Why Do We Never Seem To Have Time?

Always. So. Busy. I’ve been hearing that way too often lately. Maybe it’s the rat race in Joburg. Maybe it’s the type of people I surround myself with. Maybe it’s a way for people to make themselves feel important.

When I tell people about my general habits and goals for the week/month/year, they’re always astonished and ask ‘Where do you find the time?!’. My answer generally tends to be that I prioritize efficiently. I thought this would be quite a useful topic to dive into, especially given how ‘busy’ we all are.

In today’s post, I’ll talk about how loving yourself is proportional to your self-discipline, how to stop making excuses for yourself, why you should stop complaining (or bragging) about how busy you are and learning to prioritize your to-do list.

Self-love = self-discipline

Self-love can be a tricky topic for certain people to navigate. It’s not necessarily something we’ve been taught or instinctively know how to do. There are several components to loving yourself, including discipline, vulnerability, compassion and connection.

I’d like to focus only on the concept of self-discipline here and why I think it’s the main ingredient to truly loving yourself. Before we get into that though, let me show you a quote as to why I think this is relevant in the first place:

“We can only love others as much as we love ourselves.”

When it comes to being disciplined, the most important element is to keep the promises you make to yourself. You need to respect your own commitments. You need to follow through on your goals and habits. You need to be consistent and dedicated. You need to be focused and free from distraction. Not necessarily all the time, but most of the time, and especially when you need to.

This leads back to the quote. When we’re able to do that for ourselves, it allows us to do it better for other people. When people tell me that they’re too busy to incorporate certain habits (that will help them) into their lifestyle, it indicates that they don’t respect or love themselves enough.

Using the ‘I don’t have enough time’ comment is genuinely a pathetic excuse to me. Unless you’re obviously responsible for a lot more than the average person.

Excuses, excuses

So what is it about that excuse that makes us turn to it so quickly? It’s simply the easiest option. It’s almost a no-brainer because it diminishes the guilt that arises when we’re not living out to our full potential.

The incredible thing is, we actually all are really busy these days. Being busy is not necessarily an invalid excuse. Some people are just more efficient at being busy than others. So, before you start complaining about how busy you are and how you don’t have time to breathe, analyse how you spend your time on average every week.

If you’re going to come up with excuses, just make sure they’re valid and backed up with evidence. I’m not asking you to prove anything to me or anyone else, I’m asking you to prove it to yourself. Look at how much time you actually spend at work (or doing work at home), look at how much sleep you’re getting, look at your screen time and how many hours you waste scrolling social media, look at how many hours you invest into Netflix and how many hours you spend on chores / errands.

You can then use that information to support your valid excuses and to get rid of your invalid ones. You’ll be able to use those insights to take actionable steps to free up some time in your ‘incredibly busy schedule’. Slot in some time to read everyday, to work out a little everyday, to spend time with your family / friends, to pray, and to meditate or journal or anything to look after your mental health.

Being busy without evidence is a terrible excuse and we just use it to inflate our egos.

I’m such a busy person, look at how important I am!

The other issue with us trying to be busy all the time? It makes us feel important. It can reach the point where even when we don’t have anything pressing to do, it diminishes the way we feel about ourselves. The solution to that is quite simple. Find an excuse to be busy.

This becomes problematic when we’re trying to put on a show for other people. Acting like we’re always pre-occupied gives us a sense of entitlement and makes use feel significant. When we’re not being authentic to ourselves, we tend to do the same with other people.

Just be conscious of the way the ego plays a role in wanting to put up this front, especially when you find yourself being ‘busy’ with unnecessary activities. So how can we be more efficient in all that busyness?

Efficiently doing your list

When it comes to freeing up time or doing multiple important things in a single day, the key lies in prioritisation. Personally, I like to build up momentum as early as possible. So, I focus first on the simple tasks and what takes up a short amount of time. This allows me to tick off a number of items off my to-do list early on in the day, which frees up more time for the bigger tasks throughout the rest of the day.

Basically, what you want to do is find an ordering system for your to-do list in terms of when to get things done. This will not only help you structure your list better, but it will also help you think of how much time each task will take. Then you can fit in additional hobbies and things you want to do in between.

Momentum here is key. Small consistent wins play a critical role in your mindset. When you start the day off with wins, you tend to flow through with that kind of energy. This is what works specifically for me. See what works best for you and incorporate that into your own system.

I want to leave you with a better understanding of how useless the concept of ‘being busy’ is. We all have the same amount of time, but different amounts of responsibility. Based on your own capacity and schedule, find a way to make it as efficient as possible. Don’t use excuses to invalidate your own growth, unless you’ve genuinely put in the time and effort to think about it.

