Episode 14: The Problem Of Not Having The Time To Do All the Things You Want To Do

One of the most common topics people seek coaching for time management - or more specifically, the issue of not having the time to do all the things we want to do. On this episode Coach Stephanie walks you through the myth of “I don’t have the time” by giving practical steps for you to follow to uncover where you time is going, how to prioritize the time you have, and most importantly how to better manage your mind so that you can better manage your time. 

Hey there, welcome to another episode of the I'm the Problem podcast. I'm your host and coach, Stephanie Finigan, and today's episode is about the problem of not having the time to do all of the things that you want to do.

This is a great topic because it comes up all the time for everyone. And that's not surprising with internet and remote work and cell phones and millions of demands on us as caregivers and all of the things. It's not surprising at all that most of us feel like we just don't have enough time every single day. The problem is that thought, “I don't have enough time,” even if it's factually correct, is not useful at all.

So the first thing I want you to do is this just get in your mind a typical day where you are thinking I don't have enough time to do what I want to do I don't have enough time to get everything done. Whatever version of that thought comes up for you often, think of a typical day when you're thinking that. And that could be today. You could literally be listening to this as you're running around doing a million things and you're just thinking, “I don't have time, I don't have time”. So have that example of that day in your head as we're going through this episode because it's gonna make all the steps we walk through a lot more useful if you can think about it practically in terms of what your specific scenario is.

So what I want to do is walk you through what happens to me when I'm thinking these thoughts, and then I'm going to walk you through five steps to help you break down this thought and reframe it in a way that can be much more useful for you. I like to start these podcasts by walking through a real life example for myself or somebody else who I'm coaching, or sometimes a reality star, who knows. In this case, I'll use myself.

What happens for me when I am thinking the thought, I don't have enough time, I don't have enough time, which is like a loop in my brain often. What happens is I usually go into a feeling of overwhelm. So when we have a thought, it creates a feeling in our body. So for me, when I have the thought, I don't have enough time, that generally creates the feeling of overwhelm in my body. Sometimes it creates a feeling of panic, sometimes it's frustration, or sometimes it's anxiety, but usually it's overwhelmed. And whenever I'm starting to feel overwhelmed, then the actions that I take are not useful. I'm somebody who, when I feel overwhelmed, I tend just to shut down, rather than try and get a few things done, or calm myself down, or talk myself out of it, or coach myself, or do any of that. When I start to feel overwhelmed it's much more likely that I'm just gonna sort of call the day a wash and either that means like I'm kind of zombying through my day or I end up doing a lot of busy work and just a lot of smaller tasks that don't really need to get done right now but they sort of make me feel like I'm doing something productive even if I'm not. And sometimes if the overwhelm is a lot I just really shut it down. It's like a lot of old Bravo shows in the background and me literally just really not doing anything of use. And so it's not great because what ends up happening is I end up getting almost nothing done.

So when I start thinking the thought, “I don't have enough time to do what I want to do”, and that creates overwhelm and that leads to those actions, the results I create for myself is that, yeah, I don't get done the things I want to do. That thought creates my result, as all of our thoughts always do. So that's what happens for me.

It might be useful for you to stop for a minute and just think, again, thinking of that example you have of you thinking, like, “I don't have enough time”. Think about for a minute what emotion does that create for you in your body? Maybe you're like me and it's overwhelmed. Maybe it's frustration or anger or panic or anxiety or something else. And then think about what actions you take. Some people might be like me, and you kind of shut down. Some people might go into hyper mode, and you're kind of running around like a chicken with your head cut off, doing a million things. Some people might get some stuff done, or they might get everything done, but then they are completely exhausted and burned out, snapping at the end of their night. Whatever it is, just think for yourself, when you think that, “I just don't have time to do the things I want to do. I just don't have enough time”. What's the emotion that comes up for you? What are the actions that you take based on that emotion? And then what happens as a result of those actions?

That's the first activity that you can do to really just start to recognize how that thought or how that line of thinking, “I don't have enough time”, is just not necessarily that useful. You could stop this episode right here. That in and of itself can be a game changer enough because just becoming aware of your thinking and how it impacts your results can actually be enough to help you start to change that thinking. But if you want more, keep listening.

