You Don't Need More Time

You sit down to work, look at your to-do list, your inbox, and your calendar... and you feel the stress rising. 

It’s barely 8:00 a.m. and your brain is already searching for a miracle:

“Where am I going to find the time to get all this done?”

That question seems innocent, even logical. 

But it's a trap.

It assumes there’s more time out there somewhere if only you could uncover it. You believe if you wake up earlier, skip a workout, work through lunch, stay up later, hustle harder... you could finally catch up. And by catching up you would finally relieve your stress. 

Bad news: You're never going to catch up. 

Good news: You don't have to catch up to relieve your stress. 

But first let's focus on the bad news...

Your To-do List is Infinite

The average person has 121 items on their implicit or explicit to-do list ALL THE TIME. This means that every time you check an item off your to-do list, more items appear: more problems to solve, more fires to put out, more relationships that need tending. You get the picture. Our to-do lists are effectively infinite.

You wake up each day with roughly 16 to 18 waking hours, and you get to work on that infinite to-do list with as many of those waking hours as you can. You fight fires, you focus on priorities, you tend relationships, you answer email. And coming to the end of your day, regardless of the the number of hours you worked, what do you find: undone items on your to-do list.

Adding more hours to the day won't solve this. An infinite to-do list will always remain undone.

You fight this for the same reason I fought it in my burnout years: unrelieved stress.

My brain interpreted the undone items on my to-do list as danger. Not completing them would either hurt me or someone I cared about. And so my brain pumped cortisol into my system to drive me to respond, to FIGHT or FLIGHT, and I did just that evening after evening after evening. I would either FIGHT and simply grind the infinite to-do list until I literally couldn't keep my eyes open, or I would take FLIGHT and simply try to check out of my head for a few hours with Netflix, french fries or doom scrolling social media.... anything to temporarily relieve the stress. No amount of grinding would make me feel "caught up", and no amount of french fries would permanently relieve the stress, and the to-do list remained infinite. The thing is I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO! The work to be done was the work to be done. 

My guess is if you've read this far, you're wired just like me, and are riding the FIGHT or FLIGHT merry-go-round, evening after evening after evening. You might even feel hopeless, because the work to be done is the work to be done, and it's not going away.

You're absolutely correct. The work to be done is the work to be done, but it doesn't have to all be done by you, and it doesn't have all be done this week, this month, or possibly ever.

Let's get to the solution. 

Choose How Many Hours You're Going To Work

Up until now, you've looked at all the work to be done, and asked:

"Where am I going to find the the time to get all this done?"

Acknowledging again that your to-do list infinite, and you'd never get the bottom anyway, I invite you to ask a very different question:

"With the fixed amount of time I have, how can I accomplish my goals?"

The implication here is that you are making a powerful choice of how many hours you are going to work each week. You decide. Your choice. 

If you're anything like the clients I coach 1x1, I already can feel your resistance through the screen. "But there's so much work that MUST be done!" "No one else can do what I do!" "If I don't do it, we won't make payroll!". Your concerns are valid, and I'd ask you to set aside your resistance for a moment, and consider the argument with me.

The tension you feel is a math problem.
- The work that MUST be done by you = X
- The time you have = Y
- And this will always be true: X > Y

Until you solve that equation, you will continue to feel stress.

Here in lies the power of asking "with the fixed amount of time I have, how can I accomplish my goals?", and then choosing the number of hours you will work. The number of hours you work becomes a budget that you spend like cash. By doing operating this way, you will necessarily prioritize the activities that will have the greatest impact on your goals, that you and only you can do.

Obviously, there is work you feel compelled to make happen that will not fit in the time you've budgeted, and if you don't do anything about that, your stress will become a 4 alarm fire and you won't be able to rest. 

This is where Commitment Plans come to the rescue. 

Use Commitment Plans to Relieve Your Stress

In Deep Work, Cal Newport quotes a study called "Consider it Done", that found that you don't actually have to complete a task to feel stress relief, you simply need a commitment plan: 

"Committing to a specific plan for a goal... may free cognitive resources for other pursuits"

Think of it like hiring a babysitter for your kids so you can go on a date for your spouse. You don't have to be physically there watching your children to feel relief they are safe, because you've created a commitment plan for them: the babysitter. 

This is a revolutionary discovery, because it means that you don't have to grind to the bottom of your to-do list to feel stress relief. 

Now you've already made some commitment plans, spending your time like cash, prioritizing the activities that will have the greatest impact on your goals, that you and only you can do. What are your commitment plan options for the additional tasks on your to-do list that you didn't have time for?

1. Defer Tasks - Future you has more time to work on tasks. Can they handle the tasks next week/next month/next quarter for you? 
2. Delegate Tasks - Other people have time, and you don’t need to do everything. You just need to do the part only you can do. Can other people handle the tasks instead of you? If you've struggled delegating in the past we have a great article for you.
3. Digitize Tasks - Digital tools have effectively infinite time. Can an AI or automated tool do the tasks for you instead? 
4. Downsize Tasks - Can you spend less time on a task, accept a "good enough" outcome, and still achieve the result? This frees up more time in your calendar for other tasks. 
5. Delete Tasks - Can you simply decide to do less and say "no" to lower priority tasks? 
6. Do the Tasks - Sometimes leaders simply have to make things happen. If none of the strategies above work, can you increase your capacity this week to deal with the tasks that don't fit? This should only be done if you have a promise or commitment, otherwise do your best to use the other commitment plan options above. 

It's important to recognize that this is not easy. When meeting with my 1x1 coaching clients, we spend almost all of our time here, and I help them creatively think through commitment plans that don't require them to simply "do the tasks" all the time. This is why it's important to have outside feedback on your calendar, and ensure you are being honest with yourself on how finite your time is. 

There Is Enough Time

A magical feeling appears when you run the process above: there is enough time. 

How? You took an effectively infinite to-do list and a finite amount of time, and you made them work together. You stopped trying to magically conjure up more time in the day, and instead started working with the time you have.

When you believe there is enough time, you operate differently. Instead of frantic task switching, you focus in. You move with purpose. You stop checking email every six minutes. You stop saying "yes" out of guilt, and start saying "yes" with intention. You start feeling more clarity, less chaos. This is the shift. From reactive to proactive. From fire fighting to future building. From surviving your week to strategically owning it. 

Everything changes. 

Even better, you can get this feeling EVERY SINGLE WEEK when you make the Time Boss Weekly Framework the way you run your week.

Not sure where to start? Try the 90 Minute Time Boss Masterclass. And if you know you need help, and you want to solve this problem once and for all, grab time on my calendar to explore 1x1 coaching. We'll run a Weekly Planning Meeting together week over week, helping you deal with how finite your time is, and come up with creative solutions that work in your environment to help you get the results you want without overwhelm.