One of the most common phrases I hear is, I don’t have enough time.
I don’t have time to exercise, I don’t have time to prepare healthy meals, I don’t have time to see my mom, I don’t have time for sex.
We’ve all said it before.
When life gets busy or when we don’t want to feel guilty about skipping something, we pull out the “not enough time” card.
Guess what? We all have 24 hours in a day. We don’t need more hours. We need to get seriously real with ourselves. What are we actually prioritizing and how are we choosing to spend our time.
Priorities are what we do, not what we say we do. Tweet it.
Now, I know we don’t have enough time in the day for everything we want to do, but we always have time for things we consider a priority.
So the next time you find yourself not being able to fit in something important like a workout or a date night, try this exercise. Instead of saying “I don’t have time” replace it with “it’s not a priority” and see how it feels. A lot of the times it’s perfectly fine, and can actually feel good. “I have time to dust the living room or fold the laundry it’s just not a priority today”. No biggie. But other things are harder, and uncomfortable to say. “I don’t exercise because my fitness isn’t a priority. Or, I’d love to prepare healthy meals it just isn’t a priority. If these sentences don’t sit well, that’s the point. Changing our language reminds us that how we use our time, is a choice. If we don’t like how this feels, we can do something about it.
Which brings me to the next exercise. How are you choosing to spend your time? I’m not going to pretend that I’m some time management guru and that I have never suffered from shiny object syndrome. I can lose focus easily. So, I asked a friend of mine who is kind of a productivity ninja to tell me what her secret was. “Write it down”, she said. So for 5 days I wrote down how I was choosing to spend my time. Super. Powerful. Exercise.
Seriously. I was surprised by what I saw. A lot of time spent doing things that weren’t taking me towards my goals.
So give it a shot. For the next week, write down what you’re doing. Set an alarm every hour, stop and write it down. Be detailed. Don’t write down WORKING. Be specific: emailing, facebook, twitter etc. Then add up how much time you spend in each category.
Just like keeping a food journal tracks how and what you are eating -honestly, a time journal, makes you get real on how you are spending your time. You can’t hide when you’ve counted 2hours a week on facebook and 1 on twitter. Which you now realize could have been 4 workouts this week.
Don’t stress yourself out, judge or get negative. Just notice. You can’t change anything if you don’t know where you’re starting from.
Now give it a shot.
In the comments below, I’d love for you to share the 1 thing you are going to make a priority this week.
Un abrazo,
Ana
