By Nicole Irving

24 hours.

Einstein had them. Steve Jobs, too. Even Mother Teresa, Gandhi and John F. Kennedy. So, why is it that it seems that my 24 hours seem to disappear in the blink of an eye, without me accomplishing even a fraction of what they have done? True, I am disorganized, a procrastinator of sorts. I have a slight case of ADHD and a tendency to overbook nonessential things into my calendar, all with justification and purpose, or so I think. At the end of a busy day, sometimes I wonder where the time has gone. Did I make any significant changes to the world? Or, did I just barely make it to the couch

Chances are, there were many, many, many instances where I didn’t value my time. I watched another episode of “The West Wing” on Netflix, I revisted the Target dollar section or I scrolled through social media. That was how I chose to spend my extra minutes. These choices, my friend, will not get me anywhere but back to the couch.

So, what is my point? The Oprahs and Bill Gateses of the world have somehow found the tickets to their success, and while I am sure there is a long list of reasons why, one of the major factors is a better use of their 24 hours. They focus hard on who and what they give their time to, almost as if their lives, their jobs and their worlds depend on it.

Because they do.

It is a shift in mindset about the appropriation of time and how we choose to spend it, a personal and sometimes daunting task. To spend your time focused on one thing means something else doesn’t get your attention. It is the ultimate balancing act, and sometimes it is a heavy burden. But, as I said, our lives depend on it. Our happiness, success, jobs and families all depend on it. So let’s make a promise to ourselves to use our time more wisely in the future. While we all deserve some R&R every so often, if we use our Netflix hours more efficiently, we can improve the quality of our lives overall, and maybe we won’t feel like we need that R&R time so desperately at the end of every day. In the end, we all have the same amount of time in a day, but how we choose to spend it is up to us.