Why Not Having Enough Time Is Never An Excuse
Your problem isn’t a lack of time, it’s a lack of clarity.
I’m a creative person who doesn’t have enough time in the day. At least that’s what I used to think. Over the past 10 years, I was working on about 5 or 6 different projects at any given time. Diving into the research and fun parts of each project, I’ve ‘started’ so many of them. Sadly, none of them has ever been finished.
Does this sound familiar:
“I am going to start a company doing X. But first I need the time to do ABC and research XYZ.”
If so, you’ll know how annoying it is when you start a thousand projects and barely finish a handful.
It’s easy to blame a lack of time for not completing projects. Because it often feels like some people are able to squeeze so much more out of their day than others.
Why do I feel like I’m stretched for time when other people seem to have tonnes of it?
How do Ryan Holiday, Tim Ferris and Maria Popova manage to create so much while my projects never get off the ground?
I used to get kind of frustrated by this question. I remember being 15 and declaring to my Dad that I couldn’t learn an instrument because I didn’t have the time. He patiently explained to me that the real issue is not that I don’t have time. It’s that I’m choosing to spend it on other things.
Every time I decided to stay in the park after school and ride my bike, I was choosing not to learn an instrument. Every time I chose to play video games I was choosing not to practice an instrument. You get the idea.
My Dad wasn’t about to start critiquing how I spent my free time as a teenager. But he was coaxing me towards realising: if you want something bad enough you will find the time to make it happen in your life.
“Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.” — Zig Ziglar
We’re all given the same amount of time in the day to achieve whatever we want. Some of us just spend that time more focused than others.
Case in point: I’ve been trying to read more in the past few months. It hasn’t always been easy. I’m not the fastest reader and I haven’t dedicated a specific part of my day to it. So there are days when 10 pm arrives and I haven’t read a single page. I’d start thinking about how busy the day was, how stretched I’d been.
But then I’d hear my Dad’s words in my ear again. And I’d think: it’s 10 pm, stay up for another half an hour and read if that’s what you need to do.
Often we say that we want something but the reality is that we’re just in love with the idea. Putting in the hours to achieve it never happens because we don’t want it bad enough.
“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” — Stephen R. Covey
I’ve had to recalibrate my ambitions a few times over the past few years. When I keep telling myself I want something but am never willing to back that up by committing time to it. I’ve got a thousand interests in life, so that’s a powerful lesson.
With constant access to everyone, it’s easy to let social media make us feel like we’re missing out. I want to run a triathlon like him. I want to spend a year travelling like her. I want to live in New York like them. But do I really? Sometimes the answer is yes, but most often it’s actually no.
Be brutally honest with yourself about what it is that you want to do. Because in my limited experience, the more you can focus the more time you’ll have. And the more time you have, the more you’ll be able to achieve.
This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by 292,582+ people.
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