How Will You Find the Time?
“You will never ‘find’ time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.”
I know I should exercise more.
There’s a whole long list of reasons why (and I’m sure you’ve either heard them or have some of your own).
But I don’t do it.
I don’t like doing it.
There are other things I don’t like doing—like folding laundry, taking my car for an oil change, and going to the post office. Yet somehow, those things get done. Why?
Because I make time to do them.
I either schedule them on my calendar or add them to my to-do list. Sounds easy, but it really isn’t. For a long time I would tell myself, “add that to your calendar”. Then I wouldn’t do it.
Or I’d do it and schedule something else right over it.
Or it would stay on my to-do list for weeks—so long that if I added up the time it took me to move it from list to list, I could have actually done it.
So what’s different now? I’ve learned a couple of things:
The importance of a daily schedule. Not a schedule for a specific date, but a general outline of how I want to spend my time on a typical day. Check out this post about how I created my current daily schedule.
What I want is just as important and what anyone else wants. This was the mantra that gets me to not only schedule time in my calendar for important tasks, but to keep it there. I’ve learned it’s perfectly fine to say, “I’m sorry, but I can’t attend that meeting/jump on that call/run that errand. I’m already booked at that time.”
This one-two punch allows me to accomplish way more than I ever thought possible. And yes, I now exercise more.
How do you find the time to do what you need and want? Drop into the comments and share your tips!
