I Just Don’t Have the Time

How many times have you said that? I know I have said it more times than I can count. This subject has been on my mind a lot lately. Between kids, and pets, and the never-ending pile of laundry . . . and growing not just one, but TWO businesses. I feel like time is my greatest asset and most elusive resource.

But I have realized that there is no such thing as “getting it all done". Nope, not for me. Instead, it’s about priorities. What is most important to me? I have to decide and focus on those things only. I have to let the other things go. And it’s ever-evolving too. Some days, my kids are the priority. Some days, it’s a big project or a client meeting. Sometimes it just turns into chaos and I have to recalculate my entire day or my entire week.

But here’s the thing I can do. I can choose which priorities will fill up my bucket for this new year. I can decide which things are priorities and which things are not. Not forever, but for right now. For this day, for this month, for this year. It’s okay to let the rest go because that’s the way you find peace in your productivity. And I don’t know about you, but I want to crush my goals and have peace.

One of the things I have learned over the past few years is that there is so much value in little bits of time. I have spent many years overlooking those small pockets of time. What can I do in ten minutes? What can I do with this extra 20 minutes? When I am waiting for my food to cook, or driving my kids to school? What if I get up 10 minutes earlier? So when I have something I want to accomplish, but I am limited on time, I give it 15 minutes. I commit to it, too. Not just a “maybe 15 minutes”, but a definite 15-minutes.

If you committed to do something for 15 minutes every single day, or even 5 days a week, what would that do for you? 15-minutes per day, 365 days per year is 5,475 minutes. That is 91 hours. That’s almost days. I can get back four days of time and accomplish something of value OR I can spend those little bits of time scrolling social media and watching Netflix.

I choose to make them count. What will you do with them?