You “Don’t Have Enough Time”? Bullshit

You might not realize it, but you already have the only tool you need to change your entire life.

That tool isn’t money, or energy, or time. It isn’t access to the “right” people or making use of the “best practices” for anything. There’s no hacking involved.

Because the only tool you need to start changing your life is your language. Your words. More specifically, the words you use for the story you tell about yourself, to yourself – because that story creates your entire reality.

If you tell yourself you never have enough money, you’ll always feel like that – no matter how much you have. If you tell yourself that dating is horrible, dating will be horrible – for you. And – my favorite – if you keep going on and on about how “busy” you are and how that’s the reason why you can’t do the things you really want to do, like eat well and exercise and take care of yourself, then guess what? You just made that your reality.

So, first of all, we need to remember that while there are plenty of things we can’t control, we do have absolute and total control over our language choices. And sometimes changing just one or two words can change everything. Let me give you an example.

Back in December 2011, when I first started the journey of letting go of sugar, I used to say, “Oh, I can’t eat that” about so many things. And, as a result, I constantly felt deprived, and the whole process was a deep struggle. Then, one afternoon, staring longingly at a warm chocolate chip cookie, I thought, “Actually, I can have that – I just choose not to.” And my whole world changed. Same thing happened with running. I didn’t “have to” get up and go running. No one was making me. No one would die if I stayed in bed. I didn’t need to train for that race, I was choosing to train for it.

I know this all might sound sort of silly. You might be thinking that changing one or two words won’t work for you. But (real talk alert!) if you feel that way, and if you’re already mentally dismissing what I’m saying, that means you’ve hit upon some pretty strong resistance – which actually means you have the most to gain from trying this approach.

Now, back to language choices.

One of the most common phrases I ever hear is, “I don’t have enough time.” And one of the main reasons I hear it so much is because it’s constantly coming out of my own damn mouth. “Wah wah, I’m so busy, I don’t have enough time to do what I want to do. Blah blah, woe is me.”  Well, guess what? That’s bullshit.

You don’t have enough time to exercise? Bullshit. You don’t have enough time to write that book you’ve been dying to write? Bullshit. You don’t have enough time to read, or to eat well, or to take an online class? Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

Listen up: You have 24 hours in each day. So do I, so does everyone else, and no matter how much we bitch about it, we’re not going to magically invent more hours. But, even if we could invent more hours, that wouldn’t solve anything. We don’t need more hours in the day, we need to get real with ourselves about how we’re using the hours we currently have. 

Think you don’t have enough time? I dare you to try and prove it. For the next three days – that’s it, just 72 hours – track your time. Don’t change anything about your schedule or your habits, just track your time, in 30-minute increments, and see what happens.

Here, I’ll make it even easier for you. Click here to download a printable time tracking template (or the simple spreadsheet version) – and use that. Or use your own notebook. Use whatever, just do it. Write down how you’re spending your time every half hour for 72 hours, and then come back here three days from now and share what you learned. You don’t have to be crazy detailed when you’re recording things, but be specific enough that you can go back over it and understand it later. For example, don’t just write down “work,” write down “email” or “phone meeting” or “creative project.” Don’t just write down “computer time,” write down “dicking around on Pinterest” or whatever you’re really doing. Don’t write “sleep” if you actually mean “repeatedly pressing the snooze button.” Got it?

But listen, don’t judge yourself. That’s not the point. The point is to be honest about how you’re currently spending your time so that at the end of 72 hours, you can go through everything in detail and decide what, if anything, you’d like to change.  Because – and I can’t say this enough – nothing changes if nothing changes.

You might say you don’t have time to exercise, but this time tracking challenge will prove that, actually, you do. And so, what you’re really saying when you say, “I don’t have time for exercise” (or for whatever your thing is that you want to be doing), what you’re really saying is, “I’m choosing not to make that a priority.”

That’s it. That’s the truth. You can run your mouth off forever about how important something is to you, and about how you’d be spending more time on it if only you “weren’t so busy,” but that’s bullshit and you know it. You choose your priorities. Everything that’s currently piled up on your plate got there because you put it there – either consciously or unconsciously – and no one is going to clear your plate for you. You have to do that yourself.

The extra time you wish you had isn’t just going to drop into your lap. You won’t all of the sudden get a 25th hour each day to use for taking care of yourself and making your dreams a reality. No, in order to have X amount of time per day for exercise, or for cooking more of your own food, or for writing, or for learning Photoshop, or for whatever you truly want to do, you need to spend X amount less time doing something else. That’s how math works.

