Ready for a LIFE CHANGER?

What’s our number one problem? Your number one problem? We never have enough time, right?!

So the question is: how do we find more hours in a day?!

We read a book by Laura Vanderkam called 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think that’s been a game changer for us. Convicting, applicable and empowering all at once. We have SO many takeaways from the book, that we really encourage you to read it on your own, but we’re going to share our biggest bite-sized takeaways here.

Laura’s a journalist who researched the time habits of Americans and found that most people say this:

I don’t have time for _______________. 

While the most successful people would rephrase it like this:

I have time, but it’s not my priority. 

In essence, she argues, even if we sleep eight hours every night, work a full 40-hour week and devote three hours per day to getting ready, eating, commuting and household responsibilities, we still have FIFTY non-sleeping hours per WEEK to do whatever we want.

But I don’t have time for _______________ (we all say.)

We do, Laura says. We’re just not making _______________ our priority.

The most convicting part about the book for us is when she challenges every reader to track their time in 15-minute increments. (You can get her official time-tracking sheet on her website.) At first, we didn’t want to do it. Because we normally don’t like to ask a question when we don’t think we’ll like the answer — and we were pretty sure we wouldn’t like the answer to this question:

How are we REALLY spending our time?

More importantly, What are our spending choices keeping us from?

But we tracked it anyways.

And we were right! We didn’t like the answer.

When we listed out the priorities in our life, iPhones (social media scrolling!) and Netflix weren’t on it, yet they were unknowingly consuming dozens of cumulative hours every week that were keeping us from the things we actually cared about.

The worst part? We didn’t even realize it. Because it was subconscious.

If we were wasting a total of three hours per day on internet browsing and TV/streaming alone (which is actually below average, if you can believe it), here’s the math on just that:

3 hours x 7 days x 52 weeks = 1,092 hours per year.

ON NETFLIX?!

It gets worse.

When you divide 1,092 hours by 40 hours, you get TWENTY-SEVEN full workweeks.

That’s a part-time job! 

Just. By. Cutting. Netflix.

Those numbers startled us and forced us to ask ourselves two simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating questions:

1. Where else were we wasting time?

2. What could we accomplish if we actually aligned our time with our priorities?

They were real take-an-honest-look-in-the-mirror-and-cut-the-BS-excuses kind of questions for us!

But the answers are exciting because simple fourth grade math gave us a sense of control again, that we had the time AND money to make our priorities happen if we did one simple but hard thing:

Actually make sure that the way we were spending our time REFLECTED our priorities.

So, in response to the two statements we hear from people all the time:

I can’t afford _______________.

I don’t have time for _______________. 

We’d encourage you to ask yourself the two questions that we did:

What are my real priorities?

AND

If I stop wasting _____ hours every day on _______________, that’s _____ hours this week/month/year I’ll have for _______________.

With that time, I can do _______________ or earn _______________ that will allow me to do_______________.

OR

If I stop wasting _____ dollars every day on _______________, that’s _____ dollars this week/month/year I’ll have for _______________.

With that money, I can afford _______________ or earn _______________ that will allow me to afford _______________.

Here are three examples to get you started:

MONEY:

Old way of thinking: I can’t afford to go on a family vacation this year.

New way of thinking: One of my priorities is to go on a family vacation this year.

Then, do the math:

If I stop wasting $5 dollars every day on Starbucks, that’s $1,825 dollars this year that I’ll have for a family vacation.

TIME:

Old way of thinking: I don’t have time to exercise for one hour every day.

New way of thinking: My priority this year is to exercise one hour each day. 

Then, do the math:

If I stop wasting 3 hours every day on Netflix, that’s 1 hour today I’ll have for exercise — and I still have two hours to watch Netflix!

NOW, LET’S LOOK AT TIME AND MONEY:

If I stop wasting 3 hours every day on Netflix, that’s 1,092 hours this year I’ll have for a part-time job.

With that time, I can work at Starbucks and earn $15 per hour which is $16,380 that will allow me to do a lot.

Plus, my coffee will be free — which saves an additional $1,825. (See Example 1)

How empowering is that?!

So many of our current Shooting & Editing Course students originally thought they couldn’t afford the investment in their education, until they made it a priority. They started fundraising the money by offering shoots to five families who were willing to make a $100 investment in their education. And BOOM. They were in the course, learning a ton, had new clients on the calendar, already had shoots scheduled to implement what they learned, getting new portfolio images and were experiencing huge momentum and growth! A lot of them were even able to make their investment back not long after they enrolled!

It’s incredible what happens when we start asking ourselves the tough questions and start proactively reshaping our life to align with our priorities. And this is just one of the many takeaways we got from the book!

Before we wrap up, we want to acknowledge that some people have extenuating circumstances that make their time and/or money realities exceptionally challenging. If that’s you, we’re so sorry. We’ve experienced unexpected economic and medical emergencies in our families, too. It’s scary and it’s hard. We’d never attempt to minimize the size of your struggles or oversimplify your problems.

But that’s not most of us, and it’s certainly not most of us all the time.

So, with that, here’s the challenge if you’re willing to accept it:

1. Make a list of your priorities for your life.

2. Read Laura Vanderkam’s book 168 Hours and Dave Ramsey’s book The Total Money Makeover. 

3. Using Laura’s time-tracking sheets and Dave’s budgeting system, find out where you’re wasting time or money — or, if you’re like us, probably both.

4. Then, budget your time and money to align with your priorities.

5. Change your life and email us the results. We’d love to know your story!

Up until now, if you’ve wasted time or money, that’s okay! You’re like everyone else.

How long you stay like everyone else is up to you.

Let’s break the trend together!