Your 25th Hour !!

This post originally appeared in the author’s blog @ fiveshotsofcoffee.com on 18th February 2021.

“I don’t have time. I wish there was an extra hour.

An hour just for me, to spend on me, to learn, to create, or to unwind and relax.“

No one is immune to these thoughts. We all have been there.

I like to call this the 25th hour paradox. We want 60 minutes more, when we already have 1440 minutes everyday. We yearn for more, when we already have plenty, for it is our nature.

Just assume you have an hour extra, chances are high you wouldn’t be able to find an ideal slot to fit in this extra hour to achieve whatever you want. And hence the paradox.

A better way is to find your 25th within the existing hours. While it is not easy, it is definitely achievable.

To start, identify what you seek to achieve in your 25th, for an hour without a purpose is an hour that blazes by.

Once you do so, think of the less important stuff, the stuff which you do by rote just because you have been doing it forever and start implementing your 25th in that time instead.

I have acquired a new habit, so i needed some time early in the morning every day. Once i listed the usual stuff i do early in the morning, i realized that i spend almost twenty minutes reading the newspaper. I have been reading a lot about time management off late, and one recurring suggestion was to stop reading / seeing news daily. I decided to try that and i stopped reading newspapers and started incorporating my habit, along with a cup of coffee in that time.

Not only does my new habit gets some time, i also find that i do not miss the newspaper, for the important news does find a way to reach me somehow and the bulk of the unimportant news (noise) gets filtered.

While i still haven’t found all the sixty minutes of my 25th hour, i have twenty right now, and twenty is good.