So, seriously, take this 72-Hour Time Tracker Challenge. It will give you a real, honest look at how you’re spending your time and energy, which is the first step in doing things differently. You can’t change if you don’t know where you’re starting from, right?

"I Don't Have Enough Time"

How often do you hear yourself saying you don't have enough time? Even if you're not saying it out loud, I bet you think it. "I wish I had more time" or "There's never enough hours in a day" are statements voiced every day by most people. It's a fact of life that there just isn't enough time. There never has been and never will be more than 24 hours in each day. So, why can some people achieve more in less time? I suggest one of the reasons is attitude of mind. "The greatest revolution in our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitude of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives". Author and Philosopher, William James. While you have the attitude of mind that you don't have enough time, your actions will support this. When you approach things with the attitude that you don't have enough time, whether true or not, you'll find this to be so. What you think will be revealed in your life. You can however choose to change your attitude of mind. People who feel they've enough time to do what they want and time doesn't rule their lives, have mastered this attitude change. Telling yourself you don't have enough time can be purely an excuse. It's often easier to say there isn't enough time than to see what this excuse is covering up. It may be concealing the fact that you aren't willing to think it through further, you may not know or be willing to communicate the real reason, or the excuse of not having enough time just trips off your tongue. Using time as an excuse in this way often leaves us stuck; it doesn't open up the opportunity to explore what you can do about it. Let's take the example of Colin who says he doesn't have enough time to spend with his family. First, it may be easier for him to stick with his excuse than to look at how much time he wants to spend with his family, and consider what would they be doing, sharing, experiencing, learning. If he starts to look at this aspect, this may require him to change and for most people, change feels scary. Saying "I don't have enough time" is an easier option. If Colin is totally honest with himself, he may find he doesn't want to spend time with his family doing certain things and for whatever reason, feels unable to tell them this. Not having enough time is an acceptable excuse for most people nowadays. However, you need to be aware that this may be keeping you stuck in many areas of your life and business. This excuse of not having enough time stops you from exploring opportunities. It's also a way to keep busy and really believe you don't have enough time. The mental energy that's used up in thinking about not having enough time, could be used to free up extra time. When you're totally focused on the task you're doing, you'll achieve things much more quickly. Focused attention allows us to achieve more. As I mentioned earlier, it's your attitude of mind that counts here and when you start thinking "I have more than enough time for all I want to do", you start opening up the possibilities. This attitude allows you to focus and not waste time. It also puts you into a frame of mind so that you look for ways to find this time. When you approach a task with the attitude of having more than enough time for everything else in your life, the task is likely to be completed much more quickly because your attention is focused and less thought is wasted. When you hear yourself say "I don't have enough time", I encourage you to stop and reflect for a few seconds to consider what really lies behind this excuse. Then turn it around to "I have more than enough time" and see what that allows you to do

Busting the “I don’t have enough time” myth

One of the big challenges many of us face these days is related to Time Management.
The common complaint seems to be:
“I don’t have enough time to do it all”
But the “I don’t have enough time to do it all” syndrome is a myth.
It’s a myth because the problem isn’t that you don’t have enough time. The problem is being unrealistic about what can be physically achieved in the time you have.
Why are you trying to do it all in the first place? If you do this, you are setting yourself up to fail before you have even started.

There is always enough time to physically do what can be done in the hours you have.

Let me explain:
If you have 2 hours to get stuff done, then you have enough time to do what can be done in 2 hours.
Quite clearly you don’t have time to do it all, as that would be totally unrealistic. And yet so many people continue to persue trying to do more than is possible in the time they have.
And thereby lies the solution:

1. Stop trying to do it all.

2. Stop trying to do more than is possible in the time you have.

I know this can seem like a tall order. I face the same challenge myself. One of my core values is that the business has to operate around my role as a parent and family life. So I am constantly trying to find creative ways to develop my business during school hours and term time.
Whenever I fall into being unrealistic about what can actually be physically done in the time I have, things become more challenging, both professionally and personally. I have to constantly remind myself that I have more than enough time to do what can be done during school hours. Anything else is me being unrealistic.
How about you? Does this ring any bells with you?
Choose to drop the “I don’t have enough time to do it all” syndrome.
Choose the mantra “I have enough time to do what can be done in the time I have”
Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

1. Have a look at where you are being unrealistic about what you can physically fit into the time you have.
2. Work out what is realistic for you to achieve in the time you have based on what is most important to you, your core values and your vision for how you want things to be.
3. Create your goals and action plans based on point 2.
4. Focus on what is most important first. That way, if you do have to drop balls it will never be the most important ones.

