Being more intentional with your time

Recently, I have been trying to be more intentional with how I use my time and energy, which has helped my wellbeing significantly. In this blog post, I will talk more about why we struggle to be intentional with our time and energy and talk about ways in which I am trying to be more intentional with my time and energy.

One reason why a lot of us struggle with being intentional with our time and energy is because we get so caught up in our busy schedules. I live in London, and here a lot of adults work corporate full-time jobs, which takes up a lot of time in the week. Furthermore, outside of our full-time jobs, we have multiple responsibilities to balance, including family, friends and personal finances. This means that a lot of us have very busy schedules and spend nearly all our time and energy simply trying to juggle everything. Therefore, we get so caught up with our busy schedules to the point where we don’t get the chance to think about how we can be more intentional with our time and energy.

Because we don’t take enough time to reflect on how to be more intentional with our time and energy, we end up not thinking about what works best for us. We all have different personalities, and therefore what works best will vary from person to person. However, we tend to do things based on what society expects from us, rather than based on what works best for us. A good example from my personal experience is how I went about my social calendar in the past. When I initially started work, I would pack my social calendar with lots of things and say yes to everything. I would do this because I thought that was what was expected of me as a working professional. However, the way I went about my social calendar wasn’t what worked for me, and hence I wasn’t being intentional with my time and energy.

It goes without saying that being intentional with your time and energy is very important. A saying that hammers this point home is that if you are saying yes to something, then you are saying no to something else. Ultimately, we all have a finite amount of time and energy. Therefore, deciding to spend time and energy on something means that there is something else that we can’t spend time and energy on. To be more specific, if we say yes and devote time and energy on things that aren’t adding value to our lives, then we are indirectly saying no and not devoting time and energy on things that do add value to our lives. Hence, it is crucial to be intentional with how we spend our time and energy, so that we can do the things that add value to our lives.

As mentioned in the first paragraph, I am looking to be more intentional about how I spend my time and energy. The main way I am doing this is by being intentional with social interaction and social media usage. When it comes to social interaction with friends, I am spending my time and energy on having fewer high quality catch ups, rather than packing my social calendar with lots of things, and tiring myself out in the process. Furthermore, when it comes to social media usage, I have set myself a boundary to not check social media during work hours or after dinner. This is because I have found that checking social media can drain my energy, which takes away energy from focusing on the things in front of me. As a result of being more intentional with both of these things, I am now able to use my time in a more efficient manner. Furthermore, being intentional with my energy when it comes to social media and social interaction means that I can devote more energy in being my authentic self.

In conclusion, it is clear that being intentional with our time and energy is important, and recognising that is the easy part. The harder part is working out how to be more intentional with our time and energy. To do this it is vital to take the time to reflect on ways in which we are possibly not being intentional with our time and energy, as this can help us find the solutions we need.