HOW TO WIN AGAINST TIME

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"Life is a game and in order to win any game, you need to understand the game."

This is perhaps my father in laws favourite phrase. Having had numerous conversations, he has explained this concept to me in detail which will be subject for another day.

Now long retired medical doctor to focus on his businesses, he asked me if there was something that I was working on besides my job. I said nothing currently and gave him the reason was mostly due to a lack of time.

He gave me the following advice:

"Every day you work for your company, from 8am to 5pm (9hrs/day), use 1hr of the remaining time to work on your business. If you just work for 1hr each day, after 1 month you would have worked for about 20hrs. Imagine the progress you would make in 20hrs?"

I got the advice but like always most things are easier said than done. I could only see myself doing this on weekends or holidays when I was not working and no pressing issues requiring my attention.

After the days job, am too tired to do anything and the last thing I want is to engage in any kind of work.

However, his advice on life being a game never left me. Recently, I started looking at time like a game. And to win against this opponent, I needed to make changes.

In much the same way that you wouldn't expect a losing teams fortune to change in a football match unless the coach (you) makes some alterations by doing the following:

Formation change

One way the proceedings of a game can change is when the coach adjusts the team’s formation. This entails maintaining the same players but re-aligning them to counter the opponent’s system. A coach may decide to simply change formation from 4-5-1 to 4-3-3 (defence to attack minded but with the same players when they concede). In much the same way, you can adjust your formation for your "game" by changing the time that you sleep and wake up. Rather than sleeping close to midnight then having to wake up at 6am, you sleep at 10pm so you can wake up at 4am (from 12am-6am to 10pm-4am formation). This way, you have the same hours of sleep (6hrs) but you will mostly likely be more effective working in the morning than in the evening.

Complementation

In other instances, a coach might instruct the left/right backs/wingers to overlap from defence to attack and vis-versa. This means they each play two positions depending on the circumstances they are in (attacking or defending). Similarly in life, you may decide to overlap or multi-task your work to get the most out of your time. For example, the time that you drive or commute to and from work can be used to listen to audiobooks on radio or phone which can help with your business (side hustle, work, spiritual, family, etc whatever it is you want to improve on).

You are performing an activity which is an unavoidable (commuting) while at the same time learning and becoming better in your life.

Substitution

When a coach (you) observes that his team is having difficulties against an opponent (time), he normally looks for where the weakest link (player or activity) is and in most cases removes and replaces him with another player. In a similar fashion, when you notice that you are having difficulties to do the things you want to do due to time, look at some of your activities (players) and see if you can substitute them with others. For example, you can cut-off or reduce the time you spend browsing the net or watching TV. This can seem painful in much the same way that a coach sometimes sacrifices their star player in a game when they observe that they are not helping the teams cause.

They will always be the same 24hrs in a day and this is not going to change anytime soon.

The truth of the matter is that unless the formation changes, you will keep getting the same results against time. Time is an opponent who will never change, and it will keep pressing on to the finishing line of your game (life).

Time is relentless and never rests to give you a chance to focus on those things you have always wanted to do.

How are things going in your "game" against time? 

If you one of those who wish for more time like me, now maybe the time to make some tough calls to substitute, complement or change formation to have any chance of winning your game against time.


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