So knowing that, knowing that that thought or that line of thinking is not going to create what you want when you're thinking, “I just don't have time to do the things I want to do. I don't have time to do the things I want to do”. It's really helpful for you to take a step back and think, “Okay, what is a thought here and what is a fact?” And just taking that thought, which is very big and broad, like, “I just don't have time to do the things I want to do,” you're the victim of time, when you put it that way. Time is out there, like this phantom thing, and there's just not enough of it for you, and like the universe is picking on you, and it becomes very victim-y when you start thinking like that. And the scarcity thinking, which is really what that is, it's pretty normal, it's just not that useful. What are you supposed to do with that? Other than just sort of thrash around and feel like, well, never mind, I can't get it all done anyway.

So the way to make this more productive is you can notice that you're thinking, “I just don't have enough time”. And then just pause and ask yourself, is that true? Is that actually true that I don't have enough time? And the way that you answer that question is by looking at the facts. So I don't have enough time is the thought, but what are the facts here? And what I like to do genuinely is I like to be like, okay, if I have this list of things I need to get done in a day or I have all this stuff on my calendar that I want to get done, how many hours are each of these things going to take me realistically? And I try and include, if I'm talking about daycare and other care responsibilities for one of my parents and my work responsibilities and some bills I need to pay and a couple of phone calls I need to make to some girlfriends and running this errand over here. And I put it all down and I just look and I'm like, all right, realistically, how much time is this gonna take? And I include drive time and all of that.

As somebody who's pretty ambitious, what I find is I tend to try and cram 30 hours worth of things into a 24 hour day. Not gonna happen, right? It's like I'm setting myself up for failure right away. I don't do this on purpose, but it's when I'm not planning ahead, when I'm not being conscious about this, I slam a lot of stuff into one day, and it's not useful because I don't get it all done, I feel like a failure, or I get super, like I said, super overwhelmed because I realize I'm not gonna get it all done, and then I kind of throw it all out the window. So it's not great.

What's much more useful is just to look at it factually and say, okay, oh, interesting. I planned 30 hours worth of stuff in a 24 hour day. What do I have to do to get this down to size? What do I have to do to ensure that next time I go to plan my day, I don't do it like this? Once you have those facts, then you can start to address it. Like you can't argue with the fact that you can't get 30 hours of stuff done in a 24-hour day.

So what can you do? You can start to look at it and think, okay, what can I take away? What doesn't have to get done? What can I delegate? What could be moved to next week? And I also like to look at, okay, where else, if I really want to do a lot more things than I am capable of, where can I outsource? Whatever it is, I just try and look at it very realistically and think, okay, and sometimes what I'm doing there is just trying to figure out how can I buy myself time back? Sometimes that's possible, sometimes it's not, but it's just interesting to look at it from that factual standpoint, as opposed to just me slamming a lot of stuff on my calendar, running around thinking I don't have enough time and then not getting it all done.

What you might find is you do have enough time to do everything that you wanna do, and that the thought, I don't have enough time, is coming from something else. Maybe there's stuff you don't want to do. Maybe there's stuff that realistically should only take you two hours you know in the past has taken you four because you dragged your feet because you didn't really want to do it. So it's just really interesting and very helpful just to look at things factually like that. So first and foremost do that. What are the things you need to get done? How long realistically is it going to take? Is that schedule realistic? Is that actually doable?

The other thing I like to talk about when I talk about this with clients is that's called looking at time management from the question of, “Is this a mindset problem or a math problem?” Sometimes it's a math problem. Like I just said, 30 hours worth of stuff in 24 hour day, that's a math problem. It's not going to work. So that's a big flag. You need to sit down and rework what you have going on and also probably do some deeper work as to why you keep setting yourself up for failure by trying to slam too much stuff into a day….That's a different podcast episode for another time, but just good to be aware of, right? That's an excellent place to do some coaching. If you tend to bite off more than you can chew and then choke on it, maybe go get some coaching on that. But that's the math problem.

The other side of it is the mindset problem, which is, oh, no, I can get all of this stuff done. I just don't want to. Or I've got stuff on this list that I don't know how to accomplish, and so I feel likeit's going to take me so much longer than it actually should. Or I've got stuff on here that I just don't want to do, and I keep procrastinating it. That's where the mindset comes in.

