About the author

Tim Moss

Tim Moss has supported over 100 expeditions across all seven continents. He has climbed new mountains, crossed a desert on foot and recently cycled 13,000 miles around the world. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society London and a Guinness World Record Holder. He aims to encourage more people to live adventurously. Read more...

2 Comments

  1. 1

    Michael Halls-Moore

    Coincidentally, I managed to get up at 5:30 today, commuted into London from Hampshire, did a cheeky spin session on the bikes in the gym and still made it in for 8:30! My first time trying the gym and commute. It was fine – mainly because I went to bed at 21:30.

    That’s all it really takes, just going to bed a bit earlier. People always complain about not having enough time. Everybody in the world has 24 hours in the day. What people are really saying is “I don’t want to prioritise my time for the gym or learning some new skills, I’d rather prioritise watching Eastenders/X Factor/Coronation Street (delete as necessary!) instead.”

    A few good tricks that I have learnt to save time (perhaps slightly controversial):

    1) Don’t eat dinner. WHAT?! At the moment I basically have a huge breakfast, a medium lunch and a reasonable snack at dinner time. Plus a few fruit/protein bar snacks during the day. The body needs the most energy at the start of the day, so this seems to make sense! Having a huge evening meal is relatively pointless from an energy perspective as it just gets digested overnight and not burned, so it just makes you fatter. Not good. It also means that my evenings are my own and I don’t have to worry about fixing a meal which can be 2 hours worth of purchase, preparation and eating. It also stops impulse ready meal purchases which are terrible for the body and expensive.

    2) Don’t waste the commute reading trashy newspapers or novels. They don’t add value. Who cares if a celebrity is going out with another celebrity or which club they visited the night before? It was only fed to the paper by their publicist in the first place. Instead, read an (auto)biography of somebody you would like to learn from, a textbook on an area you’re less strong at or study a new language. I’m studying (with pen and paper!) a physics textbook and a biography of Ben Franklin right now on my hour train commute and I’ve learnt loads. Of course, there are times when I’m tired and I want to snooze on the train, but they’re the exception, rather than the rule.

    3) Do something useful in the evenings. Don’t sit in front of the TV or surf Facebook for 4 hours before bed. This is not bragging nor is it made up (although it’s not a typical week, admittedly!), but this week my evenings are Monday: Passive income development (article writing and distribution for a website), Tuesday: Climbing at the Westway wall, Wednesday: Scuba diving try-dive with my girlfriend in Holborn, Thursday: Thesis corrections (although I’d rather watch some TV with this one!), Friday: Travel up to Northampton to do DIY all weekend for a house sale. Yes, I’m going to be a bit tired due to getting back to Hampshire at 11pm most nights. But then again…I’ve got an hour on the train to read cool stuff and I will have carried out some awesome activities. It’s not difficult, nor does it really require much effort – it’s just planning in advance.

    I’ve struggled for the best part of my adult life to find motivation to do these things and I consistently slip up. The trick is just to get back on the saddle and carry on. After a while, they pay huge dividends, not only in terms of awesome memories being created but the skills learnt ALWAYS come in handy in professional life.

    Life really is there for the taking, none of us are getting any younger, so why not just fill up your spare time with cool stuff rather than mindless media?

    (Tim, yeah I know I should write these things on my blog too – I really need to get around to that, haha!)

    Oh yeah, for my next everyday adventure (which HAS actually been inspired by your cool posts!), I’m going to buy a pair of Astronomy Binoculars (far cheaper than a telescope) and go to Greenwich or even out of London one evening and try to see the Orion Nebula (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_Nebula) or the rings of Saturn, depending on the weather.

    Keep on writing the cool motivational posts. They ARE worthwhile and they do motivate, trust me!

    Mike.

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  2. Pingback: The most popular posts on adventure blogs | Slow Quest

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