“Today is the LAST day of the rest of your life…”

Joey Spencer is a blogger that actively studies Social Dynamics. Joey has recently made the commitment to drop out of school and pursue his dreams. An inspiration at 19 years old Joey plans to take the world by storm and make a difference. Without further ado — check out Joey’s post on the value of time.

Ever heard the saying “Today is the first day of the rest of your life?” I’m here to disagree. I think that statement is flawed. Today is actually the last day of the rest of your life. Well, it could be. You could die today. There is no certainties. Your credit card does not have a lifetime guarantee. The only guarantee that you have is that you’re here in this present moment knowing that today may be the last day of the rest of your life.

What is your most valuable resource? Time. Time is a really disregarded subject in a sense of its value. The best way to get the most accurate answer to its value is to reflect. The last hour of your life, did you spend it with maximum potential? Because that hour, you can never get back, it’s gone. This is so easy to pinpoint in our past but exists in not only our past, but our present and our future. You are deciding where to use your time now and your future. This is the idea that made me develop of “Time Investments.”

I look at time like a currency. Every minute you spend is an investment. If you are going to get a return from your investment, or setting yourself up for a return short-term or long-term, that’s a good investment. If your investment doesn’t fit that criterion, you should reassess what you are investing in and look for alternate routes. The best way to make sure this is accurate throughout your daily life is to evaluate whenever you are changing tasks. I can give you some examples of bad examples and good examples from my own personal experience as we are all different individuals. But I personally have been eliminating time invested in movies/TV and drinking. I watch a lot of educational videos on www.ted.com. My main realization when it came to drinking was that it wasted 2 days, 1st was the night of I would blow money on drinks, cover, taxis, food, and then the next day I would have the motivation to do nothing! I started investing my time in going to the gym and getting healthy, Building and paving bridges (social connections), and working towards my dream.

My main technique for time organization is with a whiteboard calendar. A white-board calendar allows me to plot out a month’s plan. The advantage of having the white-board version is that I can add to it. Like I said above, never get rid of anything, just add. I have a rule that I circle anything missed, cross-out anything accomplished, and box any day that I believe was an amazing day. Every Sunday I go over the prior week. If there is any circled tasks, (which don’t be ashamed if there is at first! this is all learning process) I figure out methods on how I will correct that in the future. Also to end the assessment, I remember the “boxed” days and how successful they were, and plan for more days in the future to be like that. I heard an amazing expression that applies to this, “Make every day better than the last.” You will notice that once you organize this calendar you will have much more free-time, yet be accomplishing a lot more. With some self-discipline, you will also see amazing results on completing tasks, goals, and deadlines. It is also great to have a regular calendar with long-term deadlines. For instance a meeting or appointment a couple months down the road.

I want to end off with two issues with time I have experienced. I have noticed that whenever I think I have enough time to do something, allow more time. I experienced this mostly during film shoots for my movie, I would always be crunched for time. Allow yourself a dynamic schedule so that you don’t get bored! I for instance have multiple tasks on the go at once. Instinctively I want to tackle each one in full before moving onto the next. I had a great start to projects but never finished. I then compared this to my swimming, where I had strong finishes. What the heck was I doing different. I was pacing myself in swimming and it’s so important you do this with your tasks as well. I learnt to do a bit of each of my tasks throughout the day allowing diversity keeping me excited and motivated all day every day.

The most crucial thing I’ve learned about time investments is that it’s not always going to be a smooth road. I am constantly enduring obstacles which test my willpower of still following through. Examples; being sick, being without a vehicle, etc. Plan for the worst to happen so you’re ready for it and can keep rolling.

Try this out for 30 days, challenge yourself and evaluate the results. I guarantee you will notice significant positive change to your life. There has to be a day when you wake up and realize that you want to do something with your life. You want to live your life in abundance. You want to be happy. You want to be loved. Today can be that today. Today is that day. Take advantage of the precious time that you’ve been given and create something greater than your imagination.