Top 5 Time Management Excuses You Need to Stop Using

Who ever said that you can't create more time? Well, I'm here to tell you they were right. I'm Melissa with RodgerandMelissa.com and today we're gonna go over the top five time management excuses that we all seem to use. Let's get started.

Look, Rodger and I have used every excuse in the book when it comes to building our business so there is no judgment here. Today we just wanna talk about the top five excuses that we hear a lot from our clients and just kinda give you some ways to maybe get out of that and if you stick around, we're gonna give you the three P's to pass on the excuses and get your business moving forward again.

All an excuse is it's like, it's like a lie that you tell yourself and you wrap it up in a pretty little bow so that you don't feel too bad about it. 

So let's get started with the number one excuse that we hear all the time and that is just simply, I don't have enough time. We know exactly how much time we have in a day, it's 24 hours. It's not like we woke up one morning and went, ah surprise, you only have 24 hours today. No, we all have 24 hours in a day, it's just what you choose to do with that time. It's all about your priorities, and your planning, and making sure that you understand where you're spending that time.

So we challenge a lot of our clients to just take like a week and just keep kind of a running total of everything that you do. Kind of a weight watchers right? The first thing that you have to do is track it. So at weight watchers and weight loss places they have you track your calories. Track everything that you eat 'cause once you understand where those are all coming from you can change it. Same thing with time management. If you track how you spend your 24 hours in a day doing the cooking, or sleeping, or getting ready, or taking a shower, or working, or on social media, or watching a TV show, or whatever, if you track your time for about a week, you're really gonna be able to see exactly where you're wasting time, and where you could spend time more wisely.

The second excuse that we hear from a lot of people is everything is important to me. Okay, everything is not important that is just a lie that you're telling yourself. Some things are more important. Some things should be more important. Your family should be more important than a TV show, or social media. So you know, what I'm talking about. These are simple priorities so you can go ahead and in the show notes there is a download that you can use just to help you think through your priorities. Priorities for your family, your social life, your business, just different things that you wanna write down and then within each category you're gonna wanna kinda rank those, kind of move things around and understand what things are more important, where do you wanna spend more of your time. Everything can't be important because if everything is important then nothing is important.

Number three, everybody just jacks up my schedule, they just steal all my time. Yes, there are things in life that demand your attention. So you need to kind of build that into your schedule but realize that they don't really steal your time, you actually give them that. You give them that, you are not a victim to your calendar.

You can say no. No is a complete sentence and you can say no. 

Now, of course, there are somethings that you can't say no to and you have to make adjustments. But when you make those adjustments take those things that you had to adjust, put them somewhere else on your calendar and then move things off the calendar that maybe aren't quite as important to get done.

One of the things you might wanna do is just go ahead and just pause this video, or when you're done think of about 25 or 30 different ways that you can kinda nicely say no. So if somebody asks you to be on a committee or do something and you really don't have the bandwidth for it, what we like to do is kinda sandwich it between two affirmations, it kinda sounds something like this,

"Wow I think that is such a great idea and I love the fact that that committee is gonna do x, y, z, I think it is so needed in our community unfortunately I just don't have the bandwidth to really participate right now, but you know what, I think it's an amazing thing and the minute I have some resources or something that you need certainly reach out but right now I cannot commit the time that I know it would take to make that successful."

It's a no, but it tells them, hey, I think what you're doing is great, I'd love to be a part of it, but I just don't have the bandwidth.

Number four. I just have to do everything myself if I want it done right. Okay. That was me, kinda still is me. Perfectionism is a self-imposed prison and you wanna make sure that you don't contain yourself in this prison so much so that it stresses you out, you do everything yourself and therefore you don't have enough time.

So try to think of it this way. If someone else does something you give them a task, you let them take the lead on something and they don't do it exactly how you would do it but it's done, that's great. You didn't have to do it. Let me give you an example. Say you're so busy that you've decided to hire out someone cleaning your house. But they don't quite do it exactly how you would or you have to go back and just wipe down a couple of things or one picture cause they missed it. Here's what my husband said to me one time. He said, "Wouldn't you rather just have to do those two quick things than clean the entire house?" Yep.

For me I wanted to hold onto it. Hold onto things and just do it myself so it's done right but letting that go and letting somebody else do it saves me a ton of time even if I have to go back and just kinda tweak a few little things.

And then of course there's old number five. Ah, I'll do it later. Okay that's the procrastinator and I will tell you, just call it like it is. It's not a priority.

If it was a priority you would find the time to do it. 

You would make it work. So it's not a priority and that's okay. Now, there are times when there is something that you do need to get done and you procrastinate, and procrastinate, and procrastinate, figure out why you're procrastinating. What about that do you not want to do? Maybe unload some of that? Or readjust somethings so that you can get done what you have to get done about that task and just let the rest go.

So what can you do in order to make sure that you don't kind of invoke that excuse response when things come up. Well, it's the three P's.

Prioritize, plan, and pace. 

Very key. Now, we told you there's a download to help you prioritize and start that process. The next thing that you wanna do is take those priorities and your weekly calendar, and your commitments, and plan it out. Give yourself kind of a sample week, and a sample month, and a sample kinda year. Look at the whole thing, figure out what you can do, what you can't do, what you can move, and then block things together, group things together that are similar in activity so that you can be more productive with those times.

For instance on my calendar I have a couple of times blocked out for bookwork. And I do the bookwork and the invoicing and I do the reconciliation of the bank accounts and all that, all in that one time. So I'm not doing a little bit here and a little bit there. I go ahead and plan out the bill pays and all of those kind of things so when I'm working on my business I don't have to think about that because I know there's time for it.

The other thing that planning does is it gives you that mental understanding that that time is coming up. So when someone calls me and they need this, this, and this, and I know that tomorrow I have a three hour time block of office work time, dedicated to making sure that I do my correspondence, my lead generation, and my connections, and that falls into that category, I don't freak out about having to do it right now. I know that there's time in my calendar that it's gonna happen.

And you can do that with anything. Say, you really do need to clean out your closet. Put it on the calendar. And then don't think about it. Every time you walk in your closet it's not gonna freak you out, you're just gonna be, you know what, on Saturday morning, I have that schedule to do on my calendar.

Now while you're planning the third P is, pace. Make sure that you don't make things back, to back, to back, to back, to back, to back with no breaks. Even on a daily basis you need buffers in you calendar. Number one just in case something comes up, but number two, just to give yourself a break, a breather. You need to get up, move around, you need to let your brain kinda have a rest. You need to have your body either rest, which rest can be a little exercise to kinda get the blood moving so you can be more creative.

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