Do you spend your time wisely?

Hello folks, been a long Thursday; Hope you’ve had a good Thursday so far…
I know most of you would be reading this on Friday but that doesn’t matter so much; I had a great day and I want to share it with you.

Few moments ago, I was reading through a facebook group created by one of my Mentors and I came across a post written by one of our contributors, Josh Reif.

He was so forthcoming and original with his content that I felt I couldn’t be selfish and keep it to myself. I had to share it with you guys. (PS: he gave me permission to)
Here it goes..

HUSTLE IS OVERRATED

Yea, you heard me.

If I offered you $1,000,000 to out-hustle everyone in this group for one week you could do it right? You’d pull 7 straight all-nighters and be hopped up on so much caffiene the Starbucks barista would know your order by heart. You’d give up sleep, food, sex, family, everything. After all, it’s just one week and you’d win a million freaking dollars!

But you would lose…..because it’s virtually impossible. Assuming for health reasons I require everyone to sleep at least 3 hours a night, someone (likely many) in this highly motivated group is going to match you even if you complete the 147 hours of insane hustle in the week’s time.

At the end of the week, I’m sure you will have gotten a ton of shit done, BUT SO WILL EVERYONE ELSE. And that everyone else in the world is your competition.

If like me, you’ve joined several entrepreneurial groups, I’m sure you’ve seen tons of photos with motivational quotes about hustle. How the “true” players in this world just “out-hustle” everyone else.

Well, I have some bad news for you. Hustle just isn’t enough. Hustling your ass off is the BARE MINIMUM. Thanks for playing. Working as hard as you can just buys you a ticket to the game. To truly win you have to hustle smarter, faster, more efficiently than everyone else.

You only get 168 hours a week. That’s it.

When Henry Ford developed the moving assembly line for the Ford Model T, he didn’t attempt to find out how many hours of “hustle” he could spend building a car. He wanted to build a car faster and more efficiently and REDUCE the number of hours of hustle needed. While previous assembly methods required 12.5 man-hours to build one car, Ford reduced it to 1.5 man-hours.

Hustling SMARTER, not harder is what made Ford into a billionaire.

Barack Obama is one of the most efficient people in the world. He didn’t come up with some magical system. He’s not a “life hacker”. His job simply depends on it. As leader of the most powerful nation on earth, his responsibilities are numerous and his decision-making must be on point at all times. But Barack Obama has the same problem you do. He only gets 168 hours a week.

He might as well be called the “chief delegator” because he MUST delegate any and all tasks that someone else can complete for him. He must be extremely efficient. You don’t see him scrambling his own eggs because he’d never have enough time in his day to meet hundreds of foreign diplomats, prepare speeches, deal with pressing domestic and national security issues, and still find time for his wife and kids. He can ONLY do the things he is best at and those necessary for his success because the people of the United States and much of the world depend on it.

You must do the same. You should delegate any and all tasks that can be done for you. Your success DEPENDS on it.

168 hours = 10,080 minutes a week

That’s all you get. Every week of your life. HOW MANY MINUTES ARE YOUR WASTING?!

Are you productive? Well, you probably wouldn’t be in this group if you weren’t putting in effort and getting shit done. But are you the MOST productive you can be? Are you MORE productive than everyone else? Probably not.

We think of all the time we waste on mindless activities, but what about all the time we waste on routine activities? Things that we label “essentials” or “errands”, basically giving them the title of necessary evils.

I wanted to know how much time I was wasting and how much I was productive, so I broke it down. I picked minutes because a lot of things are done shorter than hours and the minutes add up differently.

Let’s break it down

Sleep - 2940 minutes

Sleep is uber important. Seriously. Hustle is great, but sleep is the most important thing our body needs physically (despite some popular sleep deprivation hack attempts). 6-8 hours recommended - 7 seems to work well for me.

That leaves 7140 waking minutes per week and it is vital that I choose wisely because these minutes matter.

Job - 2400 minutes

Ugh gross. This is a HUGE chunk of time - 34% of my waking minutes! -  wasted not growing my business just to pay the bills (I’ve since quit and regained some of this time).