It's the same idea, I'm sure you've heard it, as people being like, I don't have time to work out. The only time I could work out is at 5 a.m., and I can't get up at 5 a.m. I'm not a morning person, I couldn't do it. It's like, okay, maybe, but if you had a flight to catch at 5 a.m., you would catch the flight. It's not that you can't physically get up at 5 a.m. to work out, you're choosing not to. And that's okay, but let's call it what it is as opposed to sort of being a victim of time. So that's what we mean by the mindset problem. You can look and say, this is genuinely a math problem, and you can deal with that. Or you can say, this is not a math problem, it's a mindset problem. And now I got to do some work to look at that and say, what is it that's preventing me from doing this stuff efficiently? Because I could get it all done, I could get everything done, but I'm not. So there must be something here that's blocking me, some sort of fear, resistance, anxiety, something that's blocking me. That's a great place to do some coaching work.

Okay, so the next thing to look at beyond the math versus mindset, beyond the circumstances of it all is, “What season am I in?” So again, this one you might have heard before, but it's just a good refresh, just to remind yourself you don't need to be, and you really can't be, going 150 miles an hour towards 17 goals for every season of life. Sometimes you're just not in the season where something is a priority.

So for example, 2023, that year, I did not prioritize running at all. I barely, I think I can count on one hand the number of times I went running in 2023. I had a lot of other stuff going on that I was dealing with. I was battling some depression. I just had some stuff happening where running was not my priority. And every day I would go to schedule myself time to go for a run, and then I didn't run, and I was just feeling disappointed. What would have been much more helpful is if I looked at that and said, you know what, this is not the season for me to be a runner. So I'm not gonna plan to do it. I can think about that next year. And when I finally did have that realization, it took so much pressure off me just to take running off the schedule altogether. And now 2024, a lot has changed in my life, and it's time for me to start running again. And that's what I'm doing. So now I'm in the season of running.

Same thing with my business. 2023 I really didn't invest a lot in my business because again, I had a lot of other stuff going on. 2024 I've spent a lot of money investing in my business because this is the time where I'm choosing to do that. This is the season I'm in where I'm going all in on this business. And other things are taking a backseat due to that.

You're always going through some season or another. Just decide on purpose what it is. This is where we get stuck. We don't make decisions on purpose about what season we're in and we kind of let life carry us. So rather than do that and let that be another example of you kind of being a victim of time and life and circumstances, just decide, okay, this is not the season that I'm going to prioritize travel. This is not the season that I'm going to prioritize saving money. This isn't the season that I'm going to prioritize my business. Or this isn't the season where I'm going to prioritize my weight loss. Or whatever it is, just decide on purpose, knowing that you can always re-decide down the road. But make a decision about what season this is, and then let that decision that you've made on purpose, guide your priorities. So if you know this is not the season where you're gonna focus on weight loss, then you don't need to be putting working out or hiring a nutritionist or whatever your actions would be there on the to-do list. You don't need to make it part of your day-to-day. If this is a season where your kid's struggling with something and you need to spend some extra time with your kid, okay, now you know you're gonna prioritize that and maybe you put work on the back burner. You just deprioritize work stuff right now. Maybe this isn't the season for you to go for a promotion at work because you've got stuff going on at home. So you dial things up and down as needed.

This feels like common sense advice, but I say this because this rolls into the time management piece. Don't put stuff in your calendar or don't try and prioritize things if it's not the season for it. Just decide on purpose what season you're in and then lean into that when it comes to prioritizing your time.

The next thing to do once you've kind of looked at the circumstances, looked at the time, looked at what season you're in, then you get to look at what's on your list when you're thinking, “Oh my God, I can't get everything done. I'm so overwhelmed. I can't get it all done”. When you're thinking that, you get to look and say, what actually has to be done today? I say this because oftentimes we have stuff that we think needs to be done five days a week, seven days a week. That's not necessarily true. So again, you ask yourself, what season am I in and what is my goal?

So if I have an income goal for my business, do I need to work on my business five days a week to get to the income goal? No, I could work five days a week, but I don't have to work five days a week to get to that income goal.

