If you think you are too busy to drastically change your life for the better, you are mistaken. All it takes is one focused hour a day to change multiple areas of your life at a time!
Don’t believe me? Here are three ways to change your life in three different ways in an hour a day. Give them a read and tell me if I’m wrong!
Option 1. Read for 20 minutes, spend 20 minutes learning three words of a foreign language, and then workout for 20 minutes.
- In 20 minutes an average reader can read 10 pages and a fast reader can read 20 pages or more. In a year you’ll read between 3,650 and 7,300 pages. If the average book is 200 pages long, you’ll read between 18 and 36 books per year.
- If the average language has a working vocabulary of 1,000 words, you’ll learn to speak proficiently in a new language every year.
- Working out for 20 minutes a day will increase your cognitive functions, strengthen your heart, increase your energy, improve your sleeping patterns, and lead to a longer life.
And all of this for just one hour a day!
Option 2. Write for 20 minutes, spend 20 minutes memorizing Scripture, and then spend 20 minutes planning your next date night with your spouse.
- In 20 minutes the average person can write one to two pages, which amounts to between 365 and 730 pages a year. That’s equivalent to two 250-page books + 230 blog/journal entries.
- In 20 minutes the average person can memorize one to two verses of Scripture, which amounts to between 365 and 730 verses a year. The books of Ephesians, Philippians, and Colosians only contain 359 verses combined!
- Having a consistent date night with your spouse will increase your intimacy, strengthen your marriage, and increase your overall happiness.
And all of this for just one hour a day!
Option 3. Spend 20 minutes emailing friends or family members that you have lost touch with (includes responding to the emails you received from previous days), spend 20 minutes developing an idea for a new business, and then spend 20 minutes cleaning/organizing an area of your house or office that does not typically get cleaned/organized.
- In 20 minutes you can send two to three decent sized emails. If you email one new person a day and respond to two others, you can connect with 365 people in a year.
- Connecting with these people will connect you to their needs and desires, which will inform your business ideation. Within a year, you can very easily have a solid business idea and a workable plan for moving it forward, and you’ll have a network of at least 365 who feel cared for by you as a support base.
- In 20 minutes you can clean or organize one small region or environment. Considering that you’ll need to clean/organize these neglected regions again, at least twice a month, in 20 minutes a day you can maintain order in 14 areas of your life that are currently being neglected. This will give you a greater all around sense of order, harmony, and peace, which will in turn make you more productive and happy.
And all of this for just one hour a day.
An hour is a powerful thing! But most of us never eat the fruit of a focused hour because we are too busy being overtaken by anxiety, and anxiety is always telling us that we are too busy . . . that we don’t have any time.
Anxiety is by definition a time-intensive state. Anxiety is the idea that you are already late, out of time, should be further ahead . . .
Peace, on the other hand, is a timeless state. Peace is devoid of the crunch that characterizes anxiety.
God exists in a state of perfect peace, and this is why for him a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day. His peace filters his experience of time so that he is never constrained by it or confined to it.
When Christ offered his disciples his peace, he offered them his perspective on time . . .
He had time to take a nap in the midst of a life-threatening storm.
He had time to stop and talk to the woman with the issue of blood on the way to deal with the desperate situation of Jairus’ daughter.
He had time to vacation for two more days with his disciples after hearing that Lazarus was sick.
He had time . . . because he had peace.
You have time to take authority over one hour of your day.
You have time . . . because you have the peace of Christ.