Commute - 500 minutes

The biggest time waster in existence. I cannot think of any bigger “necessary” time waster than a commute.

Laundry - 120 minutes
Groceries - 70 minutes
Morning shower/coffee/eat - 280 minutes
Cooking/Eating dinner - 200 minutes
Dishes - 60 minutes
Cleaning apartment - 60 minutes
Gym - 300 minutes

Grand total time spent on “necessary” tasks:  3990 minutes
Remaining: 3150 minutes

Over 50% of my waking minutes now gone - poof! - and just 31% of my total weekly minutes for things of my choosing :(

Options for those minutes:

Hang with friends
Work on business
Call mom
Smoke weed
Glue myself to facebook
Watch that funny youtube video
Play guitar
Read a book
Go out partying
Go for a hike
Go play a sport

There’s a million more things I could be wasting my time on. Some are totally worth it. Others not so much. I want to only do the things I really enjoy.

Lastly, I haven’t factored in the time it takes between changing tasks. This is hard to decipher, but it will likely indicate that sticking to fewer tasks and following them through frees up the most time.

NOW THE FUN PART - YAY!

Here’s where you get to play around and figure out just how much time and energy you can save and free up for the things you WANT to do instead of things you HAVE to do. I will break this down in terms of money because that’s something we can all understand. Interesting though, why is that?

Because your time is INVALUABLE, priceless, precious. This means its value cannot be calculated so we can’t use it for adequate comparison. You KNOW that your time is finite. You know that your time is MORE valuable than your money. But since you cannot calculate its true value, you cannot understand it. Thus it is far easier for you to waste time than money.

We can start by assigning a monetary value to our time. Since solo businesses run in random sorts, I will use the standard 9-5 job/40-hour work week. In this group, we all have huge aspirations, but let’s put a desirable income at $100,000 per year. Many of us want to be millionaires and some billionaires, but I don’t think any of us would or should complain at that salary. That 100K based on a 40 hour work week and 50 weeks work breaks down to $50 per hour.

HERE’S THE KICKER

To be truly efficient, you must delegate ANY tasks that cost less than $50 per hour to outsource. You will feel like paying someone to do your laundry is a waste of your money. This is the WRONG mindset. You must re-frame your thinking to understand that this is a waste of your TIME which is MUCH more valuable than your money.

Spend those 2 hours working for more money and you will quickly see how those “errands” or necessary everyday boring tasks consume your time and prevent you from making money.

Another painful side effect you will realize is that when you spend time out partying or with friends you are losing both time AND money. But this is life. This is what you enjoy. You should be spending your time on these things, but CHOOSE WISELY. Don’t hangout with negative people out of some perceived obligation. Don’t watch TV because you have nothing else to do. Either spend your time building your empire or spend it experiencing the world around you: your relationships, nature, your passions.

The catch is you must first start making good money in order to spend it delegating your tasks, but the minute the money starts rolling in is the minute you should start delegating and not a second later.

THE EASY PART - THINGS YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW

The last part of the efficiency equation is easy. You can simply eliminate unnecessary and inefficient tasks. I can’t tell you how many smart and moderately successful people I know who waste their time on meaningless or insignificant tasks often trying to save minute sums of money.

I’m really good at saving money. I used to penny pinch. I used to find all sorts of creative ways to make small sums of money. But I gave that all up. Unless I can make at least $50 doing something I simply DON’T DO IT. It’s not worth my time. And anything that does net me $50 better take me an hour or less.

So what things are total wastes of your time?  *cough* facebook *cough* What things are fun and you should keep doing? What life essentials can you automate, delegate, or simply do faster and more efficiently?

I’m on a mission to live the most efficient life possible. I want to reclaim the only thing I can’t get more of: my TIME. I want to stop wasting time on the things I hate doing like laundry omg omg omg and grocery shopping barf.

This won’t be easy. Sacrifices will need to be made. But this can be done. And you can do it too. You can reclaim your time because it is YOUR time and no one else’s. Your time is MORE valuable than your money. Most people will never understand that.

What are you going to do about it?

