One of the most comforting things I’ve learned is that time moves at the speed of reality.
60 minutes per hour.
That’s it.
Our minds don’t work that way, of course.
We can be sitting here at 10:00 in the morning, worrying about something that has to happen tomorrow, something we promised to finish Friday, something we should have done last week, and something that might happen three months from now.
All at the same time.
That’s where overwhelm comes from.
But reality is much more accommodating.
Reality only asks you to deal with this minute.
Reality only asks you to deal with this minute.
I was reminded of this looking through my journal from 1997.
Whenever I had a lot going on, I would use my journal as a focusing tool.
I’d write down all the things I was concerned about, procrastinating on, or feeling pressure about.
Just getting them out of my head and onto paper immediately made them feel more manageable.
Then I’d put them through a filter.
What actually has consequences in the next 100 hours?
And even better…
What is the most important thing I can do in the next 100 minutes?
I love 100 minutes because it’s a very controllable window.
You can’t control everything that’s going to happen this month.
You probably can’t control everything that’s going to happen this week.
But the next 100 minutes?
You can do a lot with those.
You can make the call.
Write the page.
Finish the proposal.
Solve the problem.
Or simply spend the first five minutes figuring out what the right thing to do is.
Sometimes the most productive thing you can do when everything feels urgent…
is stop.
Get quiet.
Put everything on paper.
And ask yourself:
What would make the next 100 minutes really count?
Time is going to move at the speed of reality either way.
You might as well put it to work.