For much of my fighting career, I traveled and traveled and traveled. The vast majority of the time, the traveling was justified by the high level of training I was receiving. There were times though, that I wondered if a good workout near my town was equal to or better than a really good workout three hours away. It was a constant battle of deciphering the total value of each experience.

One thing I began to notice through all of this was my view on productivity. I would think to myself, “I’m putting in the time traveling, thus, I’m being as productive as I possibly can.” I equated overall time invested to overall productivity. I was doing something (driving), so that must be better than doing nothing.

This brings us to the idea of busyness vs. productivity. When I hear myself say how I’m too busy or I don’t have enough time for something, I have to remind myself that the most successful people in the world have the most things going on in their lives. Billionaire Richard Branson (Virgin Records/Virgin Airways) has a multitude of businesse responsibilities, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Jeff Bezos (Amazon) all have TONS more responsibilities than I do.

The key here is weeding out the unimportant.

In Tim Ferriss’ book, The 4-Hour Workweek, he states that “lack of time is actually lack of priorities.” I know this to be true 1st-hand.

Identify your priorities, watch the time-wasters disappear, and watch your time miraculously increase. I still falter, but when I’m on point, I get so much more done in so much less time. Sure, I’ve given up some short-term-satisfaction activities (Netflix, Internet surfing), but I spend much more time on the things that matter.

Take an inventory of your time and see how much of it is spent on being busy vs. being productive.

I’d love to hear your thoughts via comments below or via my email list. I’m all ears!

-Spaniard