Leave a comment below and tell me the one thing you hate doing the most that takes up way too much of your time.

If You’re Hustling Hard and Things Still Aren’t Happening for You, Read This

Hey Friend!
Happy new month!
Chris Rock has a hilarious bit about the ridiculous negative stereotypes that some parents use to qualify their parenting skills.

As an example, he riffs on phrases some parents might say like, “I take care of my kids” as if this is some great accomplishment, to which Rock’s exasperated response is, “Well duh, you dumb mothaf***a. You’re SUPPOSED to take care of your kids!”

It's forehead-smackingly obvious, right?

Well this level of "No Shit, Sherlock" is the point at which I feel the state of entrepreneurial thought has devolved to — especially the constant emphasis on "hustle."

It's all a bit self-explanatory, isn't it?

Yes, wake up early. Yes, do what needs to be done. Read more. Less TV. Work really hard on the projects you care about. They're YOUR projects, after all. Duh.

This isn’t new information. People understood this way before 7,000 inspirational Instagram accounts littered the internet. And if you’ve already been hustling, this advice isn't necessarily useful or inspiring.

Doesn't it go deeper than this? Isn't there more to this game than just rocking it until the wheels fall off? I don't want my wheels to fall off. I like my wheels!

I saw a quote yesterday from a Gary V. about more of the usual.
 I don’t remember the exact phrasing, but it was something along the lines of “while everybody is out at the pool this summer sippin’ Rosé, you should be hustling!”

Personally, I’d actually rather be at the pool sippin’ Rosé! Does this mean I don’t have “the drive” to succeed?

Here’s the problem with the hype about hustle…

"We have this mistaken belief that with enough hustle, grit, grind, [insert tired Instagram platitude], we can achieve any outcome".

But that's false. It's a nice fairytale. But it's false.

Sometimes things aren't ready to happen yet. There are literally millions of other factors at play in the world that you can't see — and no matter how hard you hustle, you cannot produce a miracle by force.

So stop trying to force things, sweetie.  

I'm not saying you should aim low, or that you shouldn't set goals and work towards them.

The problem isn't with goal setting or ambition. The problem is what to do with our emotions during the in-between phases, when our reality doesn't match our grand vision for life.  

We must learn to become more comfortable in a state of waiting. Not hoping without planning. Not ambivalence towards the results. But simply putting in the work, and then waiting for the results to come in whenever *they* are ready to come.

What's so uncomfortable about waiting, after all? We can't stand waiting for anything anymore. It's outrageous. 

Can't wait for a movie to hit theaters. Gotta stream it!

Can't wait in line for my food. Better get it delivered!

Can't wait for a spontaneous relationship to unfold. Gotta swipe my next date!

Can't wait for my life to be great. Want it all now!

Now!

You'd think delayed gratification was the end of the world.

Delayed gratification, by definition IS the world. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old and life on earth has been around for an infinitesimally small fraction of that time. 

For 99.9% of this planet's existence, the sun was rising and setting. Volcanoes were exploding. Seasons were changing. The earth was busy doing it's thing without the presence of a single witness. It wasn't ready for life yet.  

Then one day, life. Took you long enough, stupid planet! Perhaps we should have told the earth to hustle harder next time :)

Here's the truth: sometimes life just takes a while to develop, and no matter how hard you push, it's just not the right time for things to pop off for you.

Force doesn't work as a long term strategy for progress.  

Since you can't force anything to happen, the only thing you can do is adjust your perspective. You have to change the way you think about waiting.  

Learn to go from a mindset that associated waiting with pain and discomfort, to one that looks towards the future with optimism without constantly obsessing about what you're lacking in the present.

My advice:   
Continue to get things done and work hard. Yes, hustle. That's obvious. But don't obsess over timetables for when things *must* happen. Trust me, you'll be disappointed almost every time. Just put in the work and let life unfold.

Give the universe space to do it's work while you do yours, and when the thing you want finally does happen for you, let it be a happy, albeit not entirely unexpected surprise.

In other words, chill.  

Share this with a friend who needs to chill.   
#TGIF, have a great weekend folks.