Life is short. You have enough time. The world is already trying to hold you back, so don’t hold yourself back too. You can do this. You are capable. Keep pushing. Don’t give up.

Toxic Positivity

‘Don’t worry!’

‘Just stay positive…’

‘Everything will work out.’

‘Imagine how much worse things could be?’

I’ve recently come across a very interesting term called ‘toxic positivity’. This is very similar to the concept of toxic productivity that I’ve discussed before, whereby we push certain mindsets past a healthy threshold.

Today, I’ll speak about what I think toxic positivity is, how positivity can become toxic, why we experience it, emotional intelligence and vulnerability.

I enjoy discussing things that I often find myself guilty of following, because it’s how I grow and learn. The IG post below is where I found out about the concept and is a great place to learn more about it.

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A post shared by so informed (@so.informed)

What is toxic positivity?

It is essentially portraying yourself as being happy all the time, regardless of what life throws at you. It’s rejecting the negative emotions that come up and living in an illusion that everything is perfectly okay. This meme perfectly sums it up for me:

How can positivity be toxic?

The term toxic refers to something being affected by poison. This is often the case when you’re obsessed to the degree that it no longer serves its original intent.

Positivity in and of itself is wonderful. It’s what keeps people going. It helps you see the best in situations. But don’t confuse positivity with optimism and don’t let positivity hinder your ability to feel negative emotions.

Our ability to feel a wide range of emotions is what inherently makes us human beings. Take a look at the diagram below. Can you imagine denying yourself more than 2/3 of that range? It’s all there for a reason, we’re meant to feel things.

When your sole focus becomes trying to always be ‘happy’, you’re falling into the toxic trap.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/ea/9d/46/ea9d468243a408df546ed2946e8bc86e.jpg

Why do we do it?

Because feeling sad sucks. It’s that simple really. We don’t enjoy the feelings of frustration, anger, disappointment, embarrassment or fear etc. However, that doesn’t mean that we should try and escape from experiencing them.

Always being cheerful is something embedded deep into our psyche from a very young age. Whereas being upset or frustrated is something frowned upon / ‘annoying’. This is why I believe that emotional intelligence is so important, because it allows us to understand that there’s a plethora of emotions that we need to understand and appreciate.

Just to be clear here, I’m in no way trying to tell you not to feel ecstatic, hopeful or optimistic. I’m merely trying to get you to understand how complicated we are as beings. Allow your self to experience the full range of emotions more regularly and accept them.

https://www.facebook.com/YFSWellness/photos/pcb.2755390471246386/2755390157913084/?type=3&theater

Self-awareness and acceptance

Self-awareness is arguably the most important skill to learn for emotional intelligence. This should definitely be followed by acceptance. When we’re able to identify and become aware of specific emotions, it enables us to accept them.

This process is extremely liberating because it teaches us not to hold onto or force away any feelings. When we’re able to be deeply present with ourselves, we are no longer slaves to our impulses.

“Better awareness >> Better choices >> Better results”

Vulnerability and empathy

Learning how to be appropriately vulnerable will catalyze meaningful connections in your life. You’ll not only amplify your ability to be kind to yourself, but you’ll be able to do the same for others.

This involves being open and honest about how you feel. Talking about what’s bothering you or what’s not going well for you. It’s about being realistic and showing that. Being empathetic will also play an important role in vulnerability, because you would need to relate to how other people are feeling by reflecting on similar experiences.

Toxic positivity encourages the suppression of emotions and faking the fact that things are okay. Being vulnerable encourages you to accept it and then allow it to pass.

It’s okay to not be okay.

Next time you do feel a storm whirring up inside of you, take a deep breath. Allow yourself to sit through the motion and gain an understanding of how your body reacts.

Things will be really shitty at times, but things will also be really great at times and that’s part of the journey. Understand that failure is part of growth and that it’s okay to want to give up. You’re exactly where you’re meant to be. Just keep trying your best to learn.

Why is Ramadan so important?

Have you ever wondered why Ramadan was such an important aspect of Islam? This post will focus on shedding some light to those who are curious about this blessed month. It will also serve as a reminder to those of you who are familiar with Islamic knowledge.

I’ll briefly discuss the 5 pillars of Islam, the revelation of the Quran, the reason why Muslims fast, how this month coincides with a crisis and why we try our best to revive our spirituality.

[This is based on my understanding and the research that I have done. Please consult literature or a scholar for more detailed and authentic interpretations.]

