Let’s say you start a project that you know will take a year of daily effort. It’s going to be difficult, but you get to work on it. It’s not much time every day, but you have to put in some effort daily or you’re unable to get this project done in a year. How much is each day worth as a percentage of the total project?
About 0.27% — a little more than a quarter of a percentage point. That quarter-percentage seems huge on a daily basis. “how can i find the time??” yet its real power is the accumulation of simple interest. You can’t ever increase time the way you accumulate money, but you can bank your time in the work you intend to do and make a plan to complete. At a half-hour a day, it’s around 182 hours of effort on a single project. At a page a day, it’s a novel or a book of poetry or a non-fiction piece of some kind. It’s a gallery of small paintings or a small house constructed in the back yard (although some things like architecture are better accomplished in short, intense bursts than spread out over all available time, willy-nilly, and oft require specialized help.)
I made the mistake of giving Facebook a half-hour this morning,and then doing tai chi in a rushed and haphazard way. I got the tai chi done, but not well. Where you allocate time has a lot to say about what you accomplish in the world. Where does the time go?,you may ask. it often slips out the side door on little cat-feet, one 0.27th of a 1% of your year at a time.
