How to Gain 2+ Hours To Your Day

Without Losing Sleep

We all would love more hours to the day, no?

Let’s do a little quick math.

We spend 56 hours in a week sleeping, 21 hours eating and preparing meals, 40 hours working, and let’s say an additional 10 hours of commuting to work.

There are 168 hours in a week and so far 127 hours taken. That’s 41 hours a week left left or 5.8 hours a day.

Then there’s housework and maintenance, looking after the kids, running errands. Is all of that going to take you 6 hours a day? No.

So where is all this “extra” time going?

It always seems like there’s barely any time for anything you want to do, let alone getting everything you need to get done, done.

And it’s exhausting.

That goal, that system, that decluttering always seems to be put off for another day because there’s just never enough time to get it done, or even started.

You’ll do it when things calm down or when you have more energy.

Then time passes and you wonder where it’s all gone. Still in the same spot just a different year and same story.

What if you could get 2+ hours a day, to work on the things you want to do, without losing sleep?

What Life Looks Like With A Few More Hours

But first, I want to let you in on what your life is going to look like after this and how you’re going to feel.

Less stressed, more in control. Organized, accomplished, less tense and anxious. Confident in your self and your abilities, badass really!

Your relationship with partner will be better because your mood will be better. You’ll be more willing to communicate and have icky conversations you may have been avoiding and numbing out on before.

You’ll feel less chaos with kids. It’s easier to play and engage with them. Their moods will be better because they’re being engaged with, and their screen use is gone too.

You will feel more present in your day. You won’t want to “check out”!

Your excitement and passion for life will come back. You’ll have more ideas and projects you want to accomplish.

You’ll get more done! You have the time to put systems in place so that you can get things done more easily.

But, time is fleeting so put this new found time to good use!

The Secret

Most self-made millionaires have figured this out and it’s gotten them to where they are.

What is it?

Ditch the scroll.

That’s right. The scrolling through Netflix, binging watching shows till 3am.

Skip the social feed scroll, numbing your mind and craving for what’s ‘coming next’ on the flick of the thumb.

The Tiktok videos, youtube autoplay, Snapchat, Instagram reels and stories, whatever your vice(s).

Self-made millionaires audit their time.

The average time kids ages 4-14 spends watching online videos has nearly doubled in the last 4 years.

On average, North American children aged 8-to-12-year-olds spent 4 hours and 44 minutes on screen media each day. And teens average 7 hours and 22 minutes — not including time spent using screens for school or homework.

Adults spend as much as 12 hours a day in front of the tv, computer, or handheld device and that’s while at home!

That’s more “free time” than you actually have which means screen time is occurring during work, during meal times, and instead of sleep.

This is based on pre-pandemic (2012-2018) data so you can imagine 2020 will be worse.

Despite the detrimental impacts on sleep, mood, mental health and neurological development (and researchers constantly screaming how bad screen technology is), we keep increasing our use.

Going for the brain drain to “numb out.”

Kids see their parents putting a priority on staring at a screen, over them. Yes some of this is unavoidable but I’m talking about the mindless scrolling, the checking out of life because its exhausting, hard, boring, and when that yucky feeling comes you grab your phone.

But I’m so exhausted at I just need a break.

And it exhausts you even more so you stay put.

A habit has been created. When you sit down to eat, you pull out your phone. When the kids get too much you turn on the TV.

Your brain is overstimulated and numbed out by the scroll. It’s become and addiction and release that’s a feedback loop.

You get angry or annoyed when someone interrupts and you can’t hear if someone is talking to you. You’re ‘zoned out’ in the zone.

Those little addiction brain nodes firing.

Now imagine if you can get those 12 hours back. What about even 6?

Heck, even an additional 1 hour a day to focus and get things done would be fantastic, right?

That’s 7 hours a WEEK!

It’s actually not as hard as it may sound and I know because I’ve done it four times now. Twice with TV and twice with social media.

Twice because after a time it crept back in to where it controlled me (became autopilot) again. Which is good because I know how to firmly kick it to the curb.

I managed to gain almost 6 hours a day. 6 hours I had no idea I was losing.

I thought my use wasn’t bad. Few minutes here or there. I’m a busy working mom with loads to do and never enough time.

I already didn’t watch much TV except the odd show like Outlander and Greys.

But I still got 6 hours a day back and its radically changed my life.

So I’m sharing my strategy, backed with science, with you.

