If you’re reading my posts, chances are that you’re a busy individual who struggles to find time for the things that matter to you.

Before I started my journey of self-improvement, I lived in an illusional bubble of comfortable excuses. For a long time, I neglected the things that truly mattered because it was easy to excuse myself with the fact that I couldn’t make more time, settling for the stuff that life threw at me.

I wanted to start a newsletter, run consistently, resume drumming lessons, and more, but I didn’t pursue any of it. I told myself I didn’t have time.

Suddenly, it hit me. I had to find time, not rest on the fact that I don’t control the making of time. It sounds simple but had a profound effect on me.

There are only two currencies in the world: money and time. You can make more money, but you cannot make more time.

Time is going by, second by second, no matter how we choose to spend those seconds. As the age-old saying goes, a day is long, but a month is short.

Also read: Focus On Your Values, Not Big-Picture Goals

In philosophy, one of the oldest topics that can be traced back thousands of years is that the key to happiness is 1) realizing that life is short and 2) cherishing every moment. It certainly feels like a cliché, but once you fully realize this, you’ll be busy (oh, the irony) focusing on the things that are important to you.

Needless to say, it required a mindset shift to reach this awareness.

The Garden Method

You may be wondering how to find time when you’re bogged down with work and family commitments.

Think of life as a garden. Just as a garden has limited space for plants, your life has limited time for activities. Each plant in the garden represents a different activity in your life. Some plants are essential, while others are annoying weeds that creep up everywhere. The biggest and most beautiful flowers are the plants that matter the most to you.

When a new task or commitment enters your life, evaluate your garden and determine if one or more of the plants can be removed. There is no space to add it next to the others. When a plant or flower is removed, a free spot opens up. That is how you find time in a maxed-out schedule. If you cannot open up a free spot, your life only consists of things that you value.

While you cannot create time, you can create priorities.

Just as you need to prune and weed your garden to ensure the plants that matter most can grow, you need to evaluate and prioritize your activities to ensure you have time for what truly matters.

Adopt a “1 in, 1 out” mindset to keep your priorities manageable.

I have discovered that it is not until you intentionally look and find time among life’s many priorities that you start doing the things that matter to you. It’s a simple mindset change that has a compounding and lasting effect on you. Everything else is a illusion.

Give The Garden Method a try. It has helped me get rid of some sneaky weeds!