Life is a Matter of A Few Hours

You may be 70 years old. But if I ask you to look back at your life and tell me something which you did for days at a stretch, without doing anything else like talking with friends, playing, exercising or anything else, I am almost sure that you will not tell me an answer straightaway.

Because for almost all of us, life is a matter of a few blocks of hours.

You might be a highly successful employee in a well known company. You might have got a couple of promotions, double-raises, several other incentives. But when you look back at what got you those, you would probably find that the tasks that got you into that high position were done in a few hours.

What the? I took 7 days to finish my work on XYZ.

Yes, you might have took 7 days. But if somebody logged all your activities in those 7 days, you will find that it was in some handful of hours that you really did something towards XYZ. You slept, you talked, you dined, you did other things, and you did XYZ too. If you take a really sincere close look, you can see that it was only those 3*5=15 hours in the office that you took for the task.

OK, I understand I did XYZ in a few hours. But are you suggesting me to get rid of sleep and do it all in 1 day?

No way. What I am asking you to do is to acknowledge that most important things that happen in your life happens in a few hours.

Remember all the learning you did in your school. There were those hours when you were actively listening in the class, those hours in the days before exams when you actually came to understand what is meant by Newton's Third Law of Motion. Those are the moments. You did not set out on a long journey and learn or do things. There were some hours, when you really learned something.

With that understanding comes a great deal of inspiration.

That you can do things, because it's just a matter of a few hours (or may be minutes)
You could earn a friend with a smile, that's just a second.
You could help somebody in a few minutes.
You could learn something new in an hour, (or if you're learning c++, in less than 5 hours)
You could work on your dream project with just 20% of your time.

But you think it takes a lot of time, and never do it. Where in real life, it takes only a few hours.

Do not over estimate time. 

The next task you are up to. Find what is to be done. Do it. Look at the clock.

You can do anything; talk, chat, play, watch, enjoy. But those few hours you must give your 100% for the task at hand. And at the end of the day you will have done everything.