How to Make Every Second in Your Life Count

Disclaimer: This isn’t a hustle culture gospel

Let me open this piece with a confession.

I used to cordially call myself a Procrastination World Champion. Postponing my tasks and duties was my favorite leisure activity…except it wasn’t.

Even though I hated myself for being such a lazy ass, I couldn’t stop doing it. At the university, I wrote all the essays just before the deadline. In my fulltime job I spend dozens of hours “researching” and started the actual work on a project as late as possible.

I approached my obligations with twisted logic — by working late I test myself. I’ll find out if I can perform under serious stress when time is almost up.

It so absurd, it makes me laugh.

And make no mistake, I still wage the ruthless war with my tendencies to postpone. We all do.

We will never secure a victory in this infinite combat, we can only win a battle of a day. Tomorrow, we are once again in the trenches facing the most treacherous adversary.

Ourselves.

Don’t expect this article to be bulletproof advice on how to never procrastinate again. Since I’m still guilty in this case, I don’t feel in a position to lecture you.

You wouldn’t take advice on how to quit weed from a Snoop Dogg, would you? No. Because he is reasonable enough not to ever give it to you.

However, I’d like to invite you to contemplate your daily actions, to consider how mindful you are. Do you appreciate your days, or do you work on autopilot?

Let’s dive in.

Alive time vs. dead time

I haven’t come up with this unique concept. I stumbled upon it while studying the work of one of my favorite authors, Ryan Holiday. In his own words, he learned about it from his mentor, and my other favorite, Robert Greene. (If you haven’t read his masterpiece called Mastery, definitely do it. You won’t regret it.)

Holiday wrote a fantastic Medium article about the concept. If you want to get familiar with it, learn from the master himself rather than from the humble padawan.

Let me quote Holiday with the elementary distinction of dead vs. alive time:

Then I remembered a piece of advice I had gotten from the author Robert Greene many years earlier. He told me there are two types of time: alive time and dead time. One is when you sit around, when you wait until things happen to you. The other is when you are in control, when you make every second count, when you are learning and improving and growing.

The idea is simple.

You are the master of your life. No matter what happens, you choose your approach, your reaction. Even the most desperate situation can turn out to be an alive time because it is your attitude at the very moment, which defines it.

But you can find yourself reaping all the success in the world but it can be labeled as dead time — while standing on the stage and receiving the plaudits, you think only about how it must hurt the girl, who dumped you a decade ago. You did all of this only to avenge the pain she once caused you.

The external factors don’t matter. Your state of mind is what separates the alive from dead time.

We must consciously work on keeping a positive mindset. Holidays says:

Life is constantly asking us, Is this going to be alive time or dead time?

It is essential to remember to don’t compete with life since we have no chance of beating it in its own game. As the American writer and philosopher Elbert Hubbard says:

“Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.”

We are often so overwhelmed with our duties and all the serious stuff, we forget to enjoy the simplest of things. We want to prove a point to ourselves and people around, we want to feel worthy, we don’t acknowledge the fundamental and most fascinating fact — we are alive.

The mundane matters the same as extraordinary

As I already said in the title, this isn’t a hustle culture gospel.

Since every second count, I dare you to be mindful, to be aware of what you are doing daily.

Again, I am a culprit in this case.

I can’t tell how many times I’ve caught myself zoning out and not realizing what the hell am I doing. You start with a single YouTube clip and “wake up” an hour later watching some lady feasting on all kinds of living creatures while performing awful facial expressions and even more disgusting sounds.

The only thing you take away from such an experience is a conviction that mankind is indeed the greatest threat to itself. Mukbang videos are the absolute worst.

That’s why being mindful is fundamental for spending an alive time.

Even mundane things matter if we decide so. When you brush your teeth, be present. You don’t have to simultaneously listen to a history podcast and jot down into your gratification journal. At that moment, properly brushing your teeth is the best thing you can do for yourself and the entire humanity.

Don’t chase productivity at all costs. Give your full attention to whatever you’re doing.

Live for yourself

Never live your life according to the standards of others. It is impossible to live a satisfied and fulfilled life in this manner since you never know what others think and feel.

How can you satisfy a person if you don’t have direct access to their inner thought processes? You can’t.

The only person, whose mind you can pick at will, is yourself.

However, it doesn’t mean to live only for yourself, to never do good deeds for others, or to never compromise for the benefit of your team.

Quite the contrary, as social creatures, we live the fullest in cooperation with others. In synergy with our fellow spirits, we transcend the limitations every one of us possesses as an individual.

Then, we can achieve the most remarkable things.

Still, your ultimate contribution to mankind’s progress is to strive to become the fullest possible version of yourself.

So how to make every second count?

1. Be in control of your reaction to l
2. Be mindful about the mundane things
3. Live for yourself

Simple, isn’t it?