Protected Time🛡️

What is Protected Time?

Ever find yourself running out of time?

Who am I kidding? Of course you have. Everyone has.

But have you ever audited your time - what you actually spend your 24 hours a day doing?

How much of that time is used like you intended?

How much of that time is wasted unintentionally?

How much of that time escapes without you even noticing?

In your busy life, there are always things that can fill your time.

There’s always more to do. More for your business. More for your family. More for your hobbies and interests.

There is ALWAYS more.

The problem is we don’t always have clear boundaries or clear intentions for our time.

Why is Protected Time Important?

It’s important to have boundaries in order to prioritize what is actually important to you.

If watching The Office over and over again on Netflix is important to you then it most definitely should be protected time.

But...

If watching The Office reruns is simply something to do when you’re bored and it isn’t actually a priority for you, then maybe it is time to re-evaluate what is important.

You need to protect what is important.

You need to be comfortable saying, “No” to things.

You need to be able to say, “No” to people you love, friends you cherish, and family you care for if you do in fact need to protect time for yourself.

It is important to design your life and protect your time.

Now, by no means am I saying you should always refuse your friends and family. That would communicate that they are not valuable or important in your life.

How Do You Protect Your Time?

Let me explain.

It’s okay for you to love, prioritize, and design your life with your family in mind, but it is important to set specific times for them.

Just like when it can be hard to spend every waking moment with your parents, you can decide and design for yourself a time when you prioritize and focus on your parents.

If you design for yourself a week when you spend Thursday nights with your parents, then it is okay for you to not spend time with them Tuesday night.

That is okay.

It is also okay to redesign your week so that you DO spend Tuesday night with your parents.

That is okay as well.

The main thing though is that you made an intentional decision to do so.

Only then, can you fully design your week into what you want to do and accomplish. And if that week you ended up spending more time with family and less time on your entrepreneurial goals, then that is the decision that you consciously made.

If the next week you need to focus on your entrepreneurial goals more and need to prioritize those aspects more, then you must be comfortable saying, “No” to your parents that week.

Only then will you be actively participating in and designing your life. Only then will be protecting your time.

And, I don’t think that breakdown of your time is the same for everyone. It is a subjective decision you make for yourself.

What I do think though is that it must be a conscious and intentional decision.

It should not be something that happens passively.

It should not be something that is decided for you by others.

It should not be something that you don’t willingly give.

You live your life for yourself and you make your intentions clear by your actions.

“Don't compromise yourself - you're all you have.”
― John Grisham, The Rainmaker