Same with running. If I have a specific time I want to meet for the next marathon I'm going to run, do I have to run five or six days a week? No, not to meet that goal. I have to run probably four days a week.

If I'm caring for my parent and I'm visiting them every day, does every day need to be a high quality visit? Not necessarily. If I go visit every day, sometimes it's to do kind of the more administrative stuff and some days it's the quality time visit. It doesn't have to be the same thing every single day. It doesn't have to be five days a week or seven days a week. So just answer that question. Think for yourself, what is the goal that I'm trying to achieve? Do I have to have this thing on my calendar today?

Some things will be non-negotiable. Some things you will need to do every day. Some things you will need to spend certain amounts of time on. Just be aware of when you're automatically thinking, oh, I need to do this every day or I need to do this Monday through Friday or I need to do this every morning. And then stop and ask yourself, is that true? Question that. Question everything about how you're scheduling your day. And then you just adjust based on that goal.

So based on the season that you're in, the hours that you need, the amount of days a week or the amount of weeks in a month you need to do something, you just make adjustments based on that. I like to think of my calendars, everything's written in pencil to an extent. So the week I'm in is written in pen and we try and plan ahead of time so that the week itself doesn't get too messed up and you're not kind of running around like crazy. Just know, okay, last week, last month, yesterday, I assumed I could get all these things done, I learned that I couldn't and now I'm going to adjust for tomorrow or I'm going to adjust for next week. So just start being comfortable with adjusting as you go through this process so that you can make changes you need to make to get yourself to where you want to be.

And then finally the Rule of Three, I really like to apply this, I coach clients on this all the time, if you're somebody who genuinely the schedule is all over the place, there's kids and dogs and this and that and a crazy boss and things that you can't totally count on. The way you can manage that in your brain is just think the Rule of Three. There are three things I wanna get done today. You decide ahead of time what those three things are and then you get them done. That way you're not married to your calendar in the sense that you're not necessarily married to the time schedule of a day, but you just know, there are three things I wanna get done today, and maybe I get them all done in the morning, and maybe they all happen at night after dinner, or maybe they happen throughout the day, but that feels reasonable and comfortable to me, and you can even do less. I've pushed clients before to do less than three, do one or two, but especially clients that have a tendency to bite off more than they can chew, I really like to push them to do fewer, and just see what that does to your brain, and then we coach through it. But I really like this because it really helps you hone and prioritize in the day-to-day when things can go sort of haywire.

Okay, so that's it. Just as a recap:

• Again, first and foremost, just think about what happens to you in terms of your emotions when you think I don't have enough time. Just notice that and how that might be affecting your results.

• Then you focus on the actual facts of the situation. How much time have you planned to do something? How much time does it actually take? Are there enough hours in the day? Are you looking at a mindset problem or a math problem? If it's a math problem, you solve it by removing things, or you solve it by adding things in. You solve it the way that you need to because it's factual and it's math. If it's a mindset problem, that's where you can stop and get some help, and you can ask a coach, you can Google, there's many ways that you can work on your mindset around time. It's really important to notice if it's actually a math or mindset problem.

• From there, you just ask yourself, what season am I in? Is this the season for me to be prioritizing this thing or not? And if not, stop putting it on your calendar. Stop making yourself crazy trying to do something that it's not the right season for. Just let it go. Maybe you prioritize that next season. And then you look at what absolutely has to be done today, what has to be done every day, every week, every month, and what doesn't. And really question that. Do you have to go running every single day? You know, in order to meet your financial goals, do you have to work five days a week, seven days a week, four days a week, whatever it is? And sometimes the answer is going to be yes, and sometimes the answer is going to be no, but ask the question. Don't just make the assumption like I have to work out every day, right? I have to work out five days a week. I have to work five days a week. Don't just make those assumptions. Actually look at it and see if there's a way to change that in order to work better for you. Then make those adjustments as you need to.

• And then finally, always remember the Rule of Three. If you're really overwhelmed, or you're really just stuck and not sure what to do, plan ahead of time to do three things in a day or two or one, challenge yourself, get those few things done knowing that everything else will be okay because you've prioritized what is necessary for you using the rule of three.

  Okay, I hope that helps. I know time management can be a very thorny issue for a lot of people. I love coaching on it!