How to take ownership of your time

hi my name is nasra karma and i’m a

fourth year medical student studying at

king’s college london as someone who

gets bored quite easily i find myself

taking on as many projects as i can

challenging myself to be as productive

as possible in the 24 hours we have each

day that’s why i go to the gym two to

three times a week i also run and play

basketball i have a successful youtube

channel with over 650 000 subscribers

i regularly socialize and hang out with

my friends and do all this while being a

full-time medical student

going to the hospital on most days and

then spending multiple hours studying at

home

as a result of this i often get asked

hey nasser where do you find the time to

do all these things and that’s what i

want to share with you in this talk the

theme of this tedx event is mirrors and

immediately when i heard this what came

to mind is standing in front of the

mirror and looking at the best version

of you

who you want to be in the future the you

that started going to the gym and is now

a happier

and healthier person the you that

started that side hustle with your

friend and now earns extra income each

week the you that took 30 minutes each

day to practice a new skill

like yoga or coding or public speaking

and is now feeling accomplished because

you’ve become good at something new in

this talk i want to share with you the

basic building blocks that i use

every day to fit in absolutely

everything that i want to do in my life

taking ownership of your time making

promises to yourself and visualizing

accomplishments

i think the first and most important

step in taking ownership of your time is

realizing that you

and only you are in control of your own

time i really don’t like the phrases i

don’t have time or i wish i had more

time because i

truly truly believe that everybody has

enough time to do what they want in

their day

it’s about realizing where that time is

taking ownership and control of it and

using it effectively

and the reason that i say this is

because i know that the vast majority of

us whether we realize it or not whether

we want to believe it or not

spend around an hour of the day probably

in the best case scenario just

wasting time and when i say wasting time

i’m referring to activities that bring

us little or no value to our life

a great example of this that i think a

lot of us can relate to is endlessly

scrolling through social media on our

phone

now i don’t think using social media is

inherently bad in fact i get a ton of

value from watching other things that

people put out on social media

i’m just saying that once we pass that

point and we’re sitting down endlessly

and mindlessly scrolling through our

phone

that’s when we’re wasting time now if we

take that example and we look at it as a

single event

maybe you’ve spent an extra five minutes

10 minutes scrolling through your phone

mindlessly it’s not really that big of a

deal but if you do that multiple times a

day

every single day then you’ll find that

over the course of a week this obviously

adds up to a substantial amount of time

and if that time adds up to something

like two or three hours then just

imagine what you could be doing with an

extra two

or three hours in your week you would

never say the phrase i don’t have time

or i wish i had more time again and

that’s

just one example we haven’t even talked

about going down a youtube rabbit hole

or calling or texting your friends

endlessly binge watching tv shows we

haven’t even touched those uses of time

now all those things do have their own

value and they are useful it’s just when

you do them in excess and you’re

mindlessly doing those things that’s

when it becomes a waste of time the

point that i’m making is that every

single one of us has within our day

probably around an hour of time where

we’re not doing something that’s

bringing us as much happiness or

fulfillment or accomplishment as it

could be we can take that time repurpose

it mold it shift it and put it into

something else that we actually care

about

a passion project playing a new

instrument learning a skill whatever it

is that you want to do

so i think this first step is to realize

that the time that you’re looking for

that you wish you had in order to do the

things that you want to do

it actually does exist in your day you

just have to identify it realize where

it is

and then take it and use it to do

something else that you actually care

about

the second building block that i use is

that i make promises to myself that i

can actually keep we’ve all been in

these situations where we tell ourselves

that we’re gonna do that thing tomorrow

or we’re gonna start our new project

i don’t know when the clock turns to the

hour or i’m gonna get off this couch

after watching one more youtube video

we’ve all been there

and one thing that i find really helps

me break out of a situation like that

is that i make a promise to myself i

very truly believe that if i’m not gonna

hold myself

accountable if i’m not gonna be my own

hype man if i’m not gonna make sure that

i get things done then who is

who else is looking out for me it’s this

whole idea of shifting my thinking from

relying on

external factors for motivation to

relying on internal factors for

motivation i don’t want to be reliant on

anybody else or any external factor

that’s outside of my own control

in order to make sure that things get

done which are relevant to me

if i tell myself that i’m going to start

studying tomorrow at 9 00 am

then at 8 55 you will find me on the

desk with my coffee and with my snacks

ready to start the day and the reason

that i start working at nine if i’ve

told myself that i’m gonna start working

at nine

is that over the last couple of years

i’ve made thousands and thousands of

these deals or promises to myself

and i’ve delivered on them every single

time if i tell myself i’m gonna go for a

run in the evening despite what the

weather is like despite whether i’m

tired or not

i have to go on that run in the evening

because i told myself i was going to

same goes for meeting up with a friend

or completing a project on time or

whatever it is in your life that you

need to do

if you tell yourself you’re going to do

something then stick to it

show up deliver on your own promise no

one in this life cares about you

more than you and nobody has more to

gain or more to lose as a consequence of

your actions than you

and when you identify with a person who

is always punctual who always gets

things done

who delivers on time who sticks to their

promises you will become that person and

you are that person

so you take accountability of yourself

and your own actions

and do what you promise yourself that

you’re going to do

the last building block that i want to

talk about is visualizing your

accomplishments

i love the nature of routines because i

feel like it holds a power over us as

humans like pretty much nothing else

does once you’ve done something a couple

of times in a row or for a couple of

days in a row

you have this sort of internal motivator

that pushes you to continue doing that

thing

humans really don’t like to break

routine so i think harnessing the power

of routines and using them to our

advantage

is a very very good way to extract as

much value as we can from our time

and do all the things that we actually

want to do and the best way that i find

to maintain a routine is to visualize

your progress and visualize your

accomplishment of doing that activity so

let’s say for example that you’ve gone

to the gym three days in a row

or you’ve avoided eating sugary foods

two times in a row

or maybe you made a smart spending

decision that you otherwise wouldn’t

have done

make sure that you reward yourself

anything that you’re proud of make sure

that you visualize it in some way shape

or form

write it down on a piece of paper or a

sticky note and put it on your fridge or

maybe on your desk in front of your

monitors that you can see

every single day write it down on a

whiteboard in your room or you can put

it in the notes app on your phone

you can even download all kinds of apps

in order to keep track of habits and

track your progress every single day

whatever it is that you choose to do

make your accomplishments easily visible

and easily trackable the more easy it is

to track your progress or your routine

or your habit then the more likely you

are to do it and the more likely you are

to get that positive feedback loop from

seeing your progress and encouraging you

to do that thing more and more

before you know it completing your tasks

tracking them and seeing your progress

is going to become second nature

and when you build that routine you’ll

have the opposite problem that you had

before

instead of finding it difficult to get

started with a habit you will find it

difficult to break that habit because

you’ve been doing it for so long and you

have that internal motivator

to keep the gears going

if you’re skeptical or apprehensive

about these building blocks that i use

to take control and ownership of my time

just try this make one promise to

yourself of something that you want to

do whatever that thing is

one time specify a date and time in

which you’re going to do that thing

write it down on a piece of paper and

place it somewhere where it’s visible

and lastly walk into your living room

and say that thing

out loud you’ve just made a promise to

yourself now keep

that promise thank you for listening