Ramadan is the 4th Pillar of Islam

Islam is constructed on the 5 pillars shown below. Each have a significant contribution to one’s faith and need to be consistently adhered to. The 1st pillar is the Shahadah, which is professing that there’s ‘No God but Allah and that Muhammad is his messenger’. It’s considered the foundation of Islam, because everything builds upon that testimony.

The 2nd pillar is Salaah (prayer), which is expected to be performed 5 times a day. This consistency in prayer has always been remarkable to me, as it truly keeps the 1st pillar in place and reminds me of my true purpose in life. It forms a beautiful structure to the day and allows us to frequently remember God.

The 3rd pillar is Zakaat, which is a form of giving charity. This needs to be performed annually, where we’re expected to give 2.5% of our monetary wealth to those who are less fortunate (There are more specifications to this, I’m merely giving an overview). This is such a beautiful pillar because it indicates that giving to others and being considerate is part of the religion.

The 4th pillar will be my focus today; fasting the month of Ramadan. It is the 9th month of the Hijri calendar, where we’re expected to abstain from food and drink for 29 or 30 days every year (depending on the sighting of the new moon). There’s more to it than just the abstinence of food and drink however, which I’ll also discuss.

The final pillar is Hajj; the pilgrimage to Makkah. There are roughly 2 million pilgrims on average who embark on this journey every year. This year will be the first time in history where the pilgrimage would be extremely restricted, possibly even cancelled.

The Revelation of the Quran

One of the most interesting aspects of Ramadan is that it’s the month in which the Quran was first revealed to the prophet Muhammad (PBUH). He was 40 years old when he was blessed with prophet-hood and when the angel Jibreel first revealed to him the Holy text sent by Allah. It was a constant stream of verses that spanned 23 years, which started around the year 609 CE.

The Quran contains timeless wisdom and is memorized by Muslims all over the world. It is what we recite during prayer and it has remain unscathed since it was revealed (Nothing has been edited). It’s as relevant to us today as it was when it was sent over 1400 years ago.

There’s a lot of emphasis for us to recite the Quran during Ramadan. It’s the one time of the year where everyone is a lot more focused and dedicated to their spirituality, making it a lot easier and enjoyable. Rewards for performing good deeds are multiplied by over 10 fold, which is motivating and encouraging.

Allah’s Prophet said, “Fasting is a shield (or a screen or a shelter). So, the person observing fasting should avoid sexual relation with his wife and should not behave foolishly and impudently, and if somebody fights with him or abuses him, he should tell him twice, ‘I am fasting.”

Why do Muslims fast during this month?

You may have encountered the buzzword ‘Intermittent fasting’ over the past few years. I’m proud to say that Muslims have been doing that consistently over the past 1400 years. Let’s discuss what fasting in Islam entails, whilst looking at the scientific benefits behind it.

The infographic above shows a number of health benefits associated with fasting. From an Islamic point of view however, there’s much more to it than that. The fasting starts at the Fajr prayer and ends at the Maghrib prayer. Essentially from dawn till dusk.

The fasting includes abstaining from food and drink, keeping the stimulation of senses to a minimum and staying away from sexual activity. It’s a time to practice self-control, not to indulge in the usual luxuries of life and to focus on your blessings.

The reason behind fasting is for us to become empathetic with those who are less fortunate than us. Many people live without sufficient food or water their entire lives. For those of us who are blessed with a variety of food choices every day, it gives us time to reflect on that and understand how circumstances are for others.

We often complain about the most trivial aspects of our luxurious lives, without realizing that others would be extremely grateful for a mere fraction of what we have.

Spiritual rejuvenation

We’re without a doubt, living through one of the most unique Ramadans in history. It’s no coincidence that this blessed month coincides with a global pandemic. People have the opportunity to focus more on their spirituality, to reflect, to grow and to become compassionate.

The lock down restrictions have forced us to gain a few realizations. We need to understand that everything happens for a reason. Whether you see it as a blessing or a curse, entirely depends on your perception.

I say this again and again, but it’s an important reminder. Life is short and we are all temporary. Look at how quickly time is passing. Before you know it, your time will be up and you’ll spend the rest of your days in the grave (until Resurrection). Keep that in mind often. It’s not something to be bleak about, it’s part of the circle of life.

You should try and feel motivated by how fleeting this all is. You’re not here for nothing. This isn’t a coincidence. It’s all part of the plan.

The reason I wrote this post was to remind myself of why I focus so much during Ramadan. I also hope to have inspired you in some way, or to have helped you understand it a little better. I really enjoyed writing about this, if you’d like me to discuss the 4 other pillars of Islam, please let me know!

I hope the rest of your month and days ahead are blessed InshaAllah. Stay strong, stay thankful, stay present. Everything happens for a reason, don’t forget that. The more struggle you have to endure, the more you are rewarded. Alhamdulillah for everything.

