4 Hour work week-
- Outsource tasks to other people (use a virtual assistant for various tasks).
- Use a Dreamline to work out how much money you need a month.
- Can you do your job from home? Suggest a trial to have one day working from home a week and prove your productivity
- Use Evernote/ similar programmes- store all paperwork and search for it in one place
Life Leverage-
- Use NeTime (No Extra Time) to minimize time wastage e.g. listen to programmes while exercising, travelling, cooking etc. or hiring a cleaner, gardener, driver etc.
- Do work in your most productive times of the day
The power of saying no-
- Instead of instantly saying “yes”, try replacing it with “I will think about it”.
- You should dictate your life so try to find alternative solutions to avoid running other people’s lives.
The Miracle morning
- Successful people do 6 things regularly- Read, Write, Meditate, Exercise, Visualise, Affirmations.
- Wake up an hour earlier and do this everyday.
*Did you see an old sad lady with a large nose? Or maybe you saw a young woman with a feather in her hair looking the other way? Can you see both?
Kaizen BT 
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