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Today, I issued a challenge to post/share publically something you haven’t shared because it was unfinished or not perfect. The goal is to become more comfortable and get over the fear of being imperfect. This would make it easier to share more of your imperfect work in the near future.
Not wanting to be left out or have you thinking I’m not up to my own challenge I’m sharing the post below to show I still struggle with imperfection. As you’ll see there are a few breaks and restarts. Now everything will make sense because it is still a draft but I’m stilling willing to share it. While I believe in the topic and eventually I’ll post the completed draft, at this moment I’m unable to find the “perfect” words to explain my point. Enjoy.
“I don’t have the time.” It’s a phrase I’m extremely tired of hearing and one I’m working hard to remove from speak, much like “I can’t.” The more I hear it the more frustrated I get by the people who use it. Frankly, I feel it’s lazy. When we say, “I don’t have time,” or its sister phrase, “I’m too busy,’’ what we are really saying is, “It’s not a priority” or “I don’t want to.”
The problem, I’ve found, is we waste so much time on things we don’t want to do, things we could do better, or things that don’t matter. I know most of us have made plans we wish we didn’t, binged watched an entire season of a show on Netflix, or tried to get the bottom of our Facebook Newsfeed. It happens to the best of us and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It is important to spend time to unwind and relax. We need “me time.”
Unfortunately, we abuse the “me time” we take for ourselves. Instead of making it focused quality time, we procrastinate, putting off the things we need to do until the last minute. Then we are scrambling to get the important things done while other things get missed. There are a total of 168 hours in a week. When you subtract the time we spend at work, the commute, and 8 hours of sleep we are left with as much as 62 hours each week to get things done.
“But, Joe, I’m a very important person and lots of things I NEED to get done. I don’t have time to waste time.” Uh huh, sure! It’s easy to feel like we don’t waste time. I was only on Facebook
First we need to understand our priorities. While these could be things we want to do from our bucket list, most likely they are items we need to do every day. Making dinner, getting ready for work, laundry, and spending time with our families are responsibilities we have on a regular basis. Then there are things we choose to take on beyond our normal responsibilities. This could be volunteering, helping a friend move, cleaning out our attic, or working out to be healthy. Lastly, we have bucket list type items. Once we take some time to create this list and put things in an order of importance we can find ways to give us more time.
My favorite way to give myself more time is bundling. While some days I do this better than others, I’ve found it to be an effective way to give myself more time during the week. This is the process of doing a task you might spread out over the course of a week like grocery shopping or folding laundry and doing it all at once. By bundling certain tasks together, we save time by not having to prepare each time we want to do the same task. Something as simple as ironing a shirt every morning could take 10 minutes a day or almost an hour a week but might only take 15-20 minutes if the shirts were ironed all at once. The iron is already out, warmed up, and ready to go. We only need to use it once. So much time can be saved by bundling tasks together it’s surprising we don’t do more of it.
The second way to create more time is to delete responsibilities. These is obviously more difficult than bundling but might be even more important. Many of us have a difficult time saying no to things. People ask us for help and we oblige because we don’t want to let them down. There are other tasks we feel are important but if they were removed from our lives we would never notice. These items need to go on our priority list somewhere usually bumping something else we thought was important, down the list. The problem is we didn’t want to do it in the first place but we didn’t want to say “No.” There are also PLENTY of responsibilities we take on because we want to and we think they are priorities but wouldn’t be missed if they were gone.
Delete and understanding your priorities
Our lives are filled with maybes and somedays. Someday I’ll start a business. Maybe when things slow down I’ll organize my closet. Someday I’ll get to spend more time with my kids, parents, or friends. Maybe, if I had more time, I could finally take my dream vacation. “These all sound nice but where will I find the time, Joe?” I have a few ideas.
The problem is we don’t understand our priorities. We classify everything as important even when it isn’t. Then things which should be important get pushed to the back burner relegated to “maybe someday.” We need to understand all the things we need or want to accomplish and put a true order or importance. Take time to do an honest assessment of your list. Are there tasks you can bundle together like planning the meals for the week and grocery shopping for everything? Are there tasks you can delegate or ask someone for help on like moving furniture or pick up the kids from school? Are there tasks you have on the list you’ve been putting off for
Trying bundling. This planning meals for the week and buying all of the groceries at once instead of each day. Or picking out work clothes and ensuring they are ready instead of each morning. You can even bundle different chores together like doing the dishes while dinner is in the oven or cleaning your room while the laundry is in the washer and dryer.