The Paradox of Choice

How often do you feel like there are too many options to choose from? Couldn’t figure out what to watch on Netflix? Got stuck deciding what outfit to wear? Couldn’t pick a restaurant to go out to with your friends? Struggled to pick a meal once you were at that restaurant?

We’re living in an age where we have more choices for pretty much everything than ever before. We tend to think that our freedom lies in having a variety of choices, but there’s a threshold before those choices become taxing.

I’d like to use this post to discuss a very interesting phenomenon; the paradox of choice. This post will serve as a summary for the book written by Barry Shwartz, but I’ll talk about other relevant ideas too.

I’ll also talk about a concept called decision fatigue, how unlimited choices affect us psychologically, the contribution of capitalism and how to move forward.

Why more is less

As previously mentioned, it seems like having too many options is paralyzing us, instead of liberating us. We don’t realize how when comparing so many choices, it often leaves us with a sense of regret.

I should’ve ordered the usual. We should’ve chosen the first hotel. We should’ve watched the other movie. I should’ve joined the other course.

“Instead of increasing our sense of well-being, an abundance of choice is increasing our levels of anxiety, depression, and wasted time. “

onegreenplanet.org

According to Barry Shwartz, good decisions usually involve 6 key aspects. As you’ll notice, the more options that are available to us, the more effort will be required to make a sound decision. Here are the 6 steps:

1. Identify your goal or goals
2. Evaluate their importance
3. Array the options to achieve them
4. Evaluate how likely each option is to meet your goals
5. Pick the best options
6. Modify your goals based on the outcome

You can see from the list above, if firstly, you don’t have a clear idea of what you’re trying to achieve, you’re going to have trouble making a decision. Understanding how important your goal is to you also plays an important role, because it allows you to sort through the options more effectively.

“Nobody makes plans because something better might turn up, and the result is that nobody every does anything.”

Let’s see how trying to sift through several options affects our ability to further make decisions.

Decision fatigue

You have a certain capacity for the amount of good decisions you can make in a single day. Essentially, your willpower diminishes and the quality of your decisions decrease based on the number of decisions that you make.

The graph below shows what I mean by that. It clearly illustrates that the quality of your decisions are higher, when you make less decisions. Why is understanding this useful? Because it allows us to focus on making our decisions earlier and on what matters.

bluejeanwellness.com

Let’s think about the first hour of your typical day and how many decisions you make before leaving the house. Okay in this case we’re not leaving the house anymore, but until you start being ‘productive’ at home.

You’d usually start on auto-pilot; snoozing, then brushing your teeth, making the bed, stretching a little, maybe even scrolling through your phone (terrible idea btw).

Then comes breakfast. What do I eat? What should I drink? What should I prepare for lunch later? Then you need to get dressed. What should I wear? When should I shower? Should I exercise now or later? Then you have to prepare to do work. Which assignment should I start with? Should I respond to these emails now? Why won’t these people leave me alone?

You get my point. Before we can even start making any important decisions, we’ve already exhausted a handful of our will-power’s supply.

This essentially means that we should make the most important decisions early in the morning. Start planning for your daily activities in advance. Choose your breakfast and your outfit the day before.

Reduce the amount of decisions you need to make per day and you’ll clear up a lot of cognitive space.

The psychology of unlimited choices

When you make a decision that doesn’t turn out well and then find better alternatives, how does usually make you feel?

Regretful.

How does regret play a role in our decision making? There are two main forms of regret, namely: post-decision and anticipation.

When things don’t go well after a decision is made, that’s called post-decision regret. When we anticipate that things aren’t going to go well before even making a decision, it often leaves us feeling anticipatory regret.

Having an enormous amount of choices leads to constantly evaluating “What if”. That is called counterfactual thinking. When we ponder over scenarios that could’ve been. That often leads us to appreciating what we have less and therefore, we derive less satisfaction from our decisions.

Being aware of these psychological consequences is actually a great way for us to overcome the paralysis of over-stimulation. We can identify more clearly our objectives before making a decision, we can learn to accept “good enough” and learn to focus on the few options that meet our standards.

“What looks attractive in prospect, doesn’t always look so good in practice.”

We need to decide when choices really matter and focus our energy there. We tend to believe that the choices we make are a reflection of who we are, so we spend more time than we realize evaluating them.

Capitalism

The root of all evil. I’m kidding haha. I won’t dive too deeply into this, just needed to share some of my thoughts. It seems that the ever increasing number of choices for everything, is rooted in modern consumerism.

