Einstein’s Phone Number

A reporter interviewed Albert Einstein for an article he was writing. At the end of the interview, the reporter asked if he could have Einstein's phone number to call if he had further questions. “Certainly,” Einstein replied. He proceeded to pick up the phone directory, looked up his phone number, wrote it on a slip of paper, and handed it to the reporter. Dumbfounded, the reporter said, "You are considered to be the smartest man in the world, and you can't remember your own phone number?” “No,” Einstein answered. “Why should I memorize something I can so easily get from a book?”

What Einstein did was effectively budget his time and energy. He understood that both of those resources are finite. By being intentional with how he utilized both, the one-time patent clerk changed the way the world viewed space and time with the theory of relativity. So much of how most people spend their time doesn't move them towards living their best life.

The average person spends between 3-4 hours a day looking at their smartphone. That's over one full day a week (21-28 hours) that most people spend scrolling through Facebook and playing candy crush. Based on that data, people are spending roughly 52 days a year staring into a screen. What could you do with an extra seven weeks every year? If you lived to be 80 years old, that would mean you spent 13 years of this life on your phone.

Budgeting our time and energy is the secret that empowers high performers to accomplish more in a day than others? We all have the same 24 hours with which to do as we want. The magic is cutting out the waste. What do you do every day that doesn't serve you? Find one thing and change it. Start today; don't put this off until tomorrow.