⌛"I need more time" — or do you?
There's something I hear constantly from clients, friends, family:
"I need more time."
We're all too busy, juggling too many balls in the air, frantically rushing to clear a "to do" list that never actually clears. Now, it's tempting to blame it on voodoo, but that's not what's happening.
In our 20s, the solution was simple: sleep less so we can cram in more. That stopped working for me a long time ago. It's also easy (for others, not you of course) to let the "I need more time" conversation devolve into a complaint-fest about the most annoying things on our list.
Real progress is usually made when we realize the main problem (especially for the hyper-capable among us) is usually that we're letting too many things onto our list.
"The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do." - Michael Porter
Could you cut 20-50% of your list? Jim Collins said: "If you have more than 3 priorities, you have none." Make sure your priorities are prioritized.
If you do that, you've done well.
But there's a next level if you're interested:
Realize — we only want time because we want to spend our time on something else in order to get a result. It's not a one-variable equation: it's time x results.
The next level is to take your priorities, and figure out how to do better at them.
A client keeps his phone in a different room when he's with his kids. Same time, better outcome.
In my business, I actually talk to people instead of relying on LinkedIn posts. Same time. Better outcome.
Two questions to leave you with:
What more should you be saying no to?
How could you do your priorities even better?
You got this.