You Don't Need More Time

You sit down to work, look at your to-do list, your inboxes, 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, and by catching up you would finally relieve your stress. 

And boy are you trying...

• You wake up earlier... you still feel behind.
• You skip workouts...you still feel behind.
• You work through lunches...you still feel behind.
• You stay up later...you still feel behind.

Sounds exhausting. 

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 is represented on your actual to-do list, your calendar, your post-it notes, the whiteboard at work, the whiteboard at home that you bought during Covid, the 37 browser tabs you never close... you get the idea. 

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. Your to-do list is 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 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.

Your Brain Interprets an Infinite To-do List as Danger

During my burnout years, my brain interpreted the undone items on my to-do list as danger, because not completing them would hurt me, or hurt someone I care about. 

This caused my brain to pump cortisol into my system and drive the stress response: 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.

I knew this was not a good situation, but I didn't know what else 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 to all be done this week/month/quarter, and it may not have to be done in the first place.

Let me explain.

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 time to get all this done?"

Acknowledging again that your to-do list is infinite, and you'd never get to 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 that have gone through Time Boss coaching, 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 you feel this will always be true: X > Y

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

Herein 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 treating your time like cash, you will necessarily prioritize the activities that will have the greatest impact on your goals, that you and only you can do. This includes budgeting time for unexpected urgent and important items using what Time Boss calls "Whirlwind Time". If you're not sure exactly how to do this, consider the free 75-minute Time Boss Masterclass. It will show you a step-by-step process to spend your time like cash. 

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 four-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 with 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. Hiring a babysitter doesn't absolve you of being a parent, it simply allows you to temporarily separate from your children to fully focus on your spouse. 

Commitment Plans are like babysitters for your to-do list, freeing up your brain. 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. Delegate It - Other people have time, and you don’t need to do everything. Can other people handle the tasks instead of you? If you're a leader in a growing company, you should be looking to delegate as much as you can. If you've struggled delegating in the past, we have a great article for you.
2. Defer It - Future you has more time to work on tasks. Can they handle the tasks next week/next month/next quarter for you? Critically, you need a system you trust to hold these tasks you defer. In Time Boss, we recommend a Backlog (full details about how to use the Backlog are in the free Masterclass).
3. Delete It - This is not always an option, but can you simply decide to do less and say "no" to lower priority tasks? If you've been writing a task over and over and over on your to-do list, not doing it and simply feeling guilty about it, just delete it and cut it loose. You are revealing to yourself that it's not actually your priority. 
4. LAST RESORT - Do It - Sometimes leaders simply have to make things happen. If none of the strategies above work, can you increase your time budget 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. Word of caution here: if you are consistently choosing to "Do It", you have a capacity issue, and you should put your attention on solving for that. 

It's important to recognize that this is not easy. When meeting with our Time Boss clients in group coaching, 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 It" all the time. 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

 When you run the process above, spend your time like cash, and deal with the items that don't fit, a magical feeling appears:

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.
• Instead of checking your email every six minutes, you work on your most important priorities.
• Instead of saying "yes" by default out of guilt, you start saying powerful "yes's" and "no's" with conviction and intention. 
• Instead of being lost in chaos, you feel clarity even amidst the chaos.
• Instead of waking up early, skipping workouts, working through lunch or working late... you decide how much of your life you give to work. You shut your laptop at the end of the day, fully satisfied, and go home and rest and recover. 

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.

This isn't theory. Across the hundreds of leaders and 40+ teams who run this framework every week:

• 95% experience more peace and less overwhelm.
• Productivity jumps 43% on average, and we've seen it as high as 75%.
• Leaders get 4.8 hours a week back on average, and some get back as many as 15.

Not sure where to start? Try the free 75-minute Time Boss Masterclass. And if you know you need help to solve this problem and have funds budgeted for professional development, grab time on my calendar to explore 1x1 coaching or our "Master Your Week" Group Coaching (next course launches July 13). During this time we'll learn about your unique situation, and we'll share about Time Boss. We'll consider how the framework could support you, and review how we might work together to help you achieve your goals.

There is enough time. You simply have to do the work to make it so.