Time/Energy Analysis--Modulate Your Life

Open an empty Word or Notepad file on your computer.

Label it Time/Energy Analysis and save it on your desktop.

Now, for the next week--record everything you do within that log. Record every activity you perform, and account for every minute of each day. Whether you're eating or sleeping or spending time in the bathroom, note it in that log so you have a complete and uncensored tabulation of your time.

Then at end of that week, sit down and go through that log. Aggregate those statistics and determine unto which activities you devote the majority of your time and energy--and instantly you'll have a fairly precise snapshot of how your life will look moving forward into the future if you continue traveling along those trajectories.

We improve at the things we practice, and we stagnate or regress at those activities we ignore. So the state of your Time/Energy Analysis will show you exactly what your forthcoming reality will be.

If your log consists largely of mundane and unproductive activities such as watching television and hanging out in bars/clubs/restaurants, guess what? In five years you'll be a lot better at watching television and hanging out in bars/clubs/restaurants... but you won't be much better at doing anything else.

If instead, the majority of your time and energy is spent on useful things such as developing skills like writing books and learning new languages and training your mind and body in various dedicated ways, your future will invariably include substantial enhanced mastery of chosen techniques.

In short, if you're standing on a trajectory for self-improvement--you'll invariably improve. And if you're living a life of stagnation, you'll inevitably wallow.

And whether you stand upon one path or another can all be determined from taking a one week snapshot of how you spend your time and energy--because that one week period will be enough to show you the sustained habits you perform on a regular-enough basis to have substantial effect upon your future state.

So try it. Make the log and record everything you do--then take a brutally honest look at the trajectory where your life is headed.

And if you don't like what you see, change it now. Don't wait until you squander more time and energy on worthless activities. Instead, instantly reallocate a portion of your television time, your bar time, your restaurant time towards practicing and performing activities guaranteed towards providing a positive return on investment going forward.

After all, only a fool would devote income unto an investment guaranteed with surety towards producing a 0% rate of return.

So why would you ever waste your time and energy doing things that assuredly would provide a 0% chance of personal benefit and self-improvement?

Just as you should budget your finances, account for and control your expenditures of time and energy.

And invest those most precious of resources on far better things than sitting around watching TV.

Then, in five years or ten years or twenty years, you'll be guaranteed a positive rate of return. And you'll find yourself outpacing your peers in all aspects of reality... because whilst you spent that time and energy investing in yourself, they wasted it sitting around on the couch.