Have you ever sat down to relax after a long day of work, then suddenly you look up and hours have passed and it's now time to get ready for bed? Or maybe you have an hour between meetings at work, so you put on your headphones and sit down to get things done, when after what feels like only a couple of songs you're suddenly 2 minutes late for the meeting and scrambling to get to it? Don't worry, you're not alone.

These days, there are countless things demanding our attention. From trivial distractions to necessary activities, we're constantly having to manage how we spend our limited amount of conscious time. But all too often, we end up getting sucked into little "rabbit holes" where we lose hours of our lives. Worse yet, we frequently look back on those hours and can barely discern what we did in that time!

So let me ask you a question...

Do you know how much time you spend every day or week on all the different activities you engage in?

This may seem like a simple question. And if you're like me, your immediate thought is probably something like, "Of course I know how much time I spend on the stuff I do...I'm the one doing those things." I said the same thing. But then I spent a few days taking actual inventory of how I was spending my time, and you know what? I was very wrong.

Before, I had it in my head that I only watched little bit of television, or only played on my phone for a small amount of time. After all, I was getting a lot of stuff done (mostly doing work after hours...which is a topic all its own) so I definitely wasn't wasting huge amounts of time. But it turned out I was spending 2-4 hours per day watching television, and another 1-3 hours on my phone! I couldn't believe it! that's 14-28 hours per week just watching television! And another 7-21 hours on my phone! Even though these times frequently overlapped, it was still alarming to see how much time I was wasting on just these 2 categories (there were many others).

Now, I'm all for taking time to sit back, relax, and enjoy the things that make us happy. But this was adding up to almost a full work week! Armed with this data I couldn't argue with, I knew it was time to make a change. And thus began my journey to become more productive, and deliberate with my time.

So this week, I would like to challenge you to take inventory of how you are spending your time. For at least 3 days, record how much time you spend on different categories of activities. How much time do you...

• take getting ready in the morning?
• spend driving?
• sit in meetings?
• on your phone?
• working on your To-Do list?
• exercising?
• spend with your family?
• browsing around online shopping or on social media
• watching television?
• reading?
• etc.

The goal here isn't to make you feel guilty about enjoying your downtime. Far from it! It's about awareness.

Think of it like your finances...you only have so much money, and you have to know how you're spending it. Otherwise you won't have enough for the things you need. Your time is even more valuable!

Maybe you'll discover that you're actually spending two hours a day on social media when you thought it was just a couple quick 15-minute checks. Or perhaps you'll realize that your "quick" online shopping sessions are turning into hour-long extravaganzas.

Armed with this knowledge, you can decide if you're happy with how you're spending your time or if you want to make some changes. There's no right or wrong answer. Maybe you'll be happy with how you're spending your time. Or more likely (from my personal experience and observation) you'll be surprised there's some activity in your life that's eating more time that you thought, and you might want to get that time back in order to be more productive!

Again, this is simply about awareness. Because you can't really know how to make good use of your time if you don't how you're currently spending it, right?

So what do ya say? Are you willing to take up the challenge and find out where your time is really going? Who knows? You might just discover a few extra hours in your day that you never knew you had!

I'd love to know what you discover! So please share you results in the comments!