I Don't Have Time Syndrome

You have time to do anything, but you don’t have time to do everything.

The number one excuse for not doing something, achieving something, or completing something is always I don’t have time.

Time is one of the greatest levelers in existence. Everyone gets twenty-four hours per day, no matter what. How we choose to use those twenty-four hours is entirely up to us. I can spend every one of them writing, or I can spend every one of them eating chocolate popcorn while watching American Idol. Either way, the sun will set, and tomorrow will arrive.

I don’t have time syndrome takes two forms—each different, each making it difficult to get what you want out of life.

​​1. Big Picture: Choosing Your Path
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I don’t have time to write a novel. I have two jobs and a pet duck to worry about.

Sound familiar? You have a dream. To write a book. To create an album. To build a perfectly scaled model of the Leaning Tower of Pisa from chopsticks. But you don’t do it.

You say, “I don’t have time.”

But that’s not what you mean.

You mean that you would like to do this thing, but it’s not a priority. It’s not important enough for you to sacrifice something else in order to make it happen. Because that’s the way it works, this twenty-four hours in a day thing. You don’t have time to do everything, but you have time to do anything--if it’s important enough to become a priority.

Now, I’m not discounting the struggle of working multiple jobs, supporting a family, raising kids (honestly, I don’t know how you folks get anything done with kids). And I’m not saying it’s easy to find time in the day to sit down and do something for yourself, something with no immediate value.

What I am saying is that the I don’t have time excuse is bull. Being honest with yourself—saying This isn’t a priority right now instead of I don’t have time—can help alleviate some stress and dispel the feeling that you should be doing something else. Because that feeling leads to the second manifestation of the syndrome.

​​2. Daily Productivity: Setting Your Schedule
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Tell me if this sounds familiar: Your to-do list is two miles long. You have things to do for work, for your blog, for your personal life, and somewhere, somewhere on that list is your writing.

You spend the day making a notch in the list and realize you didn’t write. But you’ll get to it tomorrow. Tomorrow, you do the same thing.

​And by the time you complete everything else on the to-do list, it’s grown with new tasks and is two miles long again.

​It feels like you don’t have time to write. The truth is, taking ten minutes per day to put pen to paper will not slow your progress on that to-do list, but when you sit down to write, you can’t help but think, I should be doing the laundry/sending that email/cooking dinner/working for a client/spending time with my family. And then your writing time becomes useless. You’re not focused. You’re not in the zone. And you’re not going to accomplish your daily writing goal—leaving that task on your to-do list perpetually unchecked.

The good news is that there is one cure for both manifestations of I don’t have time syndrome. It’s simple, and it takes about five minutes.

Decide the thing is important.

For our purposes, the thing is writing, but it can be anything you want to accomplish and have convinced yourself you can’t. Decide that it is a priority. Stop feeling guilty for making it a priority.

Set aside time during your day to commit yourself to accomplishing your big picture goal. Ten minutes of writing. 200 words. Sit down, look at your schedule, and figure out what you honestly have time for. I’m not saying skip meals, but maybe you can sacrifice thirty minutes of television. Maybe you have time during your lunch break, or maybe you can wake up a few minutes early.

If you want it bad enough, you will find time.

Just remember, you have time to do anything you want to do. But you don’t have time to do everything.

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