Sometimes, when i'm really busy and my agenda is all filled up, i have to think - even if only for a second - about 'The Sands of Time'.

As (in Prince of Persia) i can't help to associate how time goes through our hands like sand, in real live we often don't need a reminder how fast time goes. If we only take an 8 hour working day of someone who has a family with kids, you can just imagine the person getting up at 6 o'clock or 6.15 am and being busy with washing up oneself, the stuff the kids need tot take bread and drink to school, filling the schoolbags, waking up the kids, getting the kids ready for school, letting them eat and drink. And after that: getting the jackets on, taking the schoolbags. Driving, walking or bicycling tot school. Than setting of for work.

Of course the day is not finished, after that. Let continue with working for 8 hours, and of course also have at least a half an hour extra time added for a lunchbreak. Closing off at work, picking up the kids. Going home, cooking, eating together, washing dishes/ putting them in the dishwasher and do a little work in house while the kids are relaxing for approxemately an hour, then going to the bed ritual and sending them off to bed.

For most families it will then already be seven o'clock, 8 o'clock or - if getting kids to bed is really a challenge - at 9 o'clock.

Lets say untill they really sleep it wil be 15 minutes or an half hour later. I'll just take as an example 8.30 pm or 9.15 pm that te evening really starts, for the rest of the family. Some go to bed at 09.30, some at 10.30 or 11.00 pm. How hard it is to do something usefull in between that time, that is not hanging on the couch and watching tv.

Well, i imagine that we all reconise some of the element in the picure i painted digitally, above. Even if you don't have kids, you can fill in a lot of the elements around a morning cyclus and a evening ritual.

So let me do some suggestions; Since a day has 24 hours, but seconds, minutes and hours seem to slip out of our hands so easily.

- work with priorities (and make yourself one of them)

- if you want to do something that normaly you wouldn't have time for, get up a little earlier and -very important- stick to your plan!

(example: go running for half an hour, if you want to sport but you normally don't have time. Write/ draw for half an hour, make a -start with- an artwork) 

- also very important: if yóu don't function, the system will get stuck somewhere! So make time for yourself. In little things (also eating a sandwich in the morning, even if it is rush hour at home) of on a bigger scale (Take an hour for yourself and leave the house if there are more persons in the house, to ensure you really can use that time for yourself. Go walking, or go to the library for reading. Anything that gives rest, comfort and a so called 'zen' feeling in that moment that you have for yourself)

And last but not least: there are lessons to be learned from the past!

So my last advise on this issue would be:

We make mistakes, we all get into situations where at some moment we don't have enough time - in whatever the situation is. Think about what you could have done in order to - at that time - create a little extra time on the moment that it would have been most presious and use it, in future situations.

Let shadows of whatever time you lost, in the past,

not rob you from the joy of trying to do better:

today or in the future!