Time is both limited but its limits unknown
“I don’t have time to…”
“I’ll do X when I have more time!”
How often do you use these phrases each week I wonder?
Time is limited for us all, this is true. We all have the same 24 hours in a day and none of us actually knows how many of those 24 hours we will get to live out. Time is both limited but its limits are unknown.
What is important is not how much time we have but how we use it and how we use it is often governed by what we call our ‘cognitive biases’ or perceptions.
Chances are you spend most of your time ‘doing’ or ‘thinking about’ the things that you perceive to be urgent. How often have you stopped the important thing you were doing to respond to the beep of an incoming text message? The beep triggers the brain to assume the message must be urgent when it may just be someone replying “OK” or a spam message.
We also put off what is perceived to be less ‘urgent’ but is actually more important. Examples might include booking a dentist appointment, sorting out your will or phoning a friend.
Taking those last two examples in particular, how urgent would they appear if you knew that your time on this planet would be up tomorrow? Time is all about perception of how much of it we think we have, or don’t have!
To start ‘finding more time’ for the really important stuff, start by sorting out what from your to-do list is truly ‘urgent.’ Oh, and think too about ‘urgent for whom?’. The sender of that ‘urgent’ email may well put a higher priority on that urgency than you do. Some tasks also only become urgent because they weren’t dealt with earlier.
You can use the ‘Urgent versus Important’ matrix to help you see where your time should really be spent.
For the really important things though, you just need to make time by putting them at the top of your priority list. We often find this most difficult with things that are for our own wellbeing. Women particularly, have been conditioned to believe that their own needs are less important than those of everyone else around them, so we don’t make time for them. How often have you ignored a pressing need to go to the loo because you perceive that what someone else needs from you is more important and more urgent?
Making time for your own needs is not selfish. It’s actually the least selfish thing you can do!
It demonstrates to others around you that it is ok to put their own needs first sometimes too.
It highlights to those who care for you what your needs are and how they can support you with them.
It makes you less resentful of running around after everyone else all of the time
So, if you are using the excuse that you just don’t have the time to do something, ask yourself:
Is this really true?
What else might be stopping you from doing the thing that isn’t really about time?
Would this still be true if you knew you were going to die tomorrow?
If you need some help to figure out the answers to these questions, then do book a free Personal Wellbeing Review with me and we can figure it out together!