I thought of an interesting post for today as a result of having three conversations, with three different people, who expressed the same challenge in their lives. “I DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH TIME…” As a result of these discussions, I began to think about the concept of time and how this is the only component of our lives in which everyone in the world is on the same playing field. People are born with different amounts of money, opportunities, physical appearances, friends, etc., but the one area that is exactly the same for each individual, regardless of where they live or who they associate with, is that we all have 86,400 seconds in each day and it is our CHOICE on how we spend them. Some of the common complaints that I hear from people who respond to various blog posts is that they do not have time for…
Well, I think that the first question that we need to ask ourselves is “What is most important?” because our dilemma has nothing to do with time, but everything to do with how we prioritize our time. Remember, we are all on an even playing field when it comes to time so why do some people struggle with not having enough time for their family, while other people are challenged when it comes to getting enough sleep, and other people cannot find time in the day to exercise? There is actually a universal answer to this question, but the only way to derive the solution is if you choose to be honest with yourself and admit that we make time for the things that we want to make time to do; or in other words, we assign a higher value to certain activities than to others. With this being said,
How much time do you spend on Facebook, watching television, talking on the telephone, etc.?
I think that it is important that you realize that I do not have the “right” answer to this question. I do not have any expectations and I am certainly not judging you based on your response. But my intention is for you to be honest with yourself in order to determine if you are truly prioritizing in a way that will enable you to live a life that is congruent with your BRANDENTITY.
I have used a strategy for the past 4-5 years that has enabled me to become more effective and never feel the need to verbalize the six most overused words… “I DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH TIME…” The strategy is fairly simple, something that I am not claiming to have developed, but my hope is that as a result of reading this blog post, you are now looking at your world through a slightly different perspective, operating from a honest frame of mind, and prepared to take action so that tomorrow can be drastically different than today. The strategy is called My Wishes versus My Priorities, and the table below is an example of how I structure this approach into my life.
I encourage you to take however much time is necessary to perform a self analysis of your wishes and priorities. I firmly believe that results are born from a sense of awareness, and as long as you are honest with yourself, this list will provide you with a tool that will hold you accountable for turning your wishes into priorities. For example, let’s assume that you wish you had the time to exercise for an hour each day, but one of your priorities is to speak with your closest friends on the phone for an hour each day as well. It is obviously not possible to complete both activities, which will impede on your ability to become BRANDENTIFIED because an area of your life is currently not being fulfilled. A potential solution would be to compromise these activities and perform thirty minutes of each, which happens to be better than nothing, or to form a synergy amongst these hobbies by purchasing a headset so that you can talk on the phone and exercise simultaneously. This enables you to take an item from the wish side of the chart and convert it to a priority without affecting any other areas of your life. Another example might also have to do with the wish of exercise, but your priority to spend time with your children. The solution is simple because you can begin to perform physical activities together and once again move a wish to the right side of the chart. The point that I am stressing upon is that all of your wishes can become priorities if you “want it bad enough.” We do not need to compromise areas in our life and instead we can start to synergize. I welcome any of you who struggle with this concept to send me a question via the ASK JARED section of the site and I will provide you with my advice on how to convert wishes to priorities in your current situation.
But in the meantime, get started….
This is an interesting activity to participate in because I believe that it enables you to create criteria to live by on a daily basis. It provides you with a game plan and allows you to see what areas must be addressed for the purposes of prioritizing. I will not think any less of you if your priorities are Facebook, Dancing with the Stars, or American Idol, but I think it is important that you begin to own both your wishes and your priorities in order to avoid saying the six most overused words in our language, “I DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH TIME …”
What do you plan on making time for?
What does this mean to you? Please leave a comment.
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I have learned that the day/nite cycle is 24 hours and within the cycle it is important for me to eat, sleep, pray, meditate, work, workout, see friends, interact with family and decide how I am going to spend each 24 hours to further my mission. At the moment, I am pursuing self-truth for a new generation of women- the 60 somethings. It is a fabulous time. Our lives and realities are very different from others and there is little known about who we are, what we do and how we want to define ourselves and live. There are a few amazing role models that project different aspects of our new-found and newly developing independent identities. I am free for the first time in my life and the new found freedom is honest and exhilerating!