The Youth and SDGs

Hello; its been too long friends.

How many of us know what SDG stands for?.. For the unaware youth, SDG stands for sustainable development goals.

Sustainable Development Goals

Infact, last week was the first time I got to learn more about SDGs in general and how we youth relate to it.

Last Wednesday I went to a seminar on SDG hosted by my state ministry of youth development in collaboration with SDG body affiliated with the special adviser to the Governor..….

So basically what I want to talk about stems from a particular phrase from a guest speaker said today.

He said, "In This Generation, Youths See Problems Instead of Solutions And Opportunities But If You Have Seen The Problem, You Have Seen Part Of The Solution Already"

Another speaker said today that "the youths of today are lazy! We don’t think!!!….we don’t meditate or even try to come up with solutions to solve existing problems in society and that is why we are backwards and being used by politicians for their selfish machinations"

When I listened to the lectures by this two great speakers, I flashed-back to an incident I had with a friend a few days back on a WhatsApp group. so I am going to describe the incident on here in detail.

Some few weeks back, I posted about this seminar on a private WhatsApp group that included a foray of innovative friends and colleagues; but I had this friend that is very bright; but lately has been feeling discontent about the job situation in the state. His anger at the world has spread so far that he no longer saw opportunities instead he saw problems.

So after my post, he went on a rant stating how these programs are just another avenue for greedy politicians to siphon government funds instead of allocating them to their proper use.

He continued by stating how the economy looks and describing the day to day struggles he goes through to meet ends meet. He discussed the state of our detiorating economic and financial state and blamed the government for virtually everything that has gone wrong in the state.

This tirade of his aggravated me so much and I had to respond. I asked him what have you done to better yourself.

A wise man once told me, "Nobody Listens To A Nobody"

And I really want to pose this question to the youths reading my blog today, what have you done to better yourself?

Lemme tell you a short story about my experience this morning.

So I woke up early this morning by 6:30AM needing to polish my shoes and a clean haircut.

I went out to the Mallam on the road who was out by 6:40am and dropped my shoes. I called my barber, he was not yet open so I walked a while to see if I could see any barbing shops open.

Only one was, so I went in.

While having a my hair cut, I stroke up a conversation with this enigmatic young man; I told him of what I went through that morning just to find a barber and he told me he had been open since 6:30am.

I was impressed with his dedication to his profession and commended him.

Basically that young man was doing all he could to better himself so as to build a better tomorrow. Every little thing you do to improve yourself goes a long way.

You see, as youths, we are no longer leaders of tomorrow but of the present now. We exert our influence over a large group of people whether it be social media groups, church bodies, organizations or even a small group of friends; therefore, this makes up leaders and puts us under the responsibility of monitoring over the people we influence. We can no longer afford to show discontent in situations as such largesse cannot be tolerated in today’s society.

I am happy today as this seminar has given me the opportunity to connect and network with vibrant hardworking youths working toward a goal of self-improvement and sustainability.

The very first step to self-improvement is a something we all know but do little of; and that is to learn. Learning comes in various forms and as the popular adage says, “knowledge is power”

The next step is to grow yourself by relating with people that help you achieve your life vision. Relating with people that push you forward as you strive to improve yourself. This is known as "networking" and it’s the most important step that youths have to follow.

Networking ensures that you connect with the right people that help you in reaching your goals.

And there are many platforms that are open these days due to technology to make networking easier. I implore you to make use of them.

The last step to growing is advocacy. You have to advocate for something. You must have a passion and you must be willing to pursue it.

What is it you like doing? What gets your blood pumping? Channel all of your energy towards bringing awareness to that thing.

Make more people interested in your interest and you will attract a great lot of growth and investment.

As a youth, from today I plan to work hard in other to make sure that the sustainable development goals are achieved in my region and my state to the best of my ability.

Are you ready to take such a pledge with me?

Buckle up then because I have a personal vision; that by 2030, I will contribute to the eradication of poverty in The Niger Delta region.

We are youths leading sustainability and we should always strive to overcome.

Good day and remain blessed.