There are many times in life, I have observed, when time is not valued enough. In fact, take a moment right now to sit and wonder in amazement at the hours that have been wasted doing what would apparently seem like nothing. I know I have many. This is a shame.

I, by no means, am a perfect human being, but I can still try and instill some thoughts in your (and my) mind about how to use time wisely. It is something I enjoy studying, and actively attempt to capitalize on spare time, ignoring the impossibility of physically not being able to collect time itself to spare, much to my chagrin.

Let’s paint the background picture, as to why this topic has come to my attention.

Yesterday I had the entire morning to do what I had to do, with no appointments and no pressing matters that immediately needed to be attended to, aside from my own objectives and goals that have piled high coming off the holiday season. So, logically one would think I would hunker down and battle away at the list, feeling a sense of pride and accomplishment as each task was erased from my omnipresent white board sitting beside my executive chair.

Instead, I found myself becoming entranced in the excitement of social media. I had recently been on a hiatus from social media during the holidays, as family time has more value to me due to its limited supply. In my rebuttal, I had a fairly interesting conversation that is and was important to me, that only a discussion with friends could calm my nerves. None-the-less, I was still commenting away on Twitter, watching short videos from Facebook, and browsing my stream on Tumblr for more tidbits of inspiration I could find.

So this hasn’t been all that big of a waste of time. I haven’t been sitting down to watch the last 4 seasons of The Hills that I’ve missed (I have no idea if such a show even ran for that long), and no, I wasn’t stalking old girlfriends party pictures on Facebook. I haven’t been reading a romance novel of a 7 part series, and I haven’t been napping on the sofa while a soap opera plays lifelessly in the background. If this is what you’re indeed doing, I mean not to offend you, only motivate. And, to make a point, reading is good! Keep reading. But, sometimes one reads to avoid life and responsibilities.

Further to this, I’ve spent more time wasted. A professor in a class I am attending today brought in a guest lecturer to discuss a topic related to the course. First off, the guest lecturer said the topics within the slides are very dry and that we, no doubt, had much more interesting things on our mind and that she would cut the lecture short. So, after waiting around for 4 hours for the lecture to start, I’m given a half-assed, glossed over lecture that lasts less than ½ the length it’s supposed to, after which I’m sent away to go about my other business.

Ok, so there could be worse things in the world than being sent away from a lecture early and having some extra free time to write this article, but the point I’m trying to make is that some people seem to value very little not only their time, but the time of others. When there is a scheduled, allotted, marked off and agreed upon time for a business meeting, lecture, ceremony, etc. fill it and carry on. The reason for having the time, for having a guideline, the reason for going through all the fuss to put such a thing on is to make it valuable for the people who take their time out to go to such a thing. Not to make them feel like the just sat in a room, made the arrangements to transport themselves there, prepared and listened… all for a bunch of hokey pokey, glossed over facts that were eventually left for the students to learn on their own in the future time when they deemed them necessary to read the slides provided.

To move on from my single example, I would like to place a few more notions in our heads as we walk away from these thoughts on time.

The more you try to put into time, the more you will get out of time. As with all tasks, when we keep doing them, day in and day out, we learn how to better focus our efforts. This allows us to keep very good track of our time needed, and to give a focused effort to ensure we don’t waste any time on the task at hand.

Doing something isn’t always as bad as it sounds. When the day is done, the examples I gave weren’t the worst things in the world. I have gotten out for some exercise, breathed fresh air and seen the life of day. I have tried something new, I have talked to people in the class, and I did listen to a condensed, glossed over summary of what I had hoped to learn.  I guess I had the opportunity to ask a industry professional.

Finally, The more that we as people are conscious of our time, the more we will value our time. By this plain fact alone, we will begin to observe, within our own life patterns, things that we do waste our time on. This is probably the single most valuable thing that a person can learn about time. When one begins to understand this, they may even start to understand the power of saying “No” to wastes of time.

Make your life efficient, for it will clear your mind.