Capitalism has bred this kind of thinking in several ways. By making people believe that their sense of value is determined by their net worth. By creating a culture of social comparison, where everyone’s ego is on the line. By creating a ‘satisfaction treadmill’, where we continuously chase the latest products and trends, thinking that we’ll get satisfaction from it.

We might not be able to change the way the system runs on our own, but we can learn to better maneuver through it. We can become aware of how it influences us and our ability to make decisions.

Better awareness -> Better choices -> Better results.

How do we move forward with all this?

Great question. Here some of the points the author mentions that are imperative for us to remain satisfied with our decisions.

1. Choose when to choose
2. Be a chooser not a picker
3. Make your decisions non-reversible
4. Focus on your blessings and be grateful
5. Regret less through acceptance
6. Anticipate adaptation
7. Control expectations
8. Curtail social comparison
9. Learn to embrace constraints

We need to realize that we often try to make decisions based on the objective experience it will provide. However, what’s actually important to us, is often the subjective experience. How we feel about it.

Being a chooser entails understanding what is important to you and how that aligns with your values. Being a picker means just ‘going with the flow’ and picking anything. By making your decisions non-reversible, you’d spend less time ruminating over the other choices. Having an “attitude of gratitude” is pivotal to appreciation and also helps with overcoming regret.

We’re hyper-adaptive beings. We need to keep in mind that everything that was once novel, will become ordinary and comfortable after a while. We need to manage our expectations more realistically in order to avoid disappointment.

Curtailing social comparison is essentially not worrying about everyone else. You’re living your own life, based on your circumstances and your life goals. Don’t worry about impressing other people or missing out based on their experiences. Finally, embrace constraints. Manage your options by limiting them whilst maintaining your standards.

“Choice within constrains, freedom within limits, is what allows us to imagine a host of marvelous possibilities.”

Toxic Productivity

At this point, most of us have been spending an unusual amount of time at home. I know we’re procrastinating and spending way more time online than we usually do. But there’s another aspect of this isolation that I’d like to speak about – being obsessed with productivity.

We live in an age where we’re bombarded by people’s success. Social media makes us showcase the best aspects of our lives. There’s always a story of someone who started a multi-billion dollar company from scratch. Apps that revolutionize the world. YouTubers making millions from every video. IG influencers living off their posts.

How can productivity be toxic?

Something I haven’t really thought about before was the concept of ‘toxic productivity’. Which is essentially our obsession with being busy and finding things to do. Our somewhat unhealthy pursuit of success and greatness. Largely due to our subconscious comparison to those around us.

This may not be relevant to all of you, but it’s an important concept to understand.

I’m someone who tends to fill every second of my day with various activities; trying to make the most of my time. This can be great, it allows me to get a lot of shit done. There are certain moments in the day where I just can’t sit still though, I almost itch to find more work to do – that’s when it becomes a problem.

We need to give our brain time off to just relax and digest ideas. It can’t always be about the next assignment, the next meeting, the next goal, the next objective, the next game, the next blog, the next video, the next post, the next meal to cook.

There’s a big difference between being busy and being productive.

Workaholism and hustle culture have played a major role in our lives over the past few years. We’re told to stay productive, work harder, sleep less, exercise more, keep pushing until you drop!

Productivity without the toxic aspect

I’m not saying that we should procrastinate or stop being productive. I’m trying to bring to your awareness that there’s a threshold to your work ethic, before things start getting toxic. We have to embrace the concept of being bored sometimes and allow ourselves to just be.

Don’t overwhelm your schedule with unnecessary work, space it out where possible. To-do lists can be a great tool to stay on track with your tasks, just ensure there’s not too much to do.

Use your time wisely and allocate space for rest and recovery.

Work smart, not just hard.

Understand your attention span. We’re not really effective after sitting in front of the same task for about 45 minutes. The mind starts to wander and efficiency starts to drop.

Take breaks regularly to basically hit the refresh button. Listen to your body and respect your limits. Take deep breaths. Don’t push yourself to the point of sickness.

Understand the sacrifices you need to make in order to succeed. There’s a certain way to push past your current limits, by first understanding what they are. Set objectives to slowly leave your comfort zone; consistently.

This post is a reminder to myself before anyone else, that there’s definitely a point where working no longer becomes efficient. It’s crucial for us to be mindful of that, so we can optimize our schedule to get as much done (how ironic lmao). This needs us to account for rest and periods where we aren’t unnecessarily finding things to do.

Keep up the great work and don’t allow failure to stop you from moving forward. Fostering a growth mindset is the best thing you can ever do for yourself and those around you.

Stay realistic and take it easy. You got this.

I’d like to know more about your relationship with productivity. Let me know in the comments below!