• Have a little think about how you use your time.
• Take out a sheet of paper and a pen and write down rough breakdown of a typical day for you.
• Write down an estimate of how long it takes you to do each of the things in your day.
• Leave the sheet of paper that you’ve written on laying out somewhere that you are likely to see it throughout the week. This will should act as a reminder to keep you thinking back to how how you are using your time.

Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to “get it right”, this is just a simple exercise in awareness. Relax and approach it with a lighthearted curiosity.

Hello and you’re very welcome to the first module of this Thriving Winter course. We’re going to start of with a very simple exercise in awareness to ease us in. This module is about an awareness of time.

As I mentioned in the introduction, winter is an inevitable part of the year. For a lot of people it feels like the winter months drag on for an age. Time seems to slow throughout the winter. What if we could turn this slowing down of time to our advantage?

So I want to begin by asking you the question; How much time do you waste, every day?

Have a little think about it.

The typical answer for most people tends to be about 3-6 hours. This is a common answer even when the term ‘waste’ isn’t defined. This is when people define for themselves, what they consider to be wasting time.

For many of us, in this day in age, we spend a lot of our time watching Youtube videos, Netflix or scrolling mindlessly on social media.

To lose 3-6 hours in one day, doesn’t sound too bad, but if we add it up, that’s between 20 and 40 hours a week, that’s nearly 2 whole days lost each week. That adds up to about a week lost every month. That’s 3 months out of each year!

So maybe you don’t waste that much time, or maybe you waste more. It doesn’t matter right now.

But, I want to put the question to you; What if instead of wasting all this time, you used 10 or 20% of it to learn something new?

What if you made use of 30 or 40 minutes every day to improve yourself in some small way. Even 15 minutes. Would you miss 15 minutes of scrolling social media?

That would add up to over 90 hours in a year.
In that time, you could learn the basics of a new language, learn how to play an instrument, develop your self-esteem, build your confidence.

So, with that in mind, your challenge for this first week is to quite simply become aware of how you spend your time.
Pause the video and grab yourself a sheet of paper. We’ll do a quick little rough estimate first.

Now, if you work a typical 9-5 Monday to Friday kind of job this task will be easier to do. If you don’t work a regular schedule just adapt it so it works best for you.
Start by writing out your current routine, beginning from what time you wake up on a Monday.
So if you wake up at 8am, start there.

How long do you spend getting ready for work? Making breakfast, getting the kids ready for school etc.
How long is your commute?
How long do you spend at work?
How long does it take you to make and eat dinner?
How long do you scroll Facebook, or Instagram?
How long do you watch Netflix or TV?
How long does it take you to fall asleep?

Keep track of all these things for the next week. Don’t be stressing about it and trying to track your time to the nearest minute. The idea is just gaining a rough idea of how you really spend your time.
Don’t try to change things right away.
This is a practice of awareness not a challenge of how much you can change yourself in a week.
So yeah, just try to be aware and stick as close to your normal life as possible.

It may be a good idea to leave the sheet of paper that you’ve just been writing on somewhere you will see it often throughout the week. This should act as a simple reminder to you and help keep you keep you focused.

I’ll see you back here next week to see how you got on.