How to shift your tech addiction and gain hours of your life back

If you’re thinking, “Well I don’t use social media or watch TV that much so this isn’t for me,” Or, “I use it for my business so I can’t,” THIS IS EXACTLY FOR YOU!

You probably don’t even notice it much. A few minutes here, a bathroom run there, while making supper, after responding to a text, or take this cute picture.

It happens without much thought.

1. Be aware of the habit, notice it.
2. Call it out. “I’m pulling out my phone while my kids are playing because I feel overwhelmed.”
   There’s no shame. This is a brain tactic to break the cycle and “tune in” to what you’re doing. It breaks the autopilot.
3. Change your environment. We don’t have willpower that will sustain us each day if we’re continually confronted by our triggers.
   If you turn on the tv each night when you go to bed move TV to the basement or room you rarely use (TVs should NEVER be in the bedroom, ever. EVER!)
   Keep your phone in another room. Get an alarm clock. Check your messages only after you’ve completed getting ready in the morning.
   Eat your breakfast in a different spot and have a book to read, or journal, or meal plan to work on.
4. Delete and uninstall all of the apps.
5. Find an accountability partner.
6. Take the 2 week No Social Media Free Challenge.

If you’re still thinking, “Sounds nice but too much right now,” or some other reason then I challenge you to accept more for yourself.

Yes. You are capable and worthy of having your life the way you want it. It may seem drastic right now but I promise you even 1 day in, when your fully committed, will be popping with life changing moments.

Plus, those who start giving excuses as to why this challenge isn’t for them, end up being the ones who need it the most… and can have the biggest results!

THE NO SOCIAL MEDIA CHALLENGE

*if you have a business with an online social media presence, you probably feel like many people are relying on you to “show up” daily.

Your business will still run. You are running yourself ragged. Take this time for peace and clarity, and allow inspiration for bigger plans to strike.

While you are away, your people will find their answers where you direct them to look. They will gain the independence you’ve been wanting, and that’s amazing!

1. Decide what your goal project is.
2. Get your accountability partner
3. Choose a day within the next 3 days to start (cold turkey is easiest!)
4. Say goodbye. Make your piece out message, set up expectations of where people can get the info they’re looking for ie. Website, email Sequence, socual media page, channel, highlight or group. Use the resources you’ve already worked hard to build! Text or call for friends.
5. Delete and uninstall ALL of the apps. If they don’t uninstall, move them off of your homescreen and into a folder. A few extra clicks makes in more annoying and less attractive to use. Move your TV, or unplug it and put a blanket over it. Yes, you have to make it HARDER to watch. Best to just remove it.
6. Move something more productive into the location your apps were ie. Notes to journal, make meal plans, or plot out a project. Calendar to arrange your life and stay up to date and organized. A book where the TV used to be. Start associating that trigger with a new, positive habit.

Take Week 1 to just take note of your triggers. What are you doing, what are you feeling, who are you with.

Also use this time to see what areas of your life you can improve in. Map out and research your project.

In Week 2, start your project.

How to Handle Your New Time

There’s going to be a lot of free time headed your way. Especially in little increments when you would normally pull out your phone to scroll.

You need something more beneficial to occupy this time. Something that if going to move you closer to whatever achievement you’ve been putting off for “more time”.

Permission to work on it during little pockets of time, granted!

You can check out my own two week challenge here. Week two just blew my mind!

Brainstorm and write it out. What goals gave you tried and not succeeded in? What do you wish you did in your life? Where could you implement a system to make your life flow easier.

Find a goal to work on during those two weeks.

Maybe writing every day to work towards that book you’ve always wanted to write.

Or learning some self-sufficiency skills you’ve been putting off until you had more timce.

What about coming up with a meal plan and cooking from scratch?

• Craft
• Learn a new skill
• Make homemade meals
• Clean and declutter
• Sell the things you’ve stockpiled saying you’ll eventually sell
• Start a business
• Focus on your business
• Workout
• Meditate
• Create, implement and tweak new systems to make your life easier

The cool thing? What you want to do but have been putting off actually doesnt take very long to do.

Washing the dishes each night, five minutes. Tidying up, three minutes. Cleaning the bathroom, 15 minutes. Planning meals, 10 minutes. Setting out your goals for the day, five minutes.

Yet each has a huge impact on your stress-level and happiness.

Time to take back your life!

Comment below with your goal project! I want to root for you!!