Take Back Your Hours

I am someone who hates feeling like I don't have ownership over my time.

I remember being in high school, sitting at my desk by the window, watching cars drive by on the street outside. I remember thinking how lucky they were to be able to go wherever they wanted, unattached to a school's schedule, longing to become an adult so that I could finally choose how I got to spend my own hours.

But then I graduated from college, accepted my first job, and realized that my time still wasn't my own. I had to clock out for my lunch break, penalized if I went over an hour. I had to be at my desk by 8am and couldn't leave again until it was exactly 6 o'clock. I had to get permission from my boss to go to a doctor's appointment or pick up my car from the mechanic. 

I spent so much of my time at that job watching the clock, daydreaming about what it would be like to actually be in charge of my own life.

During that time, I looked at my life in two parts: during work, and after work. During work, I had to do whatever I had to do to make money. The work I did mattered so little to me, because I thought that the only thing that mattered to me was what I did with "my own" hours—writing books, seeing family and friends, traveling. But I found that despite being very happy with my personal life, I still spent most of my days feeling extremely unfulfilled. I kept holding out for happiness to come at a time when my hobbies would blend into my work life, and it kept getting my nowhere.

So over the past year or so, I've had to start changing my narrative.

I only get 24 hours a day. 164 hours in a week. Many of those hours I have to spend working, a lot of those hours I want to spend with the people I care about, even more of those hours I want to use to pursue my passion projects, and then there's working out. And doing dishes. And vacuuming.

There's always going to be a mix of things we want to do, and things we have to do. But the more we can change our mindsets and start figuring out how our "have-to-dos" can align with our "want-to-dos," the more we'll start to actually feel like our days belong to ourselves.

For me, I've had to figure out how to align my work responsibilities with my personal goals in order to feel like I own those hours. Writing press releases isn't the same as writing novels, but they still count as writing practice. Making social media graphics isn't something I ever saw coming in handy, but being able to turn my writing into shareable graphics has turned out to be extremely beneficial. Speaking about youth activism and leadership wasn't on my list of career goals, but it's turned into one of my biggest passions, and is driving the direction of where I want my future to go.

It's so easy to write off hours that you're giving to things you don't love as wasted time. But with so little time on this planet, it's become my daily priority to make sure that I make all of the hours matter. 

This week, I hope you'll do the same.