How to Live More, Not Longer

This is a post about the art of living more, not longer, since the latter is not really in our control (regardless of what any health guru may claim). Do you want to know what it means to live more?

• You get more things done in less time.
• You can gain more life: 10, 20 or even 30 years that would otherwise be wasted.

How is this possible?

1. Understanding GLV

In our lives, we try to organize all of our activities into schedules: do this today and that tomorrow. But what if you could optimize your life by cutting back on the activities that take up a bigger share of it than they deserve? This is, in essence, the meaning of GLV, a term I came up with that stands for Gained Life Value.

2. How you really spend your life

The chart below shows how much time we give to perhaps the three biggest time consumers over a person's life (in this example, someone who lives to the age of 70).

3. Explanation

Please note that these numbers are general and your situation may be different. According to my table, you could save 12.5 years. That's a lot of time! How is this possible?

For instance, let's say you decide to sleep two hours less each night. Done continually over 60 years, this would save you five years. (I started the count at the age of 20; babies don't watch TV or read.)

Likewise, by learning how to read faster, you could learn to read twice as fast as you do now and save yourself 2.5 years to do something useful (or read more, what do I know?). The same can be said about watching television: watch two hours less each day and you will save five years in the long run.

Now you know how to optimize your life, so no more complaining that you can't find time to do things. You are only fooling yourself!