Do you ever run out of time? Do you sometimes feel you’d love to be able to control time? Well you can. Check out the video or read the transcript below to find out more.

I was introduced to this concept about 10 years ago while reading The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks.  This book mentions how Newton and Einstein viewed time very differently from each other, and it got me thinking. Once I started looking into this, it changed my life.  People always ask me: “Oh my gosh, how do you stay so organized? How do you get so much done in a day?” Well, here’s my secret: I control time.

Most of us view time the way Newton did: that time is equal for everybody. There are 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute. That's it. It's equal for everybody. And time goes by minute by minute.  What's interesting is that Einstein had a very different view.  He saw time as relative. His view was that time was not a fixed thing. He believed we control time. In fact, he believed that we ARE time. Specifically, that time is controlled by how we feel about it.

Whaaaat?  Ok, I'll give you a few examples. Let's say that your child or someone you care about calls in a panic saying they need your help then the line suddenly gets cut off.  You try and you try to redial but you keep getting a busy signal and can’t get through.  You keep going straight to voicemail and you're panicking. Eventually, after 12 minutes you finally get them back on the line. Whew. What a nightmare. Those 12 minutes were an eternity. It felt like a very looong time. But, it was just 12 minutes.

Think about the reverse. You're with a friend at a coffee shop. You haven't seen each other in 20 years when you were best buds. You start yapping and chatting and having a good time. When you think it's been about 20 minutes, you look at your watch. It's been two hours! How’d that happen?  It seemed so quick. You were having such a great time, you didn’t even notice. For you time felt like quick. But, it was really 2 hours.

So, whether time flies or it drags on, really depends on how we feel about that time. Our minds control how long it lasts based on how much time we imagine has elapsed.  Once I started taking advantage of this, I became super productive. I started thinking to myself:  “I am time. I control time. I can do this.” Now, when I have 15 minutes before my next meeting I choose not to feel rushed. Instead I say: “Do I want to be Newton or do I want to be Einstein?”  In my imagination Newton says: “15 minutes is just 15 minutes. I don't have time to start anything”; but Einstein says: “15 minutes? That’s plenty of time. I can make it last as long as I want.” So, I start drafting an email or a paragraph for my blog or some other task I can focus on. Then I type and I type and I type.  When I think I’m running out of time, I check the time and am usually surprised - it's only been three minutes. Oh my gosh. Okay. I am time. I have time. I control time. When I want 15 minutes to last, really, really long so that I have time to do lots of stuff during those 15 minutes, I can.  And so can you… we can fool ourselves.

So that's my secret. Start telling yourself you have time. You can do this. I can be super efficient. I can control the amount of time that I want this to feel like. When you're doing something fun, just tell yourself, I want this time to feel like it lasts for a long time. When you go on holidays and then all of a sudden it's the last day, and you have to go back home, just tell yourself I want this to feel like a month and I want to enjoy every minute.  In your mind, you can extend your holidays, you can even extend your weekends.

I encourage you to take advantage of this theory. I was skeptical at the beginning, but, I have to say, I’m a believer. It really works. So go ahead, try it.