This article takes another closer look at one of my quote images, and now’s as good a time as any to read it…
“Time waits for nobody, nobody, nobody. For no-one.” – Dave Clark.
Those words are taken from the title track of the musical written by Dave Clark, called, yes, you guessed it, Time.
The title song came out as a single, and although he wasn’t in the live musical the single was sung by Freddie Mercury, and it was a big hit.
I went and saw the live show actually, and at the time it was ground breaking stuff for a live theatre musical. The massive stage moved on hydraulics almost so it flipped over on itself, and with the lights and sound booming, it felt safe to draw on a well worn description that the building was shaking, because considering the state of the theatres in London’s West End, it probably was!
I thought the words worked well over an image of an old broken watch of mine, because even though the watch was broken, time wasn’t, and was marching along regardless.
Whether Dave Clark actually wrote that lyric with all the repetition, or whether it was the kind of flourish that Freddie Mercury was known for, I don’t know, but I like the repetition. I think it drives home the point.
We all know that time waits for nobody. It doesn’t wait for me, it doesn’t wait for you, and it doesn’t wait for anyone else either.
It didn’t wait for Freddie Mercury, nor Dave Clark, who in his day was as big a star as Mercury ever was, and the story is fascinating – so I’m going to touch on his story before delving deeper into the issue of time, because it is relevant.
From London, Clark started his band The Dave Clark Five, and they became a firm favourite in the dance halls. They played an aggressive driving beat type of music, which sent the crowds wild, and they fully rode the rise of the pop band in the 60s, becoming the London answer to the Liverpool’s Beatles.
Then they got offered some work in America, and ended up just as successful as The Beatles too, in fact enjoying somewhat more success there than back home.
Dave got involved in the production side of Television early, and knew the power of holding editorial and creative control over his work. He also knew the power of time…
As the band rode the wave of success, the drove themselves to exhaustion. It was a non stop circus of travel, rushing to hotels through screaming kids, live shows, TV shows. It’s a relentless cycle for the ones that get to the top.
Fun and lucrative, but brutally hard work. Clark was happy to take it on and cram it all in, because he knew full well, that not only was it something he had already worked long and hard for, it was an opportunity that would not come again if he didn’t take it right then.
There was no time to wait. The time to act was not sometime in the future, but right there and then when the opportunity presented itself.
This is a key point.
Time waits for nobody.
Time does not wait until ‘someday’, or ‘the 12th of Never’. So, if you set either of those as the time when you’ll get on with going after your dream or goal, or that self improvement project, you’re in for a disappointment, because time won’t wait. Time will march on while you don’t, and you’ll look back and realise it, but only *after* the time has gone.
And to go with the idea of the repetition in the lyrics, time not only doesn’t wait for you, it doesn’t wait for anyone at all.
If you think of the highest achievers in whatever field you think of, the presidents, the sports stars, the rock stars, the move stars, the business stars – time didn’t wait for any of them.
Like Clark, they acted, and used the time when it was there to be used.
A lot of people give ‘time’ as one of the main reasons for not going after their goal.
‘Oh, I just don’t have the time.’
Hmm.
You have the same 24 hours in the day as anyone else.
That’s not to be glib about it – obviously, some people come from more difficult circumstances, have bigger barriers to overcome, don’t have the opportunities presented to them, but there are plenty of the top achievers I mentioned that had difficult starts.
They overcame them, so it can’t *just* be the circumstances that stop people.
The use of time and the decisions about how time is used, is a key factor.
You have the same 24 hours in the day as anyone else.
If you don’t have time, you are spending those same 24 hours somehow, so what *are* you doing with the time?
Of course, there are plenty of time management theories, tools, and techniques out there, but for me the key factor is to decide that you’re going to do something about it.
Once you decide, you then start to think and therefore act with intention, and time management and productivity *will* follow once you apply whichever techniques work for you the best.
It can work wonders – for example, 1 hour a day over a whole year is 365 hours. If you divide that by a 36 hour week, that’s 10 weeks of time you gain for yourself.
10 weeks!
Do you think you could get things done if you had 10 solid weeks of time to get on with it? Well, those 10 weeks are available to you every year, just by getting an hour a day.
Will it involve change? Yes.
Will it involve sacrifice? Yes.
Will that involve others? More than likely, yes.
Will they always be happy about it? Not always, no!
This is where you draw on other self improvement and personal development ideas, 2 examples might be to make sure you’re not living your life by other people’s agendas, and that may mean you have to say ‘no’ to other people.
That’s just one way of reclaiming time, of stopping time slipping away and gone. It’s a way of putting yourself above the others who don’t have this kind of understanding, and it’s not hard to see that it puts you on the path of the achievers.
I do feel at this point it’s also worth thinking about the concept that all work and no play is no good – I’m not saying you need to be a workaholic. No, not at all, that can lead to effects sometimes as damaging as doing nothing. Rest and relaxation are not luxuries and should be scheduled into any plan.
Rest and relaxation is healthy as part of intentional progress, and that’s a totally different thing to ‘wasting’ time.
So, look to your goals, your dreams, your current circumstances. Are you blaming time for not having enough time? Are you hoping that time will slow down, or that you will get it again?
You won’t.
Take a look at how you view time, and the passing of it, because it will pass whatever you do, so if opportunity presents itself, the time to act is now.
As Dave Clark wrote, as Freddie Mercury sang – Time waits for nobody, nobody, nobody. For no-one.
Ok, as ever, I’d love to hear what you think – do leave a comment!
‘Til Next Time,
Health & happiness,
Gordon
P.S. If you’d like to do more with your time, then do grab my free video series covering my 8 step goal achievement formula – it works.
