Why Beyoncé has more than 24 hours in a day! And what does this mean for us?

 You might have come across the line : “Beyoncé has also only 24 hours in a day” and whilst this is technically true, this is obviously a poor comparison. 

No one can and should compare themselves to Queen B. Sorry Beyoncé if you are reading this, please go ahead and compare yourself with your younger self, I’m sure you’d be very pleased!

Jokes aside, this comparison is harmful to many who struggle with resources. Because even though we all only have 24 hours in a day, we all have very different amount of resources and resources makes all the difference. Beyoncé has many more hours in her day (we’d say she gets multiple times her waking ours back) by outsourcing jobs she would otherwise need to use her own time for. 

The one thing she can’t be replaced with someone else are exercise, food intake and hydration and taking herself to the bathroom. But most of the time she decides where to allocate her precious personal time. She does the important stuff and the rest gets done for her, because she has the budget for this these days (but she also has to make some hard calls on what she accepts to be doing and what she says no to).

The reality for most of us is very different and that’s ok. 

We are all at some different place on our scale of time and money and those resources can be built up, but in this very moment we need to work with what we have. When we can’t multiply time or money in this very instant, what can we do to feel better about our day, given the resources we have just now? Good news, there are so many  things that everyone can do to be happier about their lives.

Time is extremely limited?

We can re-assess how we spend our time and really think hard on how we want to spend it. Even with responsibilities around work and caring for families, it is worth questioning how we spend our spare time and make more space for the things we enjoy! A great way to claiming time back is to make the time we spend with “chores” to be more meaningful and see the chores from a different perspective. Having a job is a thing to be grateful for and so is a family to look after. The same applies to a home to be cleaned etcetera.

Also, when we have to do things we really don’t like, we can see how little of that we can get away with, that certainly applies for the tasks we put on our own personal to do list. So once we question how we spend the time on our day, we will find shortcuts, small pockets of free time and hopefully by changing perspective we also see that we spend our time in a meaningful way, this leading to greater happiness overall!

Luckily, there are many things to enjoy that only take minutes and that can be done during work and play. We can always offer a big smile to anyone, we can maybe put a plant or some flowers on our desk and enjoy those.

Money is (very) limited?

Research shows that happiness and money are tied together, but we can be smarter in spending our money.  Sometimes paying for support can be a good idea, certainly spending on experiences is a great way to be happier, but on a simple day-to-day level it makes sense to make ourselves less dependent on material items, but enjoying little things that money can’t buy (or that need little money). We sometimes get distracted by new shiny things and that’s ok, but if we fill our days with personal connection, helping others, enjoying nature, eating well and having a laugh, money gets into the background quickly! 

What can we learn from Queen B? There are no resources needed to saying NO every now and again. It is a great idea not to have your valuable time eaten up by things that don’t serve you. A good sign for saying no is when you are getting nervous about whatever it is you are asked to do - we should exclude employers here, you should do what they ask you for if it’s in your job description – so when you feel social pressure, take a moment before you commit, maybe you can skip it!

Our days will always have 24 hours, how we spend those can look very different but you don’t have to be a well-off celebrity to be able to go to bed with a feeling of a “day well lived”. There is also something Beyoncé needs to schedule, that we often can just do straight away. We can stop. This sounds very counter-intuitive, but sometimes we can just stop in a day. Take 10 minutes back to ourselves, quite spontaneously. Do something we love right away!