The point I am making is this:

The feeling of not having enough time is a choice. That feeling is avoidable if we get to grips with what is realistic in the time we have.

Busting the myth reduces feelings of stress, overwhelm and frustration. It requires a mindset shift. Give it a go.
So, what are you going to do to bust your own “I don’t have enough time” myth?

I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH TIME SYNDROME

POSTED ON FEBRUARY 19, 2013 BY SIMPLEECONOMIST — 10 COMMENTS ↓

Do you know what I find interesting? Everyone in the world is given the exact same allocation of one single resource: Time. No matter who you are, where you live, or what you do, everyone has exactly 24 hours each and every day to fill with some combination of tasks and leisure.

I’m sure you’ve run into this person: The person who says “I don’t have time for that” or “I’m way too busy to spend my time doing that.” Heck, you may have been that person once, or are currently in a situation where that is exactly how you feel. What is worse, is that people, often over and over, allow themselves to subsist in a chronic margin-less lifestyle driven by the choices that continue to be made on a daily basis .

I think the underlying assumptions (forgive my economist background), is that for every activity that you engage in, you are by default giving up the ability to engage every other possible activity. For example: If I take a nap, I can’t clean or eat at same time. There is an opportunity cost to every decision you make and every activity you participate in.

In essence, I feel like the real statement should be not that, “I don’t have time for ‘that’”, but rather “I don’t feel like that is enough of a priority in my life to allocate my time for ‘that’.” I think rather than a lack of time problem, most people have a prioritization problem (similarly, most Americans don’t have an income problem but an allocation problem).

Most individuals have the inability to make decisions on what is most important in their lives. If not proactively addressed, society and others will make these decisions for you. Think of the people who surround you. Are you allowing your boss, advertisements, parents, spouse, kids or anyone else to make their priorities your priorities? Do they line up with what you value?

Common things I’ve said to myself or observed in others: I don’t have time to workout. I don’t have time to read. I don’t have time to learn that. I don’t have time to learn or plan my finances. I don’t have time to keep myself organized. I want to spend more time meditating/with god/in reflection. I want to have time for all these things; I just have other things that seem more urgent.

So, how do you recognize and address a time problem?

• Step back and figure out what is important to you. Realize you have control over your life and your priorities in the long term.
• Get rid of the unimportant, de-commit, brainstorm long or short term changes
• Put the Big Rocks in first
• Find someone who can check to see if you are making progress

What we come to realize is prioritization and organizing can lead to a more efficient allocation of time. Allowing you to get more done and have more free time.

Here are some of the most common time wasters that keep us from getting important things done:

• Watching TV (Average American @ 5 Hours a day)
• Reading/Surfing on the internet
• Running “errands” (see Batching @ 4HWW)
• Driving/Traveling/Commuting
• Non-Productive reading
• “Getting Ready”
• Video Games
• “News”
• Inefficient cleaninghousework
• Kids*

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not bashing all of these activities. In fact, being intentional about conscientiously participating in the activities listed above can be quite entertaining. However, I am bashing these activities for the people who claim they do not have time to get important things done in their life.

A second technique for addressing this lack of time is changing the way we talk.

Try rephrasing a sentence like this:
“I don’t have enough time to spend with my kids/wife because I am working too much.”

Be honest with your self, and state it like this:
“I could spend more time with my kids but work is a greater priority than spending time with my kids.”

Or:

“I would exercise but I’m too busy and I don’t have time for that.”
Instead try:
“Exercise is not a priority and I would rather spend my time watching tv/reading/surfing the web”

The other strange idea that always creeps up when you discuss a topic like this is: observing two people with equal responsibly where one has plenty of time and the other feels like they have no time. I know surgical residents who are incredibly busy working tons of hours who feel like they have no time; then others, even on the same rotation, who seem to be relaxed with free time. Or two graduate students in the same program where one is completely stressed by the workload and the other is relaxed and has plenty of free time. Finally, you have two stay at home moms. One feeling like they have no time and the other who has plenty of extra time! What gives? What makes people different? I believe much of it has to do with organization and prioritization. Building and maintaining an efficient lifestyle and removing the non-important can take back the feeling of time deprivation.

To finish up, I want to reiterate. Everyone has the same amount of time. Figure out what is important to you (not others) and make that a priority. Spend a little time up front organizing your life and see how you can actually give yourself more free time in the long run.

A lack of time is not the problem, wasting time and filling your life with unimportant things is the problem.

*I love kids. But it’